Monday 26 July 2010

Cold Comfort from Octopuses - The Age


photo credit The Age


Scientists in the Antarctic have been collecting octopus venom to study for potential new applications.

Apparently, they're looking at a range of things:

"[the venom] could open a new frontier in drug development and even washing detergents."

Washing detergents? Really? We're gonna bother Antarctic octopuses so our t-shirts will be cleaner?

I'm predicting a new career move for Paul the psychic octopus...

"Dr Fry [from Melbourne University, the Norwegian University of Technology and Science and the University of Hamburg], whose research last year revealed that all octopuses were venomous, said the next step was to compare the venom of tropical octopuses with their Antarctic counterparts to establish what makes the venoms different."

That's pretty cool, I'm interested in what they'll find. Paul? Any predictions?

Full article here (The Age)

No comments:

Post a Comment