5 ms·

> The lethal dose when consumed orally is around 30 billionths of a gram, which if you want a relatable comparison, is about the same as if you cut a single pop

by sho 5y ago

> The lethal dose when consumed orally is around 30 billionths of a gram, which if you want a relatable comparison, is about the same as if you cut a single poppy seed into ten thousand equal pieces and ate one of them. It is an amount so tiny, it really doesn’t make sense. That's right - it makes no sense. How could such a small amount of anything do enough damage to shut down your entire body? According to wikipedia, it works by "cleaving key proteins required for nerve activation". Unless there's some self-replication mechanism, how does that even work? edit: I went and did the math. At an LD of 30 nanograms, that's about 1.2 billion actual molecules of this stuff to die. I guess that's enough to shut down a sufficient number of nerves that you just can't function anymore. The math: lethal dose / per molecule weight (molar mass / avogadro) (3.0e-10) / (149323.05 / 6.0221409e+23) = 1209888406.377984

tgv 5y ago
The thing that surprises me is: how does it get distributed widely enough? I would imagine that 30pg would lump together somewhere and damage a handful of neurons, not that it would spread and reach all essential parts of the nerve system.
- sbierwagen 5y ago
  Extracellular fluid is actively transported-- after all, it's where all gas exchange happens, and if you get a hypoxic spot in your body then those cells are going to die. The wikipedia article claims, without citation: "The extracellular fluid is constantly "stirred" by the circulatory system, which ensures that the watery environment which bathes the body's cells is virtually identical throughout the body. This means that nutrients can be secreted into the ECF in one place (e.g. the gut, liver, or fat cells) and will, within about a minute, be evenly distributed throughout the body."
tasty_freeze 5y ago
Wikipedia says "The estimated human lethal dose of type A toxin is 1.3–2.1 ng/kg intravenously or intramuscularly, 10–13 ng/kg when inhaled, or 1000 ng/kg when taken by mouth." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botulinum_toxin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botulinum_toxin
- vanderZwan 5y ago
  > 10–13 ng/kg when inhaled Well, that answers the poor "how would Saddam have gotten us to eat it?" joke in the article - disperse it as a cloud instead
linspace 5y ago
I guess that we must therefore make a separate category for self replicating, otherwise prions would be probably the winners. It's like code golf but with chemistry. Great article BTW.
pjc50 5y ago
It's a protease which matches key neural proteins. The key to recognise is that it's reusable: one molecule can keep breaking proteins, and as soon as it does that faster than homeostatic processes can replace them you're in trouble. Just how "rm -rf /" can destroy your whole system: it's a small character but it matches and destroys everything.
- msdrigg 5y ago
  Its a simple spell but quite unbreakable
flobosg 5y ago
> According to wikipedia, it works by "cleaving key proteins required for nerve activation". Unless there's some self-replication mechanism, how does that even work? The toxin is an enzyme and as such is not consumed during the cleavage reaction. A molecule of the botulinum toxin breaks down one protein molecule and then moves on to the next one until the toxin itself is degraded by the organism.
fullstackchris 5y ago
Terrifying, really

by sho 5y ago

tgv 5y ago

The thing that surprises me is: how does it get distributed widely enough? I would imagine that 30pg would lump together somewhere and damage a handful of neurons, not that it would spread and reach all essential parts of the nerve system.

sbierwagen 5y ago
Extracellular fluid is actively transported-- after all, it's where all gas exchange happens, and if you get a hypoxic spot in your body then those cells are going to die. The wikipedia article claims, without citation: "The extracellular fluid is constantly "stirred" by the circulatory system, which ensures that the watery environment which bathes the body's cells is virtually identical throughout the body. This means that nutrients can be secreted into the ECF in one place (e.g. the gut, liver, or fat cells) and will, within about a minute, be evenly distributed throughout the body."

tasty_freeze 5y ago

Wikipedia says "The estimated human lethal dose of type A toxin is 1.3–2.1 ng/kg intravenously or intramuscularly, 10–13 ng/kg when inhaled, or 1000 ng/kg when taken by mouth." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botulinum_toxin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botulinum_toxin

vanderZwan 5y ago
> 10–13 ng/kg when inhaled Well, that answers the poor "how would Saddam have gotten us to eat it?" joke in the article - disperse it as a cloud instead

linspace 5y ago

I guess that we must therefore make a separate category for self replicating, otherwise prions would be probably the winners. It's like code golf but with chemistry. Great article BTW.

pjc50 5y ago

It's a protease which matches key neural proteins. The key to recognise is that it's reusable: one molecule can keep breaking proteins, and as soon as it does that faster than homeostatic processes can replace them you're in trouble. Just how "rm -rf /" can destroy your whole system: it's a small character but it matches and destroys everything.

msdrigg 5y ago
Its a simple spell but quite unbreakable

flobosg 5y ago

> According to wikipedia, it works by "cleaving key proteins required for nerve activation". Unless there's some self-replication mechanism, how does that even work? The toxin is an enzyme and as such is not consumed during the cleavage reaction. A molecule of the botulinum toxin breaks down one protein molecule and then moves on to the next one until the toxin itself is degraded by the organism.

fullstackchris 5y ago

Terrifying, really