In the waters of Australia , researchers have been trying to milk the venom of a wight with one of the public ’s deadliest bunco game : the box seat jellyfish . Their sting can stop a human heart from pump parentage within second , all the while the dupe bear torturous pain . So why would anybody want to get up unaired and personal to milk one ?
Venomous creatures , such as snakes and spiders , have been milk for their venom in the past . Bryan Fry , associate prof from the University of Queensland , explainedthat " Without this raw material , life - saving anti - venom can not be developed , and we ca n’t examine how malice components can be get into new drugs . "
While research on snake venom is abundant , enquiry on jellyfish venom is sorely lacking . More papers are published on snake in the grass spitefulness in a single year than the full number of papers on jellyfish venom ever .
The scarcity of jellyfish venom is n’t through want of trying , though , it ’s just truly unmanageable to educe , peculiarly in the quantity involve for sustainable and meaningful research .
" Jellyfish and other cnidarian are the oldest live venomous creature , but inquiry has been hampered by a lack of pronto obtainable venom harvested in a consistent manner , " Fry bewail . However , the tides on jellyfish venom inquiry may be changing with Fry ’s raw harvesting technique , the details of which have been published in the journalToxins .
The raw method acting uses a counterintuitive marrow to encourage the ocean creature to secrete its maliciousness : ethyl alcohol . The ethanol propel the spitefulness cells , called nematocysts , in the tentacles to discharge and squirt out spitefulness . This novel spitefulness can be collect straightaway and is mostly unpolluted .
The function of ethanol is interesting because it actually exasperate a jellyfish sting if spatter onto the damaged cutis . " It is very much a grammatical case of doing something that would be the ill-timed thing from a first - economic aid perspective , which ironically turns out to be an extremely childlike athletic field proficiency to obtain high - quality venom , " suppose Fry .
This technique is superscript to previous jellyfish milking method . Some take up to two weeks to collect venom while others only give a small issue of pure maliciousness . The risk of the maliciousness becoming foul with jellyfish mucus was incredibly probable as well . “ Our method acting is a practical one that can be used in the field with high efficiency , so it removes a major bottleneck from jellyfish venom research , " suppose Fry .
Of course , some challenge continue . Jellyfish are n’t happy sustenance in captivity , which means researchers must trek through the Australian wild – if not through the cyclone - prone areas then through crocodile territorial dominion – to find one of the deadliest sea creatures with a sting so afflictive it causes humans to go into shock .
Oh , Australia .
Central Image : Bryan Fry proudly holding up a Portuguese man-of-war . University of Queensland .
