The World's Deadliest Thing • Hacker News Board

Re: The World's Deadliest Thing

#71

Post by mdp2021 » Tue, Nov 23, 2021, 8:31 AM UTC

Uehreka wrote: post #44

antognini wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have wondered about this, but even if botulinum or listeria are present, won't they grow very slowly in the refrigerator? I would think that defrosting for 12 hours or so at refrigerator temperatures would still be fairly safe. Or is the quantity that can be dangerous so minute that it doesn't matter?

Perhaps its one of those things where “95% of the time you’ll be fine, but be careful if you do it 20 times, because botulism only needs to happen once.”

> be careful if you do it 20 times

Probably just a locution, but be careful with that idea about numbers:

The probability of remaining in a safe zone of 95% for 20 consecutive times is ~36%. It ( (1-(1/n))^n ) approximates to 1/e.

The number of tries to reduce that 95% to a 50% coin toss is 13. It is not fully intuitive. One will put his threshold wherever one may think appropriate, but. A chance of tenth, a hundredth, a thousandth etc. for ten, a hundred, thousand etc. times approximates to 63.2%.

...Maybe a locution like 'Maybe 9 out of 10 times you'll be fine, but be careful about doing it 7 times' could work well (as 6.931 approximates the risk to a coin toss).

Re: The World's Deadliest Thing

#72

Post by sbierwagen » Tue, Nov 23, 2021, 8:33 AM UTC

tgv wrote: post #54

sho wrote: post #26

> The lethal dose when consumed orally is around 30 billionths of a gram, which if you want a relatable comparison, is about the same as if you cut a single poppy seed into ten thousand equal pieces and ate one of them. It is an amount so tiny, it really doesn’t make sense. That's right - it makes no sense. How could such a small amount of anything do enough damage to shut down your entire body? According to wikipedi…

The thing that surprises me is: how does it get distributed widely enough? I would imagine that 30pg would lump together somewhere and damage a handful of neurons, not that it would spread and reach all essential parts of the nerve system.

Extracellular fluid is actively transported-- after all, it's where all gas exchange happens, and if you get a hypoxic spot in your body then those cells are going to die. The wikipedia article claims, without citation: "The extracellular fluid is constantly "stirred" by the circulatory system, which ensures that the watery environment which bathes the body's cells is virtually identical throughout the body. This means that nutrients can be secreted into the ECF in one place (e.g. the gut, liver, or fat cells) and will, within about a minute, be evenly distributed throughout the body."

Re: The World's Deadliest Thing

#73

Post by AussieWog93 » Tue, Nov 23, 2021, 8:33 AM UTC

Stratoscope wrote: post #35

Pop quiz! Do you ever buy frozen vacuum-sealed fish? The kind where each piece is sealed in its own plastic pouch? It is convenient and delicious. To me it can taste fresher than some "fresh" fish. One reason is that the sealed pouch keeps oxygen out. Have you wondered why it says "remove all packaging before defrosting"? And ignored that advice like I did for many years? After all, the fish seems to defrost just fin…

Any people from developing countries reading this thread?

What are your thoughts when you hear Westerners talking about the danger of leaving a meat out of the fridge for a couple of hours and stuff like that?

Re: The World's Deadliest Thing

#74

Post by Igelau » Tue, Nov 23, 2021, 9:05 AM UTC

noisy_boy wrote: post #37

AlotOfReading wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

C. Botulinum has a complicated life cycle that involves infecting vertebrates, killing them, and then infecting the invertebrates that feed on the body during decomposition. The bacteria don't particularly care about the host and just want it dead as quickly as possible so they can get on with their real hosts. [1] https://doi.org/10.1093/femspd/fty040

Might be interesting to know how vultures deal with this.

Nature's beautiful garbage disposal. Botulism. Anthrax. Vultures don't care.

Re: The World's Deadliest Thing

#75

Post by DeathArrow » Tue, Nov 23, 2021, 9:13 AM UTC

>it is likely that the pure crystalline form of Botulinum toxin is now also the most valuable, with an estimated street value of $100 trillion per kilogram

So next time when you forget some cooked food out of the fridge and are disposing it, you can think how you are literally throwing a fortune away.

Re: The World's Deadliest Thing

#76

Post by namdnay » Tue, Nov 23, 2021, 9:18 AM UTC

bambax wrote: post #60

turbinerneiter wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I defrost my fish in the package by putting it in hot tap water. You, sire, drastically reduced my chance of dying. Thank you very much.

Do not do that. Defrosting should be done slowly in the fridge. Or you can cook frozen food directly. But do not defrost at or about room temperature, this will breed bacteria like crazy.

defrosting under warm water takes about 5 minutes, if you cook it immediately it's perfectly safe

Re: The World's Deadliest Thing

#77

Post by namdnay » Tue, Nov 23, 2021, 9:20 AM UTC

chadcmulligan wrote: post #64

d136o wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just listened to a podcast episode about this, basically celery cured just means “naturally found” nitrites… which are the same thing as artificial nitrites… they’re just nitrites. (Disclaimer: not a chemist) https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/stuff-you-should-know/...

Well thats disappointing

some dired hams don't contain any nitrites. I know parma ham doesn't, for example

Re: The World's Deadliest Thing

#78

Post by pjc50 » Tue, Nov 23, 2021, 9:22 AM UTC

sho wrote: post #26

> The lethal dose when consumed orally is around 30 billionths of a gram, which if you want a relatable comparison, is about the same as if you cut a single poppy seed into ten thousand equal pieces and ate one of them. It is an amount so tiny, it really doesn’t make sense. That's right - it makes no sense. How could such a small amount of anything do enough damage to shut down your entire body? According to wikipedi…

It's a protease which matches key neural proteins. The key to recognise is that it's reusable: one molecule can keep breaking proteins, and as soon as it does that faster than homeostatic processes can replace them you're in trouble.

Just how "rm -rf /" can destroy your whole system: it's a small character but it matches and destroys everything.

Re: The World's Deadliest Thing

#79

Post by bambax » Tue, Nov 23, 2021, 9:26 AM UTC

namdnay wrote: post #76

bambax wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do not do that. Defrosting should be done slowly in the fridge. Or you can cook frozen food directly. But do not defrost at or about room temperature, this will breed bacteria like crazy.

defrosting under warm water takes about 5 minutes, if you cook it immediately it's perfectly safe

Very much depends on what you're defrosting. A piece of meat frozeon at -20C will not defrost in 5 minutes under warm water.

Re: The World's Deadliest Thing

#80

Post by flobosg » Tue, Nov 23, 2021, 9:28 AM UTC

sho wrote: post #26

> The lethal dose when consumed orally is around 30 billionths of a gram, which if you want a relatable comparison, is about the same as if you cut a single poppy seed into ten thousand equal pieces and ate one of them. It is an amount so tiny, it really doesn’t make sense. That's right - it makes no sense. How could such a small amount of anything do enough damage to shut down your entire body? According to wikipedi…

> According to wikipedia, it works by "cleaving key proteins required for nerve activation". Unless there's some self-replication mechanism, how does that even work?

The toxin is an enzyme and as such is not consumed during the cleavage reaction. A molecule of the botulinum toxin breaks down one protein molecule and then moves on to the next one until the toxin itself is degraded by the organism.