Science
Top 10 deadliest poisons used by man
10. Arsenic
Arsenic is one of the classics. Hugely popular up to Victorian times, it was both easy to acquire and effective. It seems they couldn’t get enough of it, being a common ingredient in any number of household products from wallpaper to paints. Arsenic poisoning occurred accidentally from all these and natural sources with notable cases such as the loopy King George III of Britain.
The superficial effects of arsenic poisoning are jaundice and a skin rash, but this tends to be after a long build up. Acute poisoning from a high dose results in intense gastric distress basically everything goes wrong with your gut causing vomiting, diarrhea and bleeding, along with pain.
Death follows convulsions and coma with circulatory failure being the ultimate cause. This may happen within a few hours of ingestion.
9. Mustard Gas
Mustard gas, or sulfur mustard, shot to popularity in World War I. It was obviously decided that being pounded by heavy artillery in the trenches wasn’t sufficiently unpleasant so German scientists invented the chemical weapon. The name comes from the yellow-brown colour of the gas and the garlic like smell. However, no cooking ingredients were used in its manufacture – the active ingredient is highly reactive chlorine.
Despite only being fatal in around 1% of cases I’m including mustard gas because of its horrific nature. Its mode of action is basically to burn any part of the body it comes into contact with, whether that be skin, eyes or lungs. It forms large blisters on the skin and lungs and can even damage DNA leading to cancer. The gas is also capable of penetrating clothes and remaining active in the soil for prolonged periods.
8. Cyanide
Cyanide is one of the best known of all poisons. Perhaps best known as the suicide pills reputedly carried by secret agents it was also the active ingredient in the gas (Zyklon B) used by the Nazis in extermination camps such as Auschwitz. There is little doubt as to the effectiveness of this poison with death occurring almost immediately. Cyanide works by preventing cellular respiration; i.e. the body stops producing energy at the very lowest level causing what is termed “internal asphyxia”. This manifests itself in rapid breathing, dizziness, nausea, headache and ultimately convulsions.
Cyanide comes in two main forms hydrogen cyanide which is a gas and potassium cyanide which is a white powder. It occurs naturally in the stones of apricots, several plants and even apple pips. Whatever the source it is recognisable by a bitter-almond smell.
7. Strychnine
Another of the old favourites, Strychnine is infamous for its dramatic and painful effects. It works by attacking the central nervous system causing all the muscles in the body to violently contract at the same time. Such is the intensity of these convulsions that the victim will appear to “jackknife” back and forth in the latter stages of the poisoning.
Death occurs within 2 to 3 hours of ingestion and whilst usually the result of asphyxiation due to paralysis of the respiratory pathways it can also be caused by exhaustion from the convulsions.
Strychnine is derived from the seed of the dog button plant (Strychnos nux-vomica) which grows in tropical areas. In the past it was used to treat a wide range of medical conditions. These days though its primary use is as a pesticide and rat poison, however, some drug dealers apparently add it to heroine to smooth the effects!
6. Ricin
©HediBougghanmi2014 / Wikimedia
Whilst castor oil may be touted for its health giving properties the other product of this plant (Ricinus communis) is the polar opposite. A dose of less than a sprinkling of salt will kill an adult. It is derived from the castor bean and it is the part that is left behind after the oil is extracted that is poisonous. Ingestion of ricin is actually not often fatal as it is difficult to digest; it is much more dangerous if inhaled or injected. That said the most common form of poisoning occurs from eating castor beans why anyone would do this I have no idea but as few as 5 beans could prove fatal.
Ricin acts by preventing protein synthesis. This means cells slowly grind to a halt and essential operations cease as enzymes aren’t produced. It may take up to a day for symptoms to show and these will vary depending on the method of exposure.
