this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2024
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Science Memes

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Just a little guy (mander.xyz)
submitted 5 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 15 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Getting bit by a venomous snake in Australia and you're blood starts to disassemble itself. The only counter is antivenom or die. Your blood breaking down is what kills you. And there is no way to separate the bite from that.

Being able to counter the venom in such a simple way is what makes it different. You can logically break it down into steps that are separable.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Yeap, but that's because the venom is a hemotoxin rather than a neurotoxin.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Correct.

For the hemotoxin, you aren't going to "just wait for the effects to wear off." The toxin will kill you.

For the neurotoxin, you can just wait out the effects by countering the symptoms. Can't breathe? Respirator can save your life.

The hemotoxin itself is doing terrible damage, but the neurotoxin itself doesn't do any "damage" other than disabling systems.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Yeah that's mostly true... But it's not like a hangover... I had a friend bitten by a snake out in the Mojave once and I'm sure she would have strong opinions about how strenuous the recovery was from it. Neurotoxins, especially potent ones, can be disruptive enough to create long term disabilities. If you are someone who performs a lot of skilled fine motor movements as part of your job or as part of a hobby or something it could be a significant amount of time for you to fully recover from a neurotoxin.

Cytotoxins are interesting as well, though generally not considered deadly they can really mess up your quality of life and be extremely debilitating, even disfiguring.

Generally just a good idea to stay away from anything venomous.