3 ms·
Once ingested, water dissolves a disk of sugar, using a spring to release a tiny needle made up almost entirely of freeze-dried insulin. The needle is injected
by Pharmakon 8y ago
Once ingested, water dissolves a disk of sugar, using a spring to release a tiny needle made up almost entirely of freeze-dried insulin. The needle is injected into the stomach — which the patient can’t feel, owing to a lack of pain receptors in the stomach. Once the injection has occurred, the needle can break down in the digestive tract.
With the right compound in the needle, thst sounds like an incredible way to assassinate someone without leaving any traces which are unlikely to be found. The combination of a tiny needle mark on the inside of the stomach, a lack of dissolved pills in the gut, and a likely delay between administration and onset of effects, it’s sort of perfect.
- emiliobumachar 8y agoSorry, I don't think so. Getting someone to swallow a pill sounds strictly harder then getting them to swallow a liquid.
- Pharmakon 8y agoIt’s a sugar pill, if the target eats candy or takes any other pill it would be doable. It would also be easy to slip into food. Liquid is easier, but will leave unavoidable forensic evidence. If making something look like natural causes even under extreme scrutiny is the goal, this is a hell of a way to do it.
- hannasanarion 8y agoHow often do you swallow candy without chewing?
- Pharmakon 8y agoYeah... that’s a good point. Candy is probably out, but with the number of supplements and pills people take, that’s probably easier. Then of course you have the challenge of accessing them at some point, but no one said that attempting an assassination like this would be easy. More of a problem would be that if it didn’t work, and was discovered, it would be very clear that a government or similarly powerful organization was involved. So good for secrecy, bad for deniability. All told, strangling someone and making it look like a suicide, or “helping” someone make a jump is probably still simpler and safer.
- phkahler 8y ago>> With the right compound in the needle, thst sounds like an incredible way to assassinate someone without leaving any traces which are unlikely to be found. If I recall correctly there was a story about a CIA weapon that shot a needle or dart made of a frozen toxin. It would penetrate the skin, melt, and cause a heart attack. There would be no evidence other than an incredibly hard to find hole in the skin with no physical object to be found.
- Nasrudith 8y agoI don't think that myth would work out although it is a common one. Namely it would show up on a tox screen in some way presumably. Since that is usually how poisonings are found - granted they would need to do an autopsy in the first place.
- Pharmakon 8y agoThe interesting thing that isn’t usually an issue with tox screens is the they are limited. You can search whole classes or drugs, but ultimately a truly novel poison would be detectable in principle, but likely to go unnoticed. Now for you and me that’s enough, because we have the resources of individuals, but a large lab and especially a government can afford to engineer toxins that are not tested yet. Having said that, such a toxin that could also be frozen and the resulting “dart” being strong enough to survive being fired into someone, is not perfect. Like the poison umbrella, you’d expect traces of toxin to be found around the wound, and even small wounds become evident under ALS.
- Simon_says 8y agoWhat is ALS? I'm presuming you don't mean amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
- Pharmakon 8y agoSorry about that, you’re right too, it’s Alternate Light Source.
- BurningFrog 8y agoPerhaps this is a "peace dividend" of a military project, much like the Hubble Telescope.
- pavelrub 8y agoSeems like a very complicated and expensive way of administering poison. The real question here isn't the delivery mechanism, but the properties of this magical compound - whether it leaves any traces in the body, and what symptoms it causes.