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Post by lordoftherings on Nov 21, 2005 16:10:56 GMT -4
I have just seen on a TV station someone eating a live scorpion, then pouring the deadly snake poison directly from the snake to a glass, mixing it with water and drinking it. Nothing happened to him. How can this happen? I don't know, it should have some explanation. It happened infront of the camera so no hoaxes are involved, well, most probably.
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Post by Retrograde on Nov 21, 2005 16:16:10 GMT -4
I have just seen on a TV station someone eating a live scorpion, then pouring the deadly snake poison directly from the snake to a glass, mixing it with water and drinking it. Nothing happened to him. How can this happen? I don't know, it should have some explanation. It happened infront of the camera so no hoaxes are involved, well, most probably. Don't know about scorpions, but my understanding is that snake venom would not be harmful if it is ingested, because the proteins which do the damage when injected into the bloodstream will be destroyed in the stomach.
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Post by lordoftherings on Nov 21, 2005 16:39:38 GMT -4
I have just seen on a TV station someone eating a live scorpion, then pouring the deadly snake poison directly from the snake to a glass, mixing it with water and drinking it. Nothing happened to him. How can this happen? I don't know, it should have some explanation. It happened infront of the camera so no hoaxes are involved, well, most probably. interesting. thnx. P.S. Why do you name yourself as such? (haven't read if you replied to "your-user-name why?" topic of margamatix
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Al Johnston
"Cheer up!" they said, "It could be worse!" So I did, and it was.
Posts: 1,453
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Post by Al Johnston on Nov 21, 2005 16:46:29 GMT -4
Don't know about scorpions, but my understanding is that snake venom would not be harmful if it is ingested, because the proteins which do the damage when injected into the bloodstream will be destroyed in the stomach. That's right about snake venom, I'd suspect that the eating a scorpion trick invovles biting through its nervous system before its tail gets anywhere it could sting you. Safer methods would be a) use a non-venomous species of scorpion b) sleight of hand ;D
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Post by JayUtah on Nov 21, 2005 19:00:57 GMT -4
Desert-dweller here.
The overwhelming number of scorpion species are relatively harmless unless you're allergic. Only one species possesses venom strong enough to do in a human being. Although scorpions are large and menacing, they usually impart no more of a sting than a wasp or a hornet. Not pleasant, but sufferable. Scorpions can be made torpid by heat or by various chemical means.
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Post by Retrograde on Nov 21, 2005 21:51:45 GMT -4
No trouble, looks like some other people know quite a bit about such things... You may or may not be familiar with the incident of 29 September 1960, in which Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev banged his shoe on the table during a speech at the United Nations. Where I live, a television network was running adverts of Khrushchev in a shoe store buying his shoes, around the time when I first started to visit web fora. So the idea just came to me...
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Post by BertL on Dec 4, 2005 12:33:01 GMT -4
I have just seen on a TV station someone eating a live scorpion, then pouring the deadly snake poison directly from the snake to a glass, mixing it with water and drinking it. Nothing happened to him. How can this happen? I don't know, it should have some explanation. It happened infront of the camera so no hoaxes are involved, well, most probably. You might want to re-watch the LOTR trilogy and ask yourself why Gimli seems so small when the actor was tallest of all. Seeing isn't always believing.
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lonewulf
Earth
Humanistic Cyborg
Posts: 244
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Post by lonewulf on Dec 4, 2005 12:50:47 GMT -4
I have to ask, though: It is possible to build up a resistance to certain deadly toxins, isn't it? Depending on how you handle them?
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Post by echnaton on Dec 4, 2005 20:37:10 GMT -4
A fellow named Wesley, once built up a resistance to an Australian poison, Iocane. This served him well and the end he got the girl.
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Post by Retrograde on Dec 4, 2005 21:06:54 GMT -4
A fellow named Wesley, once built up a resistance to an Australian poison, Iocane. This served him well and the end he got the girl. Yep, and look where it got him, he got to play Robin Hood for Mel Brooks...
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Post by ajv on Dec 4, 2005 21:39:16 GMT -4
And Michael Collins (From the Earth to the Moon)
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Al Johnston
"Cheer up!" they said, "It could be worse!" So I did, and it was.
Posts: 1,453
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Post by Al Johnston on Dec 5, 2005 7:01:48 GMT -4
I have to ask, though: It is possible to build up a resistance to certain deadly toxins, isn't it? Depending on how you handle them? Arsenic is the usual example: there are people exposed to relatively high levels in their diet, and some who deliberately acclimatise themselves to doses that would normally be fatal. IIRC both Lord Peter Wimsey and Sherlock Holmes confronted murderers who had done likewise.
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Post by PhantomWolf on Dec 5, 2005 7:50:49 GMT -4
Snake poison is pretty harmless with ingested, it has to get into the bloodstream to do damage, though there have been cases were it has proved fatal due to a stomach ulcer.
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Post by colinr on Dec 5, 2005 9:13:40 GMT -4
There's the whole US Special forces "Snake Eater" mindset as well, from what I understand it came into being during the Vietnam war, where to prover their manliness, (or stupidity) the SF soldier had to eat a snake - raw , including the Venom sac, usually left until last ! The principal being that swallowed whole the sac arrives intact in the stomach , where the digestive acids take care of the toxins , except where , as was mentioned , you have a break in the lining of the stomach ... You don't have to be mad to join.......
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Al Johnston
"Cheer up!" they said, "It could be worse!" So I did, and it was.
Posts: 1,453
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Post by Al Johnston on Dec 5, 2005 9:22:16 GMT -4
Then there's Fugu:
"...tasty fish, tasty fish, poison, tasty fish..."
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