Post by Lisa Petrison on Feb 3, 2012 12:41:42 GMT -5
Here is an article from National Geographic discussing various types of toxins. The part on the ion channel toxins is interesting, as is the part about how arsenic and mold might have worked together to kill Napoleon.
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Poisoned by his wallpaper, theorizes David Jones, an immunologist at the University of Newcastle in England. The wallpaper at Longwood House, where Napoleon lived his last years, was painted with Scheele's green, an arsenic compound called copper arsenide. When attacked by certain molds, possibly present in the damp environment of St. Helena, arsenic would have been released into the air. In the late 1950s Clare Boothe Luce, the American ambassador to Italy, was diagnosed with arsenic poisoning caused by paint chips falling from the stucco roses on her bedroom ceiling.
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Roderick MacKinnon, winner of the 2003 Nobel Prize in chemistry, used tarantula and scorpion venom to help decipher the structure and function of potassium ion channels in cells.
Ion channels are conduits, like gates, that control the transmission of electrical impulses within cells. Because their opening and shutting in the cell's membrane controls the entry of potassium, calcium, sodium, or chloride ions, the channels and their receptors act as on-off switches that allow a thought, a heartbeat, a breath, the lift of an eyebrow to proceed—or not.
Tarantula toxins can stimulate receptors to hold a gate open in the neurological equivalent of an electrical surge, or slam it shut in the equivalent of a power failure. A busted gate provokes conditions ranging from numbing to outright paralysis on one end to muscle contractions or convulsions on the other. The same malfunction can provoke high blood pressure, cardiac arrhythmia, or epilepsy.
Spider venoms provoke such potent physiological responses that they turn a spider into a virtual Svengali. But why doesn't a spider just knock out its prey and sit down to lunch? In life things are always complicated, Kristensen says. A tree spider may not want a fast knockout: Its meal would curl up and fall out of the tree. Paralysis is the better option. It's the insect equivalent of the surgical strike.
So scientists seek the chemical mastery of the spider. Says Kristensen, "Who controls potassium channels controls the world."
science.nationalgeographic.com/health-and-human-body/human-body/poison-toxic-tales/#page=1
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Poisoned by his wallpaper, theorizes David Jones, an immunologist at the University of Newcastle in England. The wallpaper at Longwood House, where Napoleon lived his last years, was painted with Scheele's green, an arsenic compound called copper arsenide. When attacked by certain molds, possibly present in the damp environment of St. Helena, arsenic would have been released into the air. In the late 1950s Clare Boothe Luce, the American ambassador to Italy, was diagnosed with arsenic poisoning caused by paint chips falling from the stucco roses on her bedroom ceiling.
*
Roderick MacKinnon, winner of the 2003 Nobel Prize in chemistry, used tarantula and scorpion venom to help decipher the structure and function of potassium ion channels in cells.
Ion channels are conduits, like gates, that control the transmission of electrical impulses within cells. Because their opening and shutting in the cell's membrane controls the entry of potassium, calcium, sodium, or chloride ions, the channels and their receptors act as on-off switches that allow a thought, a heartbeat, a breath, the lift of an eyebrow to proceed—or not.
Tarantula toxins can stimulate receptors to hold a gate open in the neurological equivalent of an electrical surge, or slam it shut in the equivalent of a power failure. A busted gate provokes conditions ranging from numbing to outright paralysis on one end to muscle contractions or convulsions on the other. The same malfunction can provoke high blood pressure, cardiac arrhythmia, or epilepsy.
Spider venoms provoke such potent physiological responses that they turn a spider into a virtual Svengali. But why doesn't a spider just knock out its prey and sit down to lunch? In life things are always complicated, Kristensen says. A tree spider may not want a fast knockout: Its meal would curl up and fall out of the tree. Paralysis is the better option. It's the insect equivalent of the surgical strike.
So scientists seek the chemical mastery of the spider. Says Kristensen, "Who controls potassium channels controls the world."
science.nationalgeographic.com/health-and-human-body/human-body/poison-toxic-tales/#page=1