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The World's Deadliest Thing
11–20 of 231 posts
Re: The World's Deadliest Thing
#12Interested article, but what's with the overly intense site color scheme? It's hard to read becasue of it.
Re: The World's Deadliest Thing
#13Is there a theory for what purpose the Botulinum Toxin evolved for? I don't see that paralyzing your host is particularly useful for a bacterium.
The bacteria thrives in rotting meat, so killing the host might be exactly what it needs. It produces lots of spores present everywhere, so transmission from host to host is not an issue.
Edit: what's -> lots
Re: The World's Deadliest Thing
#14Is there a theory for what purpose the Botulinum Toxin evolved for? I don't see that paralyzing your host is particularly useful for a bacterium.
Can it be randomness? Unless paralyzing/killing the host is actively harmful, it might evolve by chance and remain as-is.
Re: The World's Deadliest Thing
#15Is there a theory for what purpose the Botulinum Toxin evolved for? I don't see that paralyzing your host is particularly useful for a bacterium.
Being an anaerobic bacteria and one that can lie dormant for long periods of time, I don't think it needs the host to be alive.
Re: The World's Deadliest Thing
#16Is there a theory for what purpose the Botulinum Toxin evolved for? I don't see that paralyzing your host is particularly useful for a bacterium.
Clostridium botulinum is anaerobic, and live in soil, so living humans are not a particularly good host. Dead humans could be, though, so natural selection would favor strains that efficiently returned themselves and their descendants back to the soil.
Re: The World's Deadliest Thing
#17Is there a theory for what purpose the Botulinum Toxin evolved for? I don't see that paralyzing your host is particularly useful for a bacterium.
Evolution doesn't need purpose.
As long as a feature doesn't reduce the survival rate, it remains in place. The toxicity could just be a side effect of the spores durability and longevity.
Re: The World's Deadliest Thing
#18Is there a theory for what purpose the Botulinum Toxin evolved for? I don't see that paralyzing your host is particularly useful for a bacterium.
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.
Re: The World's Deadliest Thing
#19Re: The World's Deadliest Thing
#20very nicely written history of the toxin, the drug botox, and the principles of canning.
related see the article on HN regarding Campbell's soups.