If you are suffering from a persistent headache, don’t be tempted to eat mothballs. In 2011, a 34-year old patient was admitted (unconscious) to a hospital emergency department in Amsterdam “following the ingestion of camphor mothballs for persisting headaches”. Fortunately, after a week or so of intensive clinical care she recovered and was discharged in […]
Tag: poison
Squeezing the Data From Squeezing the Face (with added poison)
Should patients — after they have had poison injected into their face — then squeeze their face? If so, then how often, and exactly where? Those are the bundled questions this study tried to get at, with perhaps a hint that further attempts to answer the questions might be able to produce some hint of […]
Cyanide moths – ok snack for kids
Some types of moth, notably the Zygaena genus, can contain significant quantities of cyanide, raising the question ‘Is it a good idea to eat them?’ The question has particular relevance since the moths are a traditional favourite snack amongst children from the Carnia region of Italy. The children like to eat the moths´ingluvies (roughly equivalent […]
Snake bite suction devices – a (pessimistic) review
What should one do if bitten, say, by a pit-viper? Perhaps make use of a proprietary snakebite venom suction device? Maybe not such a good idea, according to recent research from Professor Sean P. Bush, MD, FACEP, (pictured right, holding a sea-snake) of the Department of Emergency Medicine, Loma Linda University School of Medicine, Medical […]
Some say strychnine
Chemistry Blog muses about names: (4aR,5aS,8aR,8a1S,15aS)-4a1,5,5a,7,8,8a1,15,15a-octahydro-2H-4,6-methanoindolo[3,2,1-ij]oxepino[2,3,4-de]pyrrolo[2,3-h]quinolin-14(4aH)-one. Imagine if Agatha Christie had to write that every time she had to mention the poison used in the murder, or if Hitchcock’s leading man had to vocalise it in the courtroom. Well they’d never get the book or the film down to a manageable size. It’s much easier […]
Wild about thallium, not about head wax
From the short essay “Periodic Craziness“, about Deborah Blum’s probably-unique attempt to get her son to enjoy chemistry: I say. “Tl, that’s thallium. Incredibly cool poison. Almost perfect if you wanted to kill someone. Except for one thing. Guess what that is?” Silence. Minor eye roll. My son knows I’m going to tell him anyway. “It […]
Be she the scientific scourge of cats?
A November 1 report in the Los Angeles Times reads like an extract from a crime novel: Smithsonian bird researcher is convicted of trying to poison cats A postdoctoral researcher at the Smithsonian’s Migratory Bird Center at the National Zoo was found guilty Monday of attempting to poison cats in her northwest Washington neighborhood. Security […]
Death by chili pepper?
Katherine Gammon, writing for Life’s Little Mysteries, interviewed 1999 Ig Nobel Prize winner (for developing a spiceless jalapeno chili pepper) Paul Bosland a pointed question: Can Eating Too Much Spicy Food Kill You? What exactly are the health impacts of eating really hot chili peppers? Can eating too much of the spicy stuff kill you? To answer this […]
The Clown, The Kids, the Botulinum Toxin
Experiments in Denmark explore what happens when you combine a clown, several children, and injections of botulinum toxin. Details are in the study: “Effect of a clown’s presence at botulinum toxin injections in children: a randomized, prospective study,” Lars Kjaersgaard Hansen, Maria Kibaek, Torben Martinussen [pictured here], Lene Kragh, Mogens Hej, Journal of Pain Research, vol. […]
Tycho Brahe comes up for review again
John Mattson reports in Scientific American [with emphasis added here by us]: Brahe died at age 54 after, as the story goes, he stayed at the table too long without relieving himself during a formal dinner, possibly bursting his bladder in the process. That last legend may soon be challenged, as Brahe is being disinterred […]