Slashdot Mirror
Amid Agony, Scientists Discover World's First Venomous Frog
sciencehabit writes: Some discoveries come with a price, and Brazilian biologist Carlos Jared's discovery of the world's first known venomous frog came with agony. When Carlos picked up a Brazilian hylid frog—a small, lumpy, green amphibian—while doing fieldwork, the frog raked him with spines hidden within its upper lip across the hand. He dropped the frog, and excruciating pain shot up his arm for the next 5 hours. It was known that some frogs secrete poison onto their skin but this species has tiny spines on their heads and upper lips that enable them to inject lethal venom directly into the bloodstream. C. greening's venom is twice as potent as that of the deadly pit viper, the researchers report.
If they don't name that frog after Moe from the Simpsons, then I just don't want to know about it.
(Moe Sizlak: http://webpages.shepherd.edu/B... )
-Styopa
Amazon rainforest, Australian outback, Middle East, Somalia, Baltimore
Meanwhile some Amazon tribes have been using frog venom on their arrows and blowpipe darts for thousands of years...
And theres probably some joke about Jeff Bezos patenting it...
Apparently you didn't read the summary let alone RTFA - they are talking about injectable venom, like a snake.
It's not venom unless the animal carrying it have means to actively inject it in its victims or enemies. What the Indians have been using is poison.
Linux is for people who don't mind RTFM.
I'm a bad motherfucking GANGSTA frog, and you in MY HOOD now!
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
...involving aliens?
If there is any doubt, even 1% doubt, that something is 100% safe, don't handle it. Get gloves, or a net or a trap, or something, but for fuck's sake, don't pick it up, at least, not without gloves.
Yes, I can read. I know frogs are not known to be venomous, thus the news story, but that doesn't mean that it isn't carrying a weird bacteria, or has a secretion that can cause an allergic reaction, or any number of things that can go wrong.
Some people don't believe in fairies. I don't believe in The Patriarchy.
Hmmm ... so if the Amazon tribes put it on pointy things, and can then "inject" it, are they venomous?
I realize it's a scientific distinction, but it really sounds like a small matter of semantics.
If it's chemically the same as poison, and administered via something pointy it becomes venom, that's an awfully small distinction. It sounds like if I put it in your drink, I've administered poison, but if I stab you with it it's venom.
I'd at least expect a different chemistry.
It's an important distinction for several reasons. Scientifically, specificity is always important. To a survivalist, they generally stay away from poisonous things but they can, with care/proper technique, use venomous things. Venomous things also generally create/store their own toxins where poisonous things can get them from another source, like poison dart frogs - their poison is actually from a plant that an insect feeds on which the frogs then eat & excrete. Take away that chain and they are no longer poisonous.
The meaningful distinction is between poisonous animals and venomous ones. I guess I don't need to explain to you the implications on survival strategy that those two features entail.
But the GP seemed to make fun of scientists for discovering now what the Indians have known for ages. The case is that scientists know about poisonous frogs for a very long time, you know, by talking to the very Indians that have been using frog poison for ages.
By the way, AFAIK, you can not call a poison a venom just because if it's in a man made pointed object, because such an object is not a biological structure and therefore the human bearing it is not venomous.
Linux is for people who don't mind RTFM.
Apparently you didn't read the summary let alone RTFA - they are talking about injectable venom, like a snake.
Umm, maybe you should go re-read TFA before pointing fingers.
There are no injectors on these frogs, they secrete venom ON THEIR SKIN then flail their spines to open and get venom into a wound. It would be perfectly feasible to harvest venom from these as if they had been typical poison dart frogs.
To err is human; effective mayhem requires the root password!
I hope they remembered their ducks.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Sometimes science advances with the phrase "hmm, that's unexpected" and sometimes with the phrase "arghargharghargharghargh!".
Apparently you didn't read the summary let alone RTFA - they are talking about injectable venom, like a snake.
Umm, maybe you should go re-read TFA before pointing fingers.
There are no injectors on these frogs, they secrete venom ON THEIR SKIN then flail their spines to open and get venom into a wound. It would be perfectly feasible to harvest venom from these as if they had been typical poison dart frogs.
An injector is imply a mechanism that breaks the skin to introduce the toxin. Whether it is by coating or hypodermically does not change the injector mechanism.
But if the police use it to hit you, it is a "non-lethal compliance tool" (unless you have the video then it's a "civil rights lawsuit").
they are talking about injectable venom, like a snake.
So they are talking about Bezos, right?
That is all.