The most interesting organic carbon containing compound i could fin is Saxitoxin. Saxitoxin is most notably known as the poison found in 12 different marine puffer fish species in Asia as well as a species of Tilapia. This is a very poisonous and toxic compound being paralytic in nature and it is one of the most known paralytic shellfish toxins responsible for paralytic shellfish poisoning. Saxitoxin falls under the umbrella of neurotoxins which and it acts as a selective sodium channel blocker most importantly acting on the voltage-gated sodium channes in nerve cells. If exposed to such toxin symptoms can include numbness of the oral mucosa in as quickly as 30 minutes and its very aggressive preventing neurological and gastrointestinal function. This is very DEADLY due to its neurological paralytic nature. Below is the kekule structure for Saxitoxin. ((C10H17N7O4) Information on Saxitoxin can be found on the Center for Disease Control's website at: http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/saxitoxin/casedef.asp
I found this interesting and a little upsetting. I had always hoped to try the puffer fish if i ever traveled to asia. Sadly I cant say that I will be doing that any longer.
ReplyDeleteYES! Okay so my friends think I'm weird but this is honestly the reason that I'm paranoid about eating Tilapia in restaurants (no matter where I am on the map). So now whenever they think I'm weird I'll just show them this and make them paranoid too haha!
ReplyDeleteI was really interested in your choice because I know that recently we saw on the news that Syria carried out chemical weapon attacks against its own people. Interesting enough, I found an article that said, Saxitoxin is "1,000 times more toxic than sarin, [and that] saxitoxins have been explored by the United States biological and chemical weapons programs. Reportedly, the CIA used saxitoxins for suicide capsules and other covert uses in the 1950s." If you found that interesting the link to the global security website where I found this article is: http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/intro/bio_saxitoxin.htm
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