What has the world's deadliest venom?

You know what, next time it snows and ices seven inches in your city wherever you are up north, Like, don't salt any roads, don't get out any snow chains, don't get out any snowplows, and see how you do. Saw And that guy was like, uh, I'm sorry now he was. He was fine, he was a nice guy. I wasn't trying to be a jerk. I'm just saying we don't have the stuff to deal with it. No, apparently we have ten snowplows. Ten snowplows for the city of Atlanta. That's about what we don't think we should

go out and buy fifty snowplows. Now though I didn't even know we had ten. Yeah, I thought that was pretty decent. It's a southern city, so yeah, um, it's the weather's fault, not Atlanta's fault, and that's right. So yeah, we had to come in to make sure that we still continue getting everybody stuff. You should knows. I can't imagine that publishing it will never happen, Chuck, Are you gonna it will never happen? Dude, Chuck sory. Okay, my knuckles are starting to you ready, yeah, warm enough to

do this. Before we start this, can I say something to Australia because we're gonna be talking about Australia. They're suffering through some flooding there in Brisbane. It's like a five year flood, right, It's it's a big flood and it's um killed so far about thirty four people, and so, uh, we just want to say that, you know, we're thinking

about your Australia. That's an awful thing and we're gonna be poking fun at you later on with all the deadly creatures there and your outback steakhouses, but um, we're thinking about you on a serious note. So having said that, let the jokes fly. Uh, Well, that's tough you just

shut me down, all right, You ready, Yeah, let's do this, Okay. So, Chuck, there is a couple of different guys out there in the world who are in stiff competition right now to come up with a cure for cancer based on scorpion venom. There are two dudes and they are scrambling for their lives right now. Um. There's a guy at the St. Louis University School of Medicine and there's another guy who

is at the Henry Ford Health System in Michigan. Okay, right, and both of them have found or are working upon the idea that scorpion and him something in it attacks glioma's, which are a very very deadly type of cancer cell brain cancer tumor. Right. Um, they go after glioma's first for some reason. So if these guys can figure out the treatments really weird, you inject the scorpion venom, it goes and attaches itself to the glioma, and then you

radiate it and it just destroys everything. So if they can figure out how to get this to work reliably, they would have basically come up with a cure for brain cancer. I knew a guy undergoing that treatment. You're joking. Yeah, this was at the very beginning stages of it, like probably seven or eight years ago. Yeah, this is from two thousand six. Yeah, this guy was um. I worked for a company that produced documentaries, like medical documentaries, and

they were documenting this guy's fight with cancer. And one of the things I remember at the time hearing was that he was undergoing a very experimental thing with scorpion venom. And we're all like what, But it wasn't about that, so I didn't learn much about it. Yeah. Interesting, it is very interesting, And scorpions, of course are extremely poisonous. Right, No, Josh, oh really, here's your here's your cocktail party. Fact of the day. There is a difference between venomous and poisonous.

And the difference is not in the toxin, but in the way the toxin is transferred from the animal to the whatever. I never knew that I suspected as much. So poison is transmitted passively, Uh so you have to ingest it or absorb it somehow, and venom is injected, right, and usually poison like say a poison tree frog, where the dart frog. Yeah, the poison tree dark frog, poison dark frog, poison dart frog. Where am I getting tree from? I think they're they're in trees, right, the poison dart frog.

It creates this poison passively, like you said, usually through a diet. That's how poison is created. And it's not out to hurt you unless you eat it or handle it in a way. It doesn't like you get the toxin absorbed through your skin. Boom, you're dead, right, or if you're a human being, you're on one heck of a trip, I would imagine. So, uh, you said something very important though. That's another difference. Poison is um created

through the diet, whereas venom is inherent in the animal itself. Well, the animal creates it. Yeah, the animal creates it without the help of diet, right right, There's like some sort of mechanism in their metabolism that creates venom, and poison is generally a defensive um as a defensive role in venom is usually for the offense for predators. You want to get your prey bite, Yeah, like with a fang or a stinger, release some venom. Boom, you're fine, got dinner.

Those are the differences. Yeah, So a scorpion isn't poisonous. It is venomous. It produces its own venom on purpose, uses it on purpose. Venomous, right, poison tree, dark frog, that's poisonous. It even says it in the name poison through the skin. All right, So, Chuck, this is something I've always wondered, Right, what is the most venomous animal on the planet. I would imagine that it's something along the lines of a cobra. Maybe maybe they have them

in Florida. Those things are extremely poisonous, right, are they the most poisonous? I'm sorry, venomous animal? How many times do you think we'll do that this time after we explained that we're gonna screw it up, We'll get a very accurate number from Aaron Cooper. I'm sure, Um, what the the most venomous animal? I would think is either a coral snake I should say before I read this article, the black mamba maybe I've always heard those are pretty.

