Venoms That Can Kill Can Also Cure
Even as a boy plucking cone-snail shells from tide pools near his home beside Manila Bay, in the Philippines, Baldo mero Olivera knew that grabbing a living one could mean death. The magician’s cone, whose sting can cause extreme swelling, is the shape of a pointed hat; a tulip cone can trigger blurred vision and uncontrollable drooling, but it has ornate petal-like swirls. Mishandling a live geographer cone could stop his heart within minutes. But it looks like a Persian rug! Snagged.
“We knew even as kids,” Olivera says, “that this snail was capable of killing humans and that it has a 70 percent fatality rate.” It’s a foggy morning in Salt Lake City, and Olivera is near a bank of fish tanks in his lab at the University of Utah. Inside one aquarium, a white-and-brown snail is burrowed in the sand beside a small goldfish. The invertebrate extends its thick snorkel-like siphon and lightly sniffs the fish’s underbelly.
この記事は Popular Science の Winter 2018 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
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この記事は Popular Science の Winter 2018 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
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YOU CAN TURN FOOD SCRAPS INTO FERTILIZER IN ALMOST ANY CONTAINER. THESE BINS USE THEIR OWN METHODS TO ENCOURAGE THE PROCESS, BUT BOTH KEEP BUGS AND STINK AT BAY.
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LEARNING TO PEDAL IS NO EASY FEAT.
