Scorpions tend to be very aggressive animals. Who wouldn’t, with venom that can be deadly? Inside of the venom are very many toxins, with proteins called peptides inside of them. A lot of those peptides are toxic. They can cause paralysis inside of cells or even kill the cells! The good thing is that the peptides have to get inside of the cell to cause damage. This can be very useful because it allows scientists to examine the venom without suffering damage. Scientists are looking at the venom a scorpion lets out because they believe the toxins inside of the venom can be useful for a couple of different reasons. Because there are many different types of toxins and compounds inside of the venom, scientists believe that if they find the right type of compound they might be able to use this as a toxin to destroy tumors, to get rid of cancer. However, this is a very unsure subject – all the different types of peptides that scientists have found are ½ % of all toxic compounds inside of the venom. A slightly more promising option is using the toxins as pesticides. If there were a type of toxin that, for example, only kills potato bugs, then we would be able to eliminate the insects that destroy crops while keeping the ones that cause crops to thrive. Plus, the pesticide wouldn’t have any effect on any other animal except for potato bugs, including us – it would be harmless!
This was interesting to me because I think this would solve A LOT of problems. It would be wonderful if we could find the right type of toxin to destroy tumors – it would save a lot of lives! Also, we would have more “organic” food – without all those chemicals inside of them, which would be both a lot healthier for us and a lot better for the earth. This topic in particular helped me understand how scientists play such a big role in our lives. While a lot of people were and still are afraid of scorpions, scientists just become curious about what’s in that venom and bam – we have another ingenious idea that might just save thousands of people’s lives if the idea is carried out right! Also, this article again shows how each animal has its own mechanism for survival. Some have spikes, some have defense mechanisms, and some have venoms (such as scorpions).
Here is the link to the article, I suggest you go check it out:
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/63561/title/FOR_KIDS_Better_living_from_scorpion_venom
Hey, Maria!
ReplyDeleteI thought that was very interesting. I've heard that there are studies into snake venom about the same thing - curing diseases without any cure. I think that it would be wonderful if we could find cures for people and save lives with scorpion venom, but I'm kind of afraid for the scorpion. I don't really like scorpions in particular, but I don't think it's fair that they should suffer in order to save us - I believe that every living thing has a right to live life to its fullest. If the scientists are able to extract venom from snakes and scorpions without harming them, and then letting them go back into the wild, I'm all for it, though! Also the pesticide idea is great! It would be awful to kill all the bees, ladybugs, butterflies, worms, and all the other insects that help plants to survive, just to kill one species of bug. One time I read an article where farmers go out and buy ladybugs to set them free in their fields so as to get rid of pests - I think that that could work as well as the pesticides, except that the main thing that ladybugs eat is aphids, so it wouldn't work on potato-bugs. All in all, that was a really good article, and it got me thinking more about the world around us.