this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2024
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Science Memes

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submitted 4 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 112 points 3 days ago (4 children)

The bite actually doesn't kill you, it just shuts down your nervous system so you can't breath.

I feel that's like saying "getting mauled by a bear doesn't kill you, it just causes major lacerations so all your blood leaks out". Technically sure, but it seems like a bit of a pedantic distinction...

[–] [email protected] 58 points 3 days ago

Reminds me of people who insisted COVID didn't kill anyone because it was the symptoms that actually killed people

[–] [email protected] 32 points 3 days ago

You’re not totally wrong but some things are not so easily treated as with rescue breathing. This is the same problem with any paralytic agent (e.g. botulism) is that the mechanism of death is suffocation since you can’t breathe. But from a rescue standpoint its really easy to breathe for someone whereas its not easy to stop multiple lacerations leading to exanguination and I think that is the point they were making is that this could be a survivable event if a rescuer is nearby.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I was thinking "it's not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop at the end."

[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 days ago (1 children)

It's not the sudden stop at the end that kills you. It's the different times at which parts of you stop.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

It's not the different times at which parts of you stop that kills you. It's the different places they are in when they do.

(C'mon, y'all. Help me out. I'm trying to start a thing here!)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

It's not the different places and times your body parts stop that kill you. It is the inflexibility of your connecting body parts inbetween?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

It's not the inflexibility of your connecting body parts that kills you. It's the insufficient tensile strength of the connecting tissue!

[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Getting bit by a venomous snake in Australia and you're blood starts to disassemble itself. The only counter is antivenom or die. Your blood breaking down is what kills you. And there is no way to separate the bite from that.

Being able to counter the venom in such a simple way is what makes it different. You can logically break it down into steps that are separable.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Yeap, but that's because the venom is a hemotoxin rather than a neurotoxin.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Correct.

For the hemotoxin, you aren't going to "just wait for the effects to wear off." The toxin will kill you.

For the neurotoxin, you can just wait out the effects by countering the symptoms. Can't breathe? Respirator can save your life.

The hemotoxin itself is doing terrible damage, but the neurotoxin itself doesn't do any "damage" other than disabling systems.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Yeah that's mostly true... But it's not like a hangover... I had a friend bitten by a snake out in the Mojave once and I'm sure she would have strong opinions about how strenuous the recovery was from it. Neurotoxins, especially potent ones, can be disruptive enough to create long term disabilities. If you are someone who performs a lot of skilled fine motor movements as part of your job or as part of a hobby or something it could be a significant amount of time for you to fully recover from a neurotoxin.

Cytotoxins are interesting as well, though generally not considered deadly they can really mess up your quality of life and be extremely debilitating, even disfiguring.

Generally just a good idea to stay away from anything venomous.