5. Sarin
Sarin was made famous by the attacks on the Tokyo subway by the lunatic religious cult Aum Shinrikyo in the mid 1990s. The fact that fatalities were relatively low does not reflect the toxicity of this nerve agent. Developed as a chemical weapon in WWII sarin is a deadly organophosphate also known as GB and is reputedly 26 times more deadly than cyanide.
The mode of action for all nerve agents is to prevent nerve endings from switching off. Death results from loss of control of the muscles required for breathing and asphyxiation. The immediate effects of the toxin are a loss of control of bodily functions. Convulsions follow along with coma and death within an hour.
4. VX
The United Kingdom can be proud to have developed what is the most potent nerve agent on Earth. So deadly was this toxin that they codenamed it Purple Possum Unlike virtually every other poison on this list VX does not occur naturally, it is completely man-made and was developed to kill as effectively as possible. The good news is it was banned in 1993 meaning the USA have had to dump its stockpiles. Russia are meanwhile in the process.
Symptoms are as with sarin but VX is more potent. These may begin within seconds of exposure and death is likely to result from respiratory failure.
VX is the chemical that features in the 1996 film The Rock in which San Francisco is threatened with attack. It is also believed that VX was responsible for the deaths of 6,000 sheep in an incident known as the Skull Valley sheep kill in Utah near a US Army testing base.
3. Arrow poison frog
Photo: Brian Gratwicke / Wikimedia
Primarily the batrachotoxin poisons from the skin of certain frog species has been used to coat the tips of hunting darts by certain Amazonian Indians. Given human nature, I imagine a few of these darts have ended up finding a human target with lethal effect. Batrachotoxin is collected from the toxic secretions of frogs from the Dendrobatidae family although it can also be found in some beetles and birds. The golden poison dart frog is around the size of the end of your thumb yet contains enough venom to kill 10 men! For this reason poison dart frogs can afford to be outrageously brightly coloured.
Batrachotoxin is the most powerful naturally occurring neurotoxin with a dose equivalent to just 2 grains of table salt being enough to kill an adult human. It works in tow ways; both as a neurotoxin, causing paralysis and as a cardiotoxin, directly effecting the heart muscles. This makes death almost inevitable and within a matter of minutes.
2. Polonium
The element polonium is the ultimate 21st century poison and has been linked to the deaths of Russian dissidents and even Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat. It is intensely toxic to living things and as such has no known biological role. In its commonest form, Polonium 210 it is reportedly 250,000 times more toxic than hydrogen cyanide. This toxicity is radioactive in nature and caused by the release of alpha particles which damage organic tissue. Alpha particles cannot penetrate the skin but if the polonium is ingested, inhaled or injected it is lethal in the tiniest of doses. In theory a single gram of polonium 210 could kill 10 million people. If the acute effects of radiation poisoning don’t kill you then some form of cancer probably will.
Being a radioactive element, polonium is fortunately both difficult to acquire and handle. This means it is largely reserved for use by governments.
1. Botulinum toxin
Whilst it is impractical to kill using isolated botulinum toxin I’m including it here due to the staggering toxicity of this naturally occurring poison. It is the most poisonous substance known to man. It is estimated that a single teaspoon of botulinum toxin would be sufficient to kill over 1 billion people.
Obviously these figures made the toxin irresistible to weapons developers and it is believed that Sadam era Iraq may have concentrated enough botulinum toxin to wipe out everyone on Earth, 3 times over.
The toxin is produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum which can be found worldwide. In its lethal form it is most commonly encountered as botulism occurring when food contaminated with the bacteria is consumed. This form of food poisoning has killed countless people over the ages but is easily avoided by heating the food to over 100 degrees C for a minute. Botulism has been used as a method to murder people on a number of occasions through purposely contaminating food. Botulism can also occur from infected wounds. These days botulism is rarely fatal. In serious cases the neurotoxin causes a wide range of symptoms from paralysis to breakdown of internal organs and death.
Ironically botulinum toxin has found a role in the medical and cosmetic world. It is used to treat excessive sweating, migraine headaches and unsightly wrinkles on lady’s foreheads in the from of Botox. It was estimated that one gram of the toxin was enough to satisfy the worlds annual requirement of Botox.
Science
Top 10 Space Stories of the Decade
10. Saturn Moon Titan Explored
On Jan. 14, 2005, the European Space Agency’s Huygens probe dropped through Titan’s atmosphere after a seven-year trek attached to NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. Huygens wasn’t designed to live for very long after atmospheric reentry, but it unveiled a mysterious outer solar system world to us for the first time.
Before this mission, very little was known about Saturn’s largest moon, and scientists were unsure whether Huygens would land on a rocky surface or in an ocean. Titan’s thick atmosphere composed of primarily nitrogen and clouds of methane and ethane, about 50 percent thicker than our atmosphere signaled to scientists that Titan was similar to a young Earth.
Observations from the Huygens probe and Cassini spacecraft tell us that Titan and Earth share many features, such as sand dunes and lakes. But these features are heavily laced with organic molcules that could support life, leading researchers to speculate about Titan’s potential to nurture microbes.
9. Moon Water Confirmed
India’s Chandrayaan-1 satellite confirmed the presence of water on the moon in September 2009, building on flyby observations by other probes on their way elsewhere. Although the lunar surface is still drier than Earth’s driest desert, evidence of water is there, hinting at a solar wind interaction with the moon’s surface that produces water and hydroxyl molecules.
It may not be an oasis up there, but future moon colonists could extract and purify the traces of water from the surface to use for drinking, food cultivation, oxygen and fuel. Or, our colonists could take a trek to the moon’s poles to mine water from the deepest craters
On Oct. 9, 2009, NASA dropped a spent rocket into a crater to produce a 100-foot-wide hole. They found water there too. That rocket produced a massive plume of dust that was analyzed by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and ground-based observatories. At least 25 gallons of water ice was detected in the plume.
8. Organic Chemistry Collected from Comet’s Tail
In 2004, the NASA Stardust mission chased after Comet Wild 2 to find out if the icy mass contained the building blocks for life, since meteorites found on Earth contained organic chemistry that originated from space. Sure enough, in August 2009, NASA announced that they had found samples of glycine an amino acid in Stardust’s collection plates. It didn’t stop there, there’s increasing evidence that exoplanets orbiting distant stars contain organic chemistry in their atmospheres.
In 2008, organic chemicals were detected in the disk surrounding a star called HR 4796A, 220 light-years from Earth. And most recently, NASA’s Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes detected carbon dioxide, methane and water vapor in the atmosphere of an exoplanet called HD 209458b.
These discoveries, sparked by Stardust, have transformed our understanding about how life may have formed on Earth. They also give us a strong hint that life may not be unique to Earth; the universe appears to be manufacturing organic chemistry everywhere.
7. A Supermassive Black Hole on Our Doorstep
There’s a monster living in the center of our galaxy, 26,000 light-years from Earth. By 2008, astronomers tracking the behavior of stars orbiting an invisible point confirmed that the monster is a supermassive black hole called Sagittarius A.
A lone star called “S2,” with a very fast orbit, has been tracked since 1995 around this invisible point. In 2002, Rainer Schödel and his team at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics announced that the only explanation for S2’s fast orbit was that it was circling a very compact, massive object a supermassive black hole that was stopping the star from flinging out of its orbit into space.
In 2008, after S2 completed one 16-year orbit, it was confirmed that the star was orbiting a black hole with a gargantuan mass of approximately 4.3 million suns. The confirmation of a supermassive black hole in the center of the Milky Way boosted the theory that most galaxies contain a supermassive black hole at their cores.
6. Big Bang “Echo” Mapped for the First Time
In June 2001, NASA set out to find the ancient “echo” of the Big Bang by mapping the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation that buzzes like static throughout the cosmos, using the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) .