That's another one to the um black widow spider, or possibly the brown recluse. Like you always hear black widows gonna kill you. That's what my dad always said to me before I went to eap every night. But um, the brown recluse. Apparently it is way way worse. It's because they Yeah, sure, I've heard that black widows. Man, I see those all the time. They always scare me. Yeah, well they look really scared that that shiny black body with the red hourglass and that look like we are

you looking at I'll kill you? Uh, those are not, Josh, but I would have guessed placed my guesses on some of those things as well before this article. Apparently the deadliest most venomous animal being on the planet is found in the ocean right off of the coast of Australia. Yep, the box jellyfish a k a. The sea wasp right a k a. The marine stinger. Yeah, I think that's a stupid name, like sea wasp. Sea wasp is bad. I think they have these at the Georgia Aquarium, although

I may be wrong. They have those little little translucent, sort of fluorescent almost jellyfish. I think a lot out of them are like that, though, are they. Well, now I know that they're not like solid orange, You're like they have tentacles. They sort of look like jelly. Uh. These are pale blue, almost transparent um and they are of the most deadly creatures in the world because they can kill a human in five minutes or less. That's pretty quick they can. So if you're out of see,

you will likely die before you reach help. Yeah, you're going too shock. The venom of the box jellyfish or sea wasp um. It paralyzes your central nervous system, right, so you can't breathe, your heart stop speeding, your muscles, stop working. You probably do all sorts of unpleasant things in your pants. Yeah much, you have this control yourself, and that's probably the least of your worries at that point, because you are dying and you're swimming back to shore.

The problem is when you encounter one of these things, if it does indeed sting you, when if you pull your arm away, that actually tends to cause more of the stingers to latch onto you and deliver even more venom. Right. So, so if this happens to you, just just still play still and let it sting the crap out of you. How does this happen? Though, Josh, what are these little

deal he's called? Uh? They are called nematicists, right. Nematicists are these little cells that how something called snido blasts and this is real. Yeah, and it was a lovely British one. She went canolst Kanto blast. It's Kate Middleton, it was. This is the only British one we know right now. So each tentacle has five thousand of the

nematosists that are housed in the blast. Okay, so, and the Knido blasts are basically like the little charge of venom that shoot out, right, And there's a trigger protruding from the nematosist, which basically is like a little it looks like a little claw. The trigger is and when this thing is triggered, the knido blast shoots out, deposits the venom in you, and you're in big trouble. Now that's just one Knido blast, right, There's apparently a ton

of these on any given tentacle. Correct, you have five thousand stingers, uh, seventy five thousand total. If you have fifteen tentacles nematicists, that's a lot. Oh yeah. And all it takes is probably a few to do some major damage. I wondered if one of the reasons it was so deadly was because there's just so many. I would definitely think so. I think it's very powerful venom. Yeah, right, so that the pairing of the two is deadly. Uh, and the the reaction of the um nematicist trigger the

knido blast. Now, the neumatosis is triggered releasing the knido blast um by chemicals in our skin pheromones I would egine. Yeah, that's key. And some Australians have very cleverly figured out that for some reason, nylon, as in pantyhose, keeps this chemical from seeping out and being detected by the kinnado blast. So you can just walk right up to a box jellyfish with pantyhose on your arm or your head and rub the jellyfish and it won't do anything. Do not

do that, But I'm just saying theoretically you could. So if you see some AUSS surfers wearing pantyhose, then uh, don't want, don't don't hate. That's probably the reason why. That's the reason why, Well, you never know, you don't do. You might just be into that kind of thing. Luckily, there are some cures for this there, things like vinegar um acetic acid can render it harmless. Yeah. And the funny it's like one of the deadliest animals on the planet.

