The World's Most Poisonous Deadly Animals

The above image shows the most venomous and poisonous animals in the world. Some of them can look innocent but has the power of instant death for people and other animals. I have compiled some information for each deadly monster.

Box Jellyfish

It lives in the oceans of Asia and Australia. Swimmers must definitely avoid the Box jellyfish. The stingers and tentacles on this animal are extremely powerful. Along with causing excruciating pain for weeks, the animal's venom is capable of stopping the heart or paralyzing the lungs. To top it off, the venom will slowly eat away at the skin.

Marbled Cone Snail

The venom of this tiny snail leads to paralysis almost immediately. Humans that have experienced a bite are succumbed by weakness, numbness, nausea and death, when the lungs ultimately stop working.

Blue Ringed Octopus
The painless bite from a Blue Ringed Octopus may seem innocuous, however the deadly neurotoxins in the animals saliva immediately begin working. Within a few minutes, a human will experience muscular weakness, numbness, followed by a cessation and breathing and ultimately death

Death Stalker Scorpion
The venom of the scorpion causes an intense and unbearable pain, then fever, followed by coma, convulsions, paralysis and death. Living area is North Africa and Middle East.

Stonefish

Highly camouflaged fish living in the waters of the Pacific throughout the Australia coast.
If contact comes with humans, the venom will cause intense pain, swelling of tissue, shock followed by death.

Sydney Funnel Web Spider
One of the most venomous creatures in the Australia outback, the Sydney Funnel Web Spider packs a powerful punch. This spider is large and very aggressive, consistently creating the most powerful venom of any spider. Protecting its burrow, the spider places a web across its entrance that passers by should not enter. From its fangs, the spider delivers a powerful neurotoxin that cause extreme pain and are capable of killing a person within 15 minutes. It's venom does not affect most mammals but has a very powerful effect on humans.

Poison Dart Frog


While running through the rain forests of Central or South America, do not pick up the Poison dart frog. The frog's skin contains a toxic chemical that sickens or kills any animal that touches or eats it. Two micrograms of this deadly toxin (enough to fit on the head of a pin) will easily kill a human being or other large mammal.

I hoped you liked this venomous animals compilation.

Genetics Wonders : New Organisms of 2007

Maybe you wonder instantly what "new organisms" mean.

It means that totally new creatures that didn't exist before 01.01.2007. Yes, you have heard correctly.

If you want to know in detail about Hypoallergenic lifestyle cats, Butanol producing E.coli, