Natural Poisons
I was reading up on castor oil & boring bio-diesel stuff for the truck when I came across some interesting & scary facts:
Ricin is the active poison found in castor beans/seeds, it's an extemely deadly protein called a lectin & is found in the meal or cake after the oil has been extracted.
Gram for gram, ricin is 6,000 times more poisonous than cyanide and 12,000 times more poisonous than rattlesnake venom. A dose of 0.035 milligram (approximately one millionth of an ounce) will kill a man - even small particles in open sores or in the eyes can prove fatal.
A dose of ricin weighing only 70 micrograms or two millionths of an ounce (roughly equivalent to the weight of a single grain of table salt from a salt shaker) is enough to kill an 11.5 stone (160 lb) person.
However, the undisputed record for the deadliest natural toxin goes to the anaerobic bacterium of spoiled food - botulism (Clostridium botulinum). So deadly is the toxin (even deadlier than ricin), that an amount equal to the weight of ink in a printed textbook is enough to kill 30 adult humans. One ounce could theoretically kill 30 million tons of living matter and one pound could kill the entire human population.........Firkin hell
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Ricin is the active poison found in castor beans/seeds, it's an extemely deadly protein called a lectin & is found in the meal or cake after the oil has been extracted.
Gram for gram, ricin is 6,000 times more poisonous than cyanide and 12,000 times more poisonous than rattlesnake venom. A dose of 0.035 milligram (approximately one millionth of an ounce) will kill a man - even small particles in open sores or in the eyes can prove fatal.
A dose of ricin weighing only 70 micrograms or two millionths of an ounce (roughly equivalent to the weight of a single grain of table salt from a salt shaker) is enough to kill an 11.5 stone (160 lb) person.
However, the undisputed record for the deadliest natural toxin goes to the anaerobic bacterium of spoiled food - botulism (Clostridium botulinum). So deadly is the toxin (even deadlier than ricin), that an amount equal to the weight of ink in a printed textbook is enough to kill 30 adult humans. One ounce could theoretically kill 30 million tons of living matter and one pound could kill the entire human population.........Firkin hell
