51–60 of 105 posts
I can understand it causing pain, but what mechanism causes some lingering pain to last for 9 months??
I assumed many of the small needles remain in the skin and are difficult to remove fully.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a yank, it's always been believed that everything in Aussieland wants to either kill you or make life supremely uncomfortable.
Eh I mean the US has its fair share of snakes and spiders, crocs/gators, plus bears, coyotes, and other large animals which Australia doesn't have which are far more scary than any insect IMO. I guess the oceans are worse with sharks and box jellies, and some rivers have bull sharks. But Australia and the US have more in common wrt deadly flora and fauna than most would like to admit.
Australian ecology, from what I understand, really evolved in isolation for quite some time.
Recent research (2020) revealed these plants containt a potent protein neurotoxin: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abb8828 > "We show here that the venoms of Australian Dendrocnide species contain heretofore unknown pain-inducing peptides that potently activate mouse sensory neurons and delay inactivation of voltage-gated sodium channels. These neurotoxins localize specifically to the stinging hairs and ar…
Won't be long for this to be weaponized. Being able to chemically turn it on and off sounds like a "perfect" torture device that doesn't leave forensic evidence behind.
https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2017/10/how-cone-snail...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The US has bears and mountain lions and shit, which are legitimately pretty dangerous. That being said, they never lost a war against their wildlife...
Actually, I'd wager that the most dangerous animals in north america are deer and dogs. Deer because they are constantly walking in front of cars and dogs because they're everywhere and bite people. The deer / car encounters can be quite lethal while the dog bite situation is typically not lethal but as with any serious injury can be quite life altering.
I had an encounter with Gympie-Gympie/Stinging bush (Dendrocnide moroides) in the early 1980s when I was camping for some weeks at Emmagen Creek, Cape Tribulation which is about 50 miles north of Cairns and past Mossman in Queensland's Daintree rainforest. (Back then, Mossman was a single street with none of the modern luxurious tourist hotels/accommodation that it has today and Emmagen Creek was just cane toad infes…
> I was also lucky in another respect in that the local advised me to wear long pants and a long-sleeved shirt Just based on Australia's reputation alone I don't think I would ever even think about venturing outside in anything short of a hazmat suit on top of a suit of plate mail :-)
There's an urban legend in Australia about a bloke that went camping once, had to take a shit in the bush, and didn't have any dunny-role. Poor guy grabbed a handful of Gympie-gympie that was on the ground next to him and proceeded to wipe his ass with it. Legend says he ended up topping himself a few hours later to escape the pain. Whether it's true or not... Fuck only knows. We do like making shit up... Especially…
dunny-role topping himself The English Language is definitely different around the world.
Stories like this make me wonder why anyone lives in Australia, since virtually everything seems to want to kill you. Or perhaps Aussies are tougher than the rest of us.
I had an encounter with Gympie-Gympie/Stinging bush (Dendrocnide moroides) in the early 1980s when I was camping for some weeks at Emmagen Creek, Cape Tribulation which is about 50 miles north of Cairns and past Mossman in Queensland's Daintree rainforest. (Back then, Mossman was a single street with none of the modern luxurious tourist hotels/accommodation that it has today and Emmagen Creek was just cane toad infes…
> I was also lucky in another respect in that the local advised me to wear long pants and a long-sleeved shirt Just based on Australia's reputation alone I don't think I would ever even think about venturing outside in anything short of a hazmat suit on top of a suit of plate mail :-)