But then vinegar like that's fine, it's crazy. And there's an anti venom And notice I did not say anti venom, which people usually say anti venom. That is not correct. Although it's sort of accepted now, it's still not proper. It's at anti venn V and I n one of my personal little gripes jib yeah, jibe, people say jive, yes they do. Um chuck. Apparently it takes about two to three minutes to die from a box jellyfish injection, right, it's fast. Um. There's been over hundred people who have

died since ninety four in Australia alone. How many. Yeah, that's a lot of dead people just from this jellyfish, just from the box jellyfish, just in Australia. And apparently from November to May they come into the North Shore and a lot of times they're just like, well the beaches closed until May, until these things leave because they

will kill you write. But also in Australia they believe that there is pound for pound another jellyfish, which, by the way, the box jellyfish is not a tree jellyfish. It's in the family. It's not a true jellyfish. And neither is. I'm gonna try this, but I'm pretty sure I'm gonna butcher the eruke Engi. Eruk Engi I heard of? That is that in here. No, it's the the eruk and Gi jellyfish. It's like the size of a fingernail,

but it can kill people. It can kill you, just this little thing right, so pound for pound, it's definitely more venomous than the box jellyfish. But there was this guy who there there's this thing called eruk and Gi syndrome, and the Erukanji are a tribe of Australian Aborigines and they live near the water, and every once in a while one of them would go out into the water

and just mysteriously die right there swimming. So there's a doctor who suspected that there was a jellyfish involved, and he started looking for it and he found it that what it's now called the eruk and Gi jellyfish. Um But to prove his point, he took this one little tiny jellyfish stung himself, his son, and the lifeguard on duty, and all three of them ended up in the hospital, like at the edge of death because of this one little jelly fish and he's like I found it, So

that one is probably the deadliest jellyfish pound for pound, definitely. Well, the box jellyfish we should mention too. Even if it doesn't kill you, it is a how do you pronounce that? Dermonic? It's dermonocratic? Is that right? So that means that it kills your skin cells and tissue underneath. So even if it like wraps around your arm and you manage to get it off and live, it can like turn your skin black and dead, and you'll be scarred for life and no one will love you. No one will ever

love you. Can but I think you'd be so happy to be alive. You could live without love, sure for a little while, and then you'd be like, why didn't the jellyfish just take me? Why didn't I wear a pantyhose? So there it is, right, the the box jellyfish, or at least the eric and gi un gi jellyfish, or the deadliest most venomous animals on the planet. Right, So are we done? No, you know as well as I

do that we're not done. Let's teasing. Let's talk about venom in general, and uh, the reason why it's hard to test its potency is because it's you know, like you. So the answer to the question is, no, they're not necessarily not necessarily what the most venomous animals on the planet. No, no, no no, they are. Okay, I'm just talking about difficulties

and testing venom potency. It's tough because when you let's say, you get this deadly venom and you inject it into a lab rat, it's not necessarily gonna even if you do the pound uh, the equation to equate it to a human, like a full sized human. What are you laughing at? Uh? A rat doesn't necessarily react in the same way that a human would. Right, And what are you talking about is the UM what's called the lethal dosage dosage standard LD fifty, Right, you explain that it's

kind of cruel. It's very cruel. Basically, they figure out, um, how much of a venom uh it takes to kill fifty of a lab population. And we're not talking about like the grad students were a bunch of mice or rats or whatever. So let's say you have you know, twenty UM twenty mice and you inject them all with

a venom. However much venom it takes to kill half of them is what's considered the l D fifty measurement, right, which you'd express in terms of like um, with a mouse, you'd be like, uh, it's five milligrams of box jellyfish venom to every ten grams of mouse weight. Yeah, it's it's for every one hundred grams of the animals body weight the amount of venom, right or large animals. So so a low number is deadly. For instance, the coral snake has an l D fifty of one point three.

In the box jellyfishes is point oh four, So it's the corals because the LD fifty of one point three on I guess a mouse because it's specific to the animal, and like a proper LD fifty measurement will say the way that it's injected, like orally skin injected, right, um, and then the animal, so it'll be like h zero point for LD fifty rat comma skin transdormal um you know, one k dash So sorry, so sorry, risk, and you bring up an excellent point. That's it is a very

cruel way of figuring out how deadly a venom is. Right, So in large part it's been discontinued or abandoned. Um. Well, at least there's been calls for it. I don't think the research is quite as fast and loose as it once was. Right, Yeah, there was a crazy time for l D fifty ratings. Yeah, they're trying to figure out better ways to do this, But the whole point is to create a scale of comparison. Like you don't want coral snake to bite you, but you really really don't

want to box jellyfish to brite you. I don't really want either one to bite me away from both of them, that'd be my my call. Uh. I wonder what some of those methods are. They didn't They didn't mention this in the article curious what well to to measure the potency of a venom? If they're getting away from l D fifty, how is she gonna tell unless you kill something? I wonder if it's one of those things where you

know how it says like not tested on animals. One of the reasons why there's so many products that say that now is because they already did all the animal testing. They're not using a lot. There's not a lot of new stuff that they're introducing that need animal testing, So these people didn't test it on animals, but somebody thirty years ago didn't. It's fine that that's what the label should say. No longer necessary to test on it, right,