When the universe was born, vast amounts of energy were unleashed, which eventually condensed into the stuff that makes up the mass of what we see today. The radiation that was created by the Big Bang still exists, but as faint microwaves.
By mapping slight variations in the CMB radiation, the probe has been able to precisely measure the age of the universe (13.73 billion years old) and work out that a huge 96 percent of the mass of the universe is made up of stuff we cannot see. Only 4 percent of the cosmic mass is held in the stars and galaxies we observe; the rest is held in “dark energy” and “dark matter.”
5. Hubble Gets to Grips with Dark Energy
In 2002, the Hubble Space Telescope was upgraded with a new instrument, the Advanced Camera for Surveys, that revealed the presence of a mysterious force called “dark energy.”
The camera was set up to help researchers understand why Type Ia supernovae were dimmer than expected. Hubble’s observations of these supernovae discovered that they weren’t dimmer because the stars were different (they should all explode with the same brightness). The only explanation was that the universe’s expansion was unexpectedly and inexplicably speeding up. This accelerated expansion was making the light dim over vast cosmic distances. Hubble’s discovery led to a better understanding of what dark energy is — an invisible force that opposes gravity, causing the universe’s expansion to speed up.
4. Eris Discovered; Pluto Demoted
In January 2005, Mike Brown and his team at Palomar Observatory, Calif. discovered 136199 Eris, a minor body that is 27 percent bigger than Pluto. Eris had trumped Pluto and become the 9th largest body known to orbit the sun.
In 2006, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) decided that the likelihood of finding more small rocky bodies in the outer solar system was so high that the definition “a planet” needed to be reconsidered. The end result: Pluto was reclassified as a dwarf planet and it acquired a “minor planet designator” in front of its name: “134340 Pluto.”
Mike Brown’s 2005 discovery of Eris was the trigger that changed the face of our solar system, defining the planets and adding Pluto to a growing family of dwarf planets.
3. Dark Matter Detected
In the summer of 2006, astronomers made an announcement that helped humans understand the cosmos a little better: They had direct evidence confirming the existence of dark matter — even though they still can’t say what exactly the stuff is. The unprecedented evidence came from the careful weighing of gas and stars flung about in the head-on smash-up between two great clusters of galaxies in the Bullet Cluster.
Until then, the existence of dark matter was inferred by the fact that galaxies have only one-fifth of the visible matter needed to create the gravity that keeps them intact. So the rest must be invisible to telescopes: That unseen matter is “dark.”
The observations of the Bullet Cluster, officially known as galaxy cluster 1E0657-56, did not explain what dark matter is. They did, however, give researchers hints that dark matter particles act a certain way, which they can build on.
2. Mars Surface Gives up Signs of Water
In 2008, NASA’s Mars Phoenix lander touched down on the Red Planet to confirm the presence of water and seek out signs of organic compounds. Eight years before, the Mars Global Surveyor spotted what appeared to be gullies carved into the landscape by flowing water. More recently, the Mars Expedition Rovers have uncovered minerals that also indicated the presence of ancient water. But proof of modern-day water was illusive.
Then Phoenix, planted on the ground near the North Pole, did some digging for samples to analyze. During one dig, the onboard cameras spotted a white powder in the freshly dug soil. In comparison images taken over the coming days, the powder slowly vanished. After intense analysis, the white powder was confirmed as water ice.
This discovery not only confirmed the presence of water on the Red Planet, it reenergized the hope that some kind of microbial life might be using this water supply to survive.
1. Alien Planets Spotted Directly
The first alien planets — called exoplanets — were being detected in the early 1990s, but not directly. In 2000, astronomers detected a handful by looking for a star’s “wobble,” or a star’s slight dimming as the exoplanet passed in front of it. Today we know of 400 exoplanets. In 2008, astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope and the infrared Keck and Gemini observatories in Hawaii announced that they had “seen” exoplanets orbiting distant stars. The two observatories had taken images of these alien worlds.
