Some science information to get that muse working out:
Venom – the ‘harmless’ boomslang snake
The boomslang snake used to be thought harmless – until a very experienced herpetologist was bitten on the thumb while handling one.
By the next day, he was dead of internal bleeding, caused by the venom of this ‘harmless’ snake.
The boomslang doesn’t attack often – it’s pretty shy and will run away if it has the chance. Only people handling it or trying to capture or kill it will inspire its fear and cause it to bite.
Then the venom begins its slow work of destroying the red blood cells and causing widespread hemorrhaging that eventually causes the person to bleed to death internally. It can take three to five days to actually cause death.
Luckily, an antivenin is available, but it’s rare. Anyone bitten by a boomslang should immediately get to a hospital.
More information at Reptiles Magazine.
Ancient sharks – extinct, yes, but what if they did exist?
Image credit: Reconstruction by Bashford Dean in 1909, via Wikimedia Commons.
The megalodon shark – a huge animal even larger than a T-rex – went extinct during the Pleistocene extinction. Some people believe they may still be around, possibly deep in the ocean, despite the science that says, “Uh, no.”
This article at IFLScience gives all the science that tells us the megalodon shark is gone. Dead. Extinct forever.
What got my muse working, though, was the article’s idea of what we would see if it did exist:
“They would be chowing down on massive sharks and whales all over the world. We would see bite marks on whales, scars from old attacks too large to be from any known shark. It would be a spectacular sight, but unfortunately not one that we are going to see.”
Perhaps not in real life – but anything is possible in fiction.
Genes – what your parents gave you may be different than you thought
Scientists have been reasonably sure that what happens to the parents won’t affect the children’s genes. This because the genetic markers gained by the parents through their lifetime – whether it’s through a deliberate habit, like smoking, or a life event, like a famine – are erased by a cleansing principle called the Weismann barrier.
However, scientists are starting to find that this isn’t entirely true. Up to 5% of the genetic markers are missed by the this genetic cleansing.
They’re postulating that this is why Dutch children whose mothers had been pregnant during the post-war famine are often being diagnosed with schizophrenia. Diabetes, bipolar disorder, and obesity seem to be other effects that may be caused by this missed cleansing.
Doesn’t it make you wonder what your parents might have done or been through that made you who you are today?