Like we specifically didn't test on animals. Right. Uh, let's you wanna talk about some other deadly venomous creatures and they're in Australia. Yeah, dangerous with really dangerous stuff. Yes. The geographic snail Josh is found along the coral reefs of the Indo Pacific and it is uh little brown and white gastropod and it has the ability to paralyze you almost instantly with a little mini spear. It's like extends a tube, black organ with a spear on the end of it and just boom, you swim by and

you paralyzed. And some little smaller creatures die before they even realize they've been bitten. In't that awesome? Yeah? They're like what the or not even what the? Yeah, just they're like I wonder why I'm going to have for lunch and then nothing, Yeah, then you aren't lunch. And apparently this little spear that this protrusion um can reach anywhere on it shells, so you can't pick it up anywhere. Yeah,

or you're in big trouble. You go at it from like the very rear and you think I'm safe here, and I think you'd probably use like long tongue or something like that. That's how you handle a cone snail. Uh. The inland taipe An, I've never heard of the snake. It's a snake. It's an Australian. And let's talk about its venom. Okay, the taipe hand has a venomous bite powerful enough. This is this sign a T shirt to kill fifteen thousand mice. It's a lot of mice death.

I don't know how many humans that is, but that's certainly more than one. Yeah, I would think. Ah, they created an anti vennin luckily, but before that you were pretty much toast if you got bitten by one of these. Yeah. And do you want to talk about any even real quick anti what antie vennin? Yeah? Go ahead. So you know how it's made, right? Uh? No, I didn't until today,

but it's pretty awesome. Let's hear. Basically, they milk, right, And there's actually a guy in Kentucky whose job it is, and he's one of several I imagine he milks venomous snakes. It makes some pretty pretty good money doing it, but it's a lot of repetitive work. Like a graham of oh what is it, I think, um, rattlesnake. Maybe, no,

coral snake. A gram of coral snake. Venom to be used to make any venom um is like a grand thousand dollars, Like you can sell it for a thousand dollars of pop. But it takes like three folks to create a graham of this venom. Right, so the guys working hard, but he's being paid well for his anyway. They milk whatever animal it is, whether it's black widow box, jellyfish, uh, a rattlesnake exactly, um, and they take the venom. They slowly introduce it into a horse's system. I think I

didn't know this. The horse becomes immunized through to this venom whatever it is right over. Yeah, And then this this immunization is expressed in its hemoglobin. So they take the horse's hemoglobin. That's so it's immunized horse hemoglobin. That's an a venom. That's what they're injecting into you. And

I was reading how they do it. If you come in you're like I got bit by a black widow, just like Dad said, right, Um, they they apparently if you're age sixteen to sixty, black widows are not quite so bad like they're They're like, you can treat this with muscle relaxers and it should go away in a couple of days. Yeah, I've heard you feel pretty bad, Yes, very anxious and well you have trouble brilli. But after a couple of days it should pass and muscle relaxers

will work. And barbiturous if you're real anxious. But um, if it's if you suspect it maybe a fatal bite, you use this anti venom, you vandon. I'm sorry, Chuck. You take a little bit and you, um, you mix it in with sodium solution, saltwater, and um, you start out with a point zero one solution and you go up to I think all the way up to a one to ten solution. Uh. And then that you give them the full dose of anti venom, which is horsteam with globin and that crazy extuff that never happens. That's

how we treat snake bites in the century. Here's some horse blood. You mentioned pain killer. I did want to mention quickly that the the cone, not the cone snail, but the cone shell. I wonder if that's the same thing. Apparently, the cone shell's venom has been developed by drug companies for chronic pain because the venom is said to be ten thousand times stronger than morphine. That's a pain killer

right there. I got anything else? Oh wait? The funnel web spider, also in Australia, also can kill you very quickly, under fifteen minutes. And uh it's known for being very aggressive. So you put two two words together, aggressive spider, and you'll see the back of my head walking out the door for the airport. I don't like spiders. I'm not

big on spiders either, nor aggressive ones. Well, those are the worst kind of spiders really, because you know you're raised like well, if you leave them alone, they'll leave you alone. Except for that one. Yeah, he'll come after you in your sleep and crawl up your nose and kill you. I wonder if LD fifty research has been replaced with cancer fighting venom research. I hope so. I hope so too. Except anothery're developing cancer in mice to see if they can treat it with Yeah, well that's

it for um bidliest venom. If you want to learn more about venom and see a very cool drawing of the knido blasts of a box jellyfish type in Deadliest Venom in the handy search bart how stuffwards dot com, which brings us now to listener mail. No, No, that's right. Do we have a jingle for this Facebook questions? Yeahs there we got Facebook questions. Are laugh not because she thought it was funny, because she's like, sweet, I don't have to go find some special He just made my

job easier. Yeah, we asked for some Facebook questions the other day on the Facebook, and which we are want to do from time to time, and we're gonna go through a few of those now and then on the next one we record. So let's just fire some of these out, all right. Here's one from Peppie Brown, Marianne or Ginger law. I don't know what that means you l O L means laugh out loud, and Marianner Ginger is asking the angel question from Gilligan's Island, which style

of lady do you prefer? Like? The little farm? This one already we have. I think I said both. Go ahead, Uh let me see um. Amber Lee Stewart says, when was the last time Chuck had no facial hair at all. Um, last Halloween, I did the mustache. That's facial hair, and then I shaved the mustache after Halloween to grow out just an even goatee. And um, I don't think I saw you. That was oh nine, I still at nine. I still I was around. I think I saw you. I have a scar on my upper lip that's covered

by my stash. Is that from your handsome molder brother? The scar? No? No, no, it's from a Latmore accident. So yeah, that was the last time I had no facial here and this rivoning stuff here. Uh well, here's one from Jennifer Lugar. Um, what do your families think of your s y s K fame and fortune? My family is largely unaware of it, and the stuff that they are aware of their like, don't get a big head. And the word fortune is not quite applicable at this point.

Modest fame. My family thinks it's neat. My my nephew Noah, thinks it's pretty cool. My brother thinks it's cool. That's a lot, right, man. My dad remember he finally bought an iPod. Yeah, I still don't think he's listened to one. Yeah, I don't think my dad is either. Uh. Andrea Steele? What are you afraid of? Josh? Chuck and Jerry? I'm not really afraid of anything as far as phobias go. Um, not crazy about spiders and snakes, but who is? What are you afraid of? Josh? What am I afraid of? Mine?

Are more emotional like I'm I'm afraid of being left out of of like not getting invited to things. That's a good one. Chuck, you did still didn't say anything, Jerry anything? What are you afraid of? Lightning? Really did do that? I used to be afraid of dying in a plane crash or falling off of a building. He's done pretty good with that, all right? What you got? Um,

let's see what's your deserted island food? As in, if you were stuck in an island and could only have one food to eat forever, really really really good mild buffalo wings with ranch and blue cheese. Okay, that's pretty good. I'll I'll say same thing. Okay, I can eat buffalo wings for the rest of my life. What do you have? That was by the way, Mary, Margaret Shepherd, thanks for that one. Devin Stone Chuck, what was inspiration for your

band name El cheap Oh? That was given to us by our friend Justin and my parents actually to say that it was sort of a saying in the seventies, like yeah, this L Cheapo car dealership or this L Cheapo pizza place or no way, Jose. That was a big one. It was a big and then guy's name Jose stood up and we're like shut up. We say yes way. Uh so, yeah, that's where it came from. Here's one from Dannette at Aitkin's Koski Koskey. What did you do during our snow days? I worked? I even

wrote a blog post about working during snow days. Yea, we may have been in Jamie's, but we were working. Yes, how many more? Josh? One to let's do one more guys. This is from Colleen Sweeney. If you were a baseball player, what would you have them play when he came up to bat? You know how players always pick out like some tough song? Yeah, what would you play? You're the best around Joe's posito pretty good. Um, I should have thought about this. I didn't even think about it. I've

got that answer at the ready. I would play something tough like classic rock. Maybe like um, when the levy breaks by led Zeppelin, that'd be a good one. That's intimidating. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what I do. Okay, Well that's it, huh for now? Yeah? Well you you do one more, I'll say my next one for the next time. Okay, okay. If you want to join in the fun on Facebook, we strongly encourage you to go hang out there on our page, and while you're there, feel free to like us if you

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