The Keck observation was the infrared detection of three exoplanets orbiting a star called HR8799, 150 light-years from Earth. Hubble spotted one massive exoplanet orbiting the star Fomalhaut, 25 light-years from Earth. These finds pose a profound question: How long will it be until we spot an Earth-like world with an extraterrestrial civilization looking back at us?
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Science
10 Superhuman Real Life Superpowers
10.Human Magnets
You will find many individuals on the planet that claim to get the amazing property to develop a magnetic field that causes metal to stick for their skin, which will be remarkable if this were truly true. Obviously, their forces aren’t limited to steel, in addition they get plastic to stick too and they don’t trigger any sort of troubles with electronic device.
Turns away they’re maybe not truly magnetic, but rather have amazingly tacky epidermis, which can be just total, however, it will be nice to help you instead of placing it in your pocket to stick your telephone to your own torso, I guess.
9.Super Memory
Daniel Tammet recalls pi to over twenty two thousand digits, can talk five languages and continues to be studied extensively by neurobiologists because he is able to clarify precisely how he does it. Do n’t get your hopes up though, he can do all this because he has synaesthesia, where he experiences shapes, textures and colors when he thinks of numbers and phrases.
In a single case he then appeared in a interview talking the terminology and was able to understand audio Icelandic in a week.
8.Mr Eat-all
Have you ever ever not been so full that you just wanted to consume a Cessna plane that was whole? How about a coffin? Possibly a computer? You’re a regular person if you answered no to most of these questions, but you’re also not a person using an real super strength. Michel Lotito, also known as Mr Eat-all, had the power to consume and, moreover, shit out anything you can think of without the damage, including poisonous substances.
If the typical person consumed any of those items subsequently they’d be left with serious problems, but maybe not Mr Eat-all, although with that mentioned so his strength wasn’t just best he did also perish at the age of 57.
7.Tame Wild Animals
Richardson gets the ability to tame just about any animal, it seems, as long as they are reared by him from infancy, that might not seem spectacular initially, but a pride of lions tries and join without any taming approaches that are conventional and see how well that goes for you.
Taming big cats isn’t sunshine and all puppy dogs, there’s quite a serious problem with having a pride of lions treat you as one of their very own, for instance they’ll also perform with battle with you, which, as you are able to imagine, is quite painful.
6.Strongest Man in History
Louis Cyr proved to be a strong man that is classical, except with one important variation, he was much better than everybody else by a long shot. Doing a back lift he managed to raise just under two tonnes, he also wrestled a guy around 2 feet taller than him and won.
His record breaking efforts have not yet been overtaken by anybody including these who’ve obtained steroids, even today.
5.The Human Computer
Shakuntala Devi was an Indian social worker with some psychological abilities that are quite amazing, Some may call her a genius in mental calculating; I, however, might call her a machine from the future that was destroyed in the search for Sarah Connor.
Shakuntala had the ability in blistering speed to perform mental calculations, for instance she was able to compute the cube root of sixty one million, six-hundred and twenty-nine-thousand, eight hundred and seventy five before the person checking her answers could write her answer down.
4.Godhand
Mas Oyama was an amazing example of what the human body could be capable of, he created his own full contact karate and has a black belt in two different disciplines than just his own. Oyama was of exactly what the body could possibly be competent of an incredible exampl, he produced his own full contact karate and has a blackbelt in two disciplines that were different than just his own.
He showed his strength and endurance by killing fully grown bulls with one blow and participating in three different hundred-man fighting competitions in a row, He showed endurance and his strength by killing fully bulls that were grown with one blow and participating in three distinct hundred-man fighting competitions in a row, In which he fought 100 trained karate experts a day off for three days.
3.Iceman
WimHof does possess a whimsical name, he also has got the ability to withstand insanely low temps that would kill many people were they exposed for how long to them that he sets through himself.
