Poison pass: the man who became immune to snake venom

Rock singer Steve Ludwin has been injecting himself with snake venom for 30 years. In a strange twist, his bizarre habit could now save thousands of lives. His former partner Britt Collins tells his outlandish story

Britt Collins

Sun 11 Feb 2018 08.00 GMTLast modified on Mon 12 Feb 2018 11.16 GMT

Sometime in 2006, when my ex-boyfriend failed to show up for dinner, I assumed something was wrong or perhaps he’d forgotten. About a week later, calling to apologise, he told me he’d had an overdose, accidentally injecting a lethal cocktail of venom from three snakes. A lot has been written about Steve Ludwin, widely known as the man who injects snake venom, and lately his life has turned into a non-stop frenzy of international journalists and film crews revelling in the seeming sheer insanity of it.

Steve was once my great love; an animal lover, vegan and musician who wrote songs for Placebo and Ash, and played the Reading festival with Nirvana. In between tours and recordings he dabbled with snake venom. In his latest incarnation as a self-taught snake expert, moulding himself into the role of a lifetime, he appears as a kind of living specimen and star in a short film at the Natural History Museum’s new exhibition, Venom: Killer and Cure.

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Self-Medication in Animals Much More Widespread Than Believed

Apr. 11, 2013 — It's been known for decades that animals such as chimpanzees seek out medicinal herbs to treat their diseases. But in recent years, the list of animal pharmacists has grown much longer, and it now appears that the practice of animal self-medication is a lot more widespread than previously thought, according to a University of Michigan ecologist and his colleagues.

Animals use medications to treat various ailments through both learned and innate behaviors. The fact that moths, ants and fruit flies are now known to self-medicate has profound implications for the ecology and evolution of animal hosts and their parasites, according to Mark Hunter, a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and at the School of Natural Resources and Environment.

In addition, because plants remain the most promising source of future pharmaceuticals, studies of animal medication may lead the way in discovering new drugs to relieve human suffering, Hunter and two colleagues wrote in a review article titled "Self-Medication in Animals," to be published online today in the journal Science.

"When we watch animals foraging for food in nature, we now have to ask, are they visiting the grocery store or are they visiting the pharmacy?" Hunter said. "We can learn a lot about how to treat parasites and disease by watching other animals."

A parasite-infected monarch butterfly lays her 

eggs on medicinal tropical milkweed that will help 

to protect her offspring from disease. 

(Credit: Image credit Jaap de Roode)

Much of the work in this field has focused on cases in which animals, such as baboons and woolly bear caterpillars, medicate themselves. One recent study has suggested that house sparrows and finches add high-nicotine cigarette butts to their nests to reduce mite infestations.

But less attention has been given to the many cases in which animals medicate their offspring or other kin, according to Hunter and his colleagues. Wood ants incorporate an antimicrobial resin from conifer trees into their nests, preventing microbial growth in the colony. Parasite-infected monarch butterflies protect their offspring against high levels of parasite growth by laying their eggs on anti-parasitic milkweed.

Hunter and his colleagues suggest that researchers in the field should "de-emphasize the 'self' in self-medication" and base their studies on a more inclusive framework.

Continued:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/04/130411142716.htm

Bees Self-Medicate To Fight Off Fungus

When they get sick, bees raid their own "medicine cabinet," researchers have found. Specifically, when infected with fungi, they collect loads of antifungal plant extracts and coat their hives with them.

The mix of plant resins and wax that the bees usually use to line their hives, called propolis, have antifungal properties.

The new research could help beekeepers ward off fungal infection in their colonies, Michael Simone-Finstrom of North Carolina State University said in a statement. "Historically, U.S. beekeepers preferred colonies that used less of this resin, because it is sticky and can be difficult to work with," he said. "Now we know that this is a characteristic worth promoting, because it seems to offer the bees some natural defense."

The researchers studied 23 colonies, 12 of which had hives coated with "natural" amounts of resin, and 11 with the low amounts normally used in beekeeping. They then challenged the colonies with fungal and bacterial infections, and analyzed how many bees went out to fetch resin for the propolis in each hive, to see if the hive was sending out more foragers to get resin.

Red on:  http://www.livescience.com/19409-bee-medicate-fungal-infection.html