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World’s 2nd deadliest poison, in an aquarium store near you

blogs.discovermagazine.com

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Re: World’s 2nd deadliest poison, in an aquarium store near you

#31

Post by AndrewDucker »

srean wrote: post #30

To get a scale of things I just had to find out what the weight of a typical grain of salt is. http://answers.wikia.com/wiki/How_much_does_a_grain_of_salt_... If one goes by the minimum value which is 0.05mg, an equivalent amount of this stuff can kill 2,500 human sized mice with 50% probability. That's potent stuff. Well, had written 'people' in place of 'human sized mice' but the LD-50 values used were those for mi…

Also, massive mice.

Should we be keeping this stuff about in case of a Dire-Mouse invasion?

Re: World’s 2nd deadliest poison, in an aquarium store near you

#32

Post by frobozz »

masklinn wrote: post #28
nikcub wrote: post #2

second deadlist in the natural world, not overall. a person who was poisoned had an opportunity to figure 'oh i dont feel well', went to a hospital, made it to the hospital, and survived the real deadly biological systems don't even give you a chance to ask if that is a missile coming over the hill

> second deadlist in the natural world, not overall. Right. Overall it's the fourth deadliest, with an L.D.50 of 300ng/kg, behind Maitotoxin (130ng/kg), Polonium 210 (10ng/kg) and Botulinum (1ng/kg). Is that supposed to make it better? > a person who was poisoned had an opportunity to figure 'oh i dont feel well', went to a hospital, made it to the hospital, and survived A person who was poisoned with a low dose of a…

> Is that supposed to make it better?

If, by "it", you mean the accuracy of the headline, then yes. If, by "it", you mean the availability of the poison, then no.

We live on the largest planet in our solar system, if you apply the appropriate qualification; just like this poison is the second deadliest, if you apply the appropriate qualification.

Re: World’s 2nd deadliest poison, in an aquarium store near you

#33

Post by muyuu »

bluekeybox wrote: post #16
pcanella wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WOW, I've never seen anything like that happen in my tank. I actually have moved them and got slimey stuff on my hands from them (as with all corals) and just washed my hands really well afterward. Irritating them is REALLY difficult to do though, they'll live through anything. Absolute beauties though, and well worth keeping :)

Not a saltwater aquarium owner myself, but given stories like this, I personally would not want to wear anything short of a spacesuit when the time comes to clean the tank.

No biggie. If you get a shot in your heart timely, you'd be fine.

"If delivered immediately, vasodilators injected into the ventricle of the heart can act as an antidote."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoantharia

Re: World’s 2nd deadliest poison, in an aquarium store near you

#34

Post by denysonique »

Hmm, I think someone should update this page... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoantharia#Dangers

In order for this toxin to be dangerous to humans, the average aquarist would need to ingest the zoanthid in sufficient quantities, or brush a recent cut over it. Average handling, propagation and aquarium maintenance is unlikely to pose any danger beyond a localized skin reaction.[citation needed] A 2010 study found toxic zoanthids in three Washington D.C. area aquarium stores.[7]

Re: World’s 2nd deadliest poison, in an aquarium store near you

#35

Post by palish »

Zaak wrote: post #24
nl wrote: post #19

Marginally related, the case of Karen Wetterhahn: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Wetterhahn Wetterhahn, a specialist in toxic metals, was accidentally poisoned in her lab by a few drops of the toxic, colorless compound, which penetrated her protective glove... Wetterhahn recalled that she had spilled several drops of dimethylmercury from the tip of the pipette onto her latex gloved hand. Tests later showed that t…

IIRC it took like six months to kill her though.

Despite aggressive chelation therapy, her condition rapidly deteriorated and three weeks after first symptoms appeared she fell into a coma described by one of her former students as not being "... the kind of coma I'd expected... She was thrashing about. Her husband saw tears rolling down her face. I asked if she was in pain. The doctors said it didn't appear that her brain could even register pain."

Wetterhahn died a few months later, less than a year after her initial exposure.

Re: World’s 2nd deadliest poison, in an aquarium store near you

#36

Post by delackner »

sliverstorm wrote: post #27
jedsmith wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Botulinum, I'd guess (among natural toxins). A casual Google seems to indicate I'm right.

Yup. 10x more toxic than palytoxin. And we inject it in ourselves voluntarily. Humans are such funny creatures.

There is a poisonous dosage of ALL chemicals. H2O among them. The question is, is there a dosage of botulism that has a therapeutic effect?

Re: World’s 2nd deadliest poison, in an aquarium store near you

#37

Post by A1kmm »

nikcub wrote: post #26
jameskilton wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was explained though, he received an aerosoled version of the drug, which was a very, very small dose, and not directly into the blood stream. Dipping a spear into one of these things then poking a living animal and that being is dead, quickly.

> he received an aerosoled version of the drug If you are talking about threat from terrorism, then as an aerosol is the only effective way to distribute it. and if you were doing that, even something simple like Sarin is an order of magnitude stronger than this stuff the agents that were being produced during the cold war by third-world countries are again stronger than sarin and probably easy to make for a small gr…

Palytoxin LD50 (rat, intravenous): 0.089 μg/kg according to http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19505494 Sarin LD50 (rat, intravenous): 39 μg/kg according to http://cbwinfo.com/Chemical/Nerve/GB.shtml

So the lethal dose of palytoxin is ~1/438th of the lethal dose of sarin.

Re: World’s 2nd deadliest poison, in an aquarium store near you

#38

Post by ojbyrne »

delackner wrote: post #36
sliverstorm wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. 10x more toxic than palytoxin. And we inject it in ourselves voluntarily. Humans are such funny creatures.

There is a poisonous dosage of ALL chemicals. H2O among them. The question is, is there a dosage of botulism that has a therapeutic effect?

Botulinum toxin type A is known as "Botox." It has some therapeutic uses, but mostly cosmetic ones.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botulinum_toxin

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