Ice man ran a marathon in –20 °C (-4 °F) weather in only a pair of short pants, he also tried to scale Mount Everest in precisely the same attire, but couldn’t ensure it is all the way up because of a foot injury. He also holds the world record for the greatest quantity of time spent submerged in ice.
2. Ultra Endurance
1. Super Reflexes
Science
10 Islands that may disappear
The rise of the ocean level could function as the biggest menace to the entire world in the days in the future. If global temperatures continue to go unabated sea levels all over the world could increase by as much as five yards incoming generations, that may seriously impact low lying islands and states. Sea levels have increased 6 to 8 ins in the previous 100 years. Also, it’s been discovered that Antarctic is now shedding around 159 billion tonnes of ice every year for the island countries currently living at sea level, which presents a problem that is new.
Let’s check out 10 such islands which is impacted by climate change crisis.
Solomon Islands
Solomon Islands is a sovereign nation composed of a substantial number of islands in Oceania lying to the east of Northwest and Papua New Guinea of Vanuatu.
As a result of debilitating aftereffects of climate change the Low Lying lands of the Solomon Islands are severely affected with decreased property area and crops failing.
Maldives
Maldives is just another island that might be shortly lost to rising ocean levels. With the average floor level altitude of 1.5 metres above sea level, Maldives is our planet’s cheapest state. And because of the geographic location it’s due to inundation from climate change, the most state.
President of the Maldives Mohamed Nasheed stated that “If carbon emissions continue at the speed they’re rising nowadays, my state will likely be submerged in seven years.”
Republic of Cape Verde
Republic of Cabo Verde is an island nation spanning an archipelago of 10 islands in the Atlantic Ocean that is central. Cape Verde is exceptionally exposed to climate change and sea level increase as it detrimentally affects the environment, market and society.
Palau
Palau, formally the Republic of Palau, is an island region situated in the western Pacific Sea. The citizenry of around 21,000 is spread across 250 islands developing the developed chain of the Caroline Islands. As global warming causes sea levels to inch up, Palau is facing severe floods which makes inhabitants live under constant fear of their homes being washed away.
Fiji
Fiji covers a complete part of some 194,000 square kilometres (75,000 sq mi) that around 10% island. The nation includes much more than 500 islets, amounting to some total property area of circa 18, 300 square kilometers, and an archipelago of more than 332 countries, that 110 are forever inhabited.
Based on 4th examination report of IPCC, Fiji is currently experiencing coastal erosion because of which human arrangement and water resources have reached an increased threat because of sea level rise.
Torres Strait Islands
Torres Strait Islands are a small grouping of at the least 274 tiny islands which lie in Torres Strait. Climate change triggers some serious issues within this island, like floods damage erosion, coral bleaching etc.
Seychelles
Seychelles includes 115 granite and coral islands in the western Indian Ocean, having a population of 87,122. A rise of just three feet would submerge the Maldives and make them uninhabitable. Also it has witnessed the world`s worst coral die-off.
Tegua
The United Nations reported the approximately 100 residents of Tegua, part of the Torres Strait Islands positioned in the Pacific, the primary climate change refugees in 2005.
The sea-level also increased, triggering in regards to a quarter of the flooding, although a lot of the flooding was because the island sunk almost five inches between 1997 and 2009.
Micronesia
Micronesia is just a subregion of Oceania and contains thousands of tiny countries while in the western Pacific Ocean. There are four primarily archipelagos along with a number of other outlying destinations.
The sea water is regularly killing off food plants. Scientists warn that a one meter rise that is tiny would produce the area uninhabitable.
Kiribati islands
Kiribati is definitely an island country within the tropical Pacific Sea that is main. The country consists of 32 atolls and one raised coral island, Banaba. It’s a populace 697, of 102.
Due to the increasing sea level, nearly all of it territory disappeared under the ocean which caused most of its population to move to another island, Tarawam.
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