At first you might feel a slight sting as the fangs enter. Then, a tingling will spread throughout your limbs. But within minutes your central nervous system will start shutting down, culminating in convulsions, paralysis, and a suffocating death. The venom of the black mamba snake, one of the world’s deadliest poisons administered by one of the world’s deadliest reptiles, can kill you within half an hour. Untreated bites have a mortality rate of 100%.
Hidden in the grim cocktail the snake carries, though, are a couple of proteins with a remarkably different effect. Research published this week in Nature has revealed two molecules in mamba venom that can eliminate pain with as much potency as morphine, suggesting an unusual new source for painkillers.
Sylvie Diochot, an engineer at France’s Institute of Pharmocologie Moleculaire and Cellulaire and first author of the paper, has always had a yen for the venomous. ...
