Toxic people could become a reality, scientists researching snake venom say

https://www.irishexaminer.com/world/arid-40254002.html

75 87 5 years ago

mgarfias• 5 years ago

Toxic headline is toxic.

libria2• 5 years ago

Yeah, obvious clickbait. An animal is venomous, the venom is toxic (a toxin). I wouldn't call a cobra "toxic" unless it was constantly starting flamewars on Facebook.

dumbfoundded2• 5 years ago

Apparently you haven't heard of Cobra Kai

saurik• 5 years ago

I mean, it would be a lot less useful in _battle_, but as a natural defense being toxic isn't that bad... as long as there have been enough of you for a long enough time and you are recognizable / memorable enough for your predator to know "not that one".

mrfusion2• 5 years ago

How would laws evolve to handle this?

wincy• 5 years ago

I’m not sure they’d even need to evolve, it’s already illegal to bite people. It probably wouldn’t even need to be made more illegal than it already is.

mrfusion2• 5 years ago

A single bite would be deadly though. Could they force you to produce an anti-venom?

type0• 5 years ago

It's good to know if you ever end up in a Mad TV Playstation 3 situation.

temp0826• 5 years ago

I’ll try adding it when I have to update the registration for my fists as lethal weapons.

airhead9698• 5 years ago

My tongue is lethal, but not how you think.

Edit: SMH. I end up spraying more than I say.

anigbrowl2• 5 years ago

Some police departments already classify body parts as 'personal weapons'. I recall a case in california a few years ago where a pre-teen was mistakenly arrested over an alleged-but-not-remotely-plausible resemblance to a burglary suspect.

I can't remember the exact location or details sufficiently well to look it up but I remember the bit about personal weapons as an odd fact that jumped out at me from a copy of the arrest report.

platty• 5 years ago

I knew a ton of toxic people in high school, can't believe the research is catching up

colineartheta• 5 years ago

Look at this guy, only a ton in high school. If only we could all be so luck...

airhead9698• 5 years ago

There are some venomous mammals.

Coincidentally, there was a posting today about it earlier.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26635391

k__• 5 years ago

Aren't human bites toxic for humans already?

gruez• 5 years ago

They are?

arthurcolle• 5 years ago

Yes. Mouth bacteria and viruses in human mouths are the factors. Not something I'd be super worried about in general. (That being said, I was bitten by a psycho when I was 8 and didn't die so that's cool.)

https://www.mayoclinic.org/first-aid/first-aid-human-bites/b....

jimbob45• 5 years ago

Yeah, if you get bitten by a homeless individual (or any individual), you need to be rushed to the ER to ensure you don’t get dangerous bacteria in your bloodstream running free.

Edit: there appears to be debate over my wording but just please don’t miss the lesson here: seek medical attention if bitten.

Teknoman117• 5 years ago

They are probably talking about how deep bites from humans have a high chance of becoming infected if not treated.

Our mouths are quite dirty in general.

malwarebytess• 5 years ago

Scientists have found the genetic foundation needed for oral venom to evolve is present in both reptiles and mammals, and said their study shows the first concrete evidence of a link between venom glands in snakes and salivary glands in mammals.

You're talking about oral bacteria. Article is talking about actual venom.

airhead9698• 5 years ago

With the advent of genetic design and designer babies, I don't see how ethics alone can prevent "soldier" and "assassin" specialists from being born that have all sorts of enhancements.

simcop2387• 5 years ago

I think we'll be fine as long as nobody names one of them Khan Noonien Singh. But seriously, I agree, someone will do it and then it'll be another multi-armed race.

airhead9698• 5 years ago

Anti-critters crawling into ears armor.

I want a prehensile tail and feet. Maybe some gene therapy can make that happen to grow and remodel existing tissue?

whatshisface• 5 years ago

A literal multi-armed race.

mc32• 5 years ago

How do they ensure being venomous to others while remaining immune themselves?

etiam• 5 years ago

Start slowly :)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20074160

ravenstine• 5 years ago

What if that's better? Everyone could have a purpose and not need to search for it, often in futility.

brendoelfrendo• 5 years ago

What if they aren't interested in, or worse, resent their "purpose," but can't change it due to some societal and genetic pigeon-holing? That sounds worse than searching for a purpose for myself, tbh.

sneak2• 5 years ago

There's no indication that someone's genetically-specialized vocation would be something that that person would personally be interested in pursuing. There are numerous counterexamples of a person's choices in life being orthogonal or even entirely opposed to their parents' hopes and desires for their life.

I wouldn't be that into assassination as a vocation even if I had superpowers that made me an extremely good assassin, for example.

Obligatory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World

JellyBeanThief• 5 years ago

Not everyone wants a purpose, many people who have purposes imposed on them by parents or other authority figures later reject them, and not everybody who does want a purpose thinks of it as a search.

Purposes are tools humans use to give their own lives meaning, if they desire. Purposes should serve humans, not the other way around.

SerLava• 5 years ago

That's horrible. I think you don't know what a meaningful life is.

dillondoyle• 5 years ago

I've thought about it and there are for sure small physical things I'd love to change from birth to benefit my sport/hobbies.

But the problem is parents would be making that decision. Or in this case a dictator's military haha.

There are already hover parents living vicariously through sports, music, chess whatever.

I can imagine this going to extremes with parents making these forever physical decisions.

Elite athletes can chose to endanger their health for the sport they love.

But I'm not sure about the ethics of a parent deciding to say give lower resting heart rates/higher vo2 max with cycling in mind, even though it could be deadly slow.

SamoyedFurFluff• 5 years ago

It would take at least several years of development to create one vaguely effective venomous human assassin, with probably over a decade of development until the human developed vaguely enough dexterity to actually assassinate people. Unless we figure out a way to make humans grow faster at scale? I’ve always felt that enhancing human genetics to make them into weapons strikes me as more expensive and less scalable than inventing machinery that humans can use as weapons.

What would be more scalable- a human born venomous or the ability to install a venom gland in a human sinus, replacing at least one tooth?

SubiculumCode• 5 years ago

yes. And in the meantime, simple drones that fling poisoned darts, or even toss venomous snakes, is much more feasible than mutant ninja warriors.

bovermyer2• 5 years ago

It depends.

Looking at it purely from an efficiency perspective, encouraging biological weapon development in humans at a rapid pace - possibly through retroviral techniques - may be more effective than technological devices, if the former is less detectable than the latter, and especially if the former has a lower price point than the latter.

There are multiple variables in play here, and that's not even getting into the ethical considerations.

afarrell2• 5 years ago

I think raising a child is a lot more effort than giving a trained operative weaponized dentures.

warent2• 5 years ago

LOL this is basically the Juicero of weaponizing humans. Absurdly over-engineered solution searching for a problem.

pantalaimon• 5 years ago

Why bother with super soldiers when you can have robots and drones?

newsbinator• 5 years ago

That can be taken to its logical conclusion, like that classic Star Trek Episode:

Why bother building killer robots and drones when you can simulate the outcome of a battle without having to fight it in meat space.

Whoever loses has to line up at the suicide booths.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Taste_of_Armageddon

anonporridge• 5 years ago

Seriously, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fa9lVwHHqg

Human 'soldiers' are really only going to be useful in the near future for infiltrating and disrupting social systems, not for dispensing physical violence.

moron4hire• 5 years ago

Animals are pretty resilient, compared to robots. Most animals aren't anywhere near as picky about their fuel source or when they receive it as robots are, especially over weeks-length periods of time. Minor-damage is self-servicable and self-repairing. Even the smartest robots are barely at the intelligence level of the dumbest animals. And some of the more intelligent animals are self-adapting to new, out-of-spec scenarios.

msla2• 5 years ago

The only way to weaponize humans is the Red Queen's Race:

Make your children better than theirs. Smarter? Less likely to get diseases? Who knows. The point is, now your side has the edge, so they have to keep up. Maybe they get the edge next, so you have to innovate. And so on. Assuming there's sufficient "headroom" to build up these genetic transhumans, and we don't run into some no-free-lunch scenario where improvement is either impossible or comes with unavoidable nasty side-effects, you can't just sit still. You have to continue to improve or you can no longer pretend that all people are created equal in certain important respects. Morally equal, yes, but "morally equal" doesn't get you a leadership position.

nradov• 5 years ago

There's no free lunch. Every significant enhancement comes with a corresponding disadvantage. Otherwise millions of years of evolution would have produced something better already.

For example, partial genetic immunity to malaria carries an increased risk of syckle cell anemia. Most traits are like that to an extent.

simonhamp• 5 years ago

There are already toxic people. And they don't even need genetic manipulation to achieve it.

The good news is, they weren't born that way and they can change.

anigbrowl2• 5 years ago

The good news is, they weren't born that way and they can change.

Debatable. See https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/2/8/e1600451 and particularly the supplementary materials about age distribution. I held the same opinion as you and was quite surprised by these results.

peterburkimsher• 5 years ago

That's some very interesting research! I still think that people are innately selfish, but can learn to share. I also believe that self-sacrifice is best for the greater good, leading to a more equitable society.

The graphical representation of optimism, pessimism, envy, and trust is really fascinating.

https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/advances/2/8/e160045...

namenotrequired2• 5 years ago

This detail intrigues me:

“...then in a few thousand years, we might encounter venomous mice.”

A female mouse can give birth at the age of two and a half months. In a few thousand years, you can have some 10 000 generations.

Would it really take 10 000 generations for mice to become venomous?

dumbfoundded2• 5 years ago

I don't think there's a good enough understanding of genetics to know how many generations. I'm guessing the estimate of a few thousand years was a complete guess. Many things impact the timing and these systems are chaotic. Even selective breeding is fairly uncertain. I don't know if geneticists could predict how many generations it would take if we selectively breed gray wolves to look like pugs.

dheera• 5 years ago

This assumes mice would gain an evolutionary advantage by being venomous.

Mice survive as a species by reproducing fast and hiding, not by biting other animals to teach them a lesson. In order to exploit venom's potential they would need to undo their risk-averse behavior around other animals, which may not be in their best interest as a species.

namenotrequired2• 5 years ago

The article explicitly states this assumption in the same sentence that I quoted a section from.

sanatgersappa• 5 years ago

Been there, done that https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visha_Kanya

King-Aaron• 5 years ago

Here I was listening to a Warhammer 40k podcast about the Astartes and how they have venom glands, and I was thinking "man this is some really bad fan fiction nonsense"

And now ten minutes later I see this

giardini• 5 years ago

I, For One, Welcome Our New Venomous Overlords!

But who could be more venomous than Cesare Borgia and the Borgia family whom reportedly had rings for poisoning (and assassinating) their enemies? Attending social functions has, in some past eras, been a wholly more perilous game than today, even with Covid.

Toxic people could become a reality, scientists researching snake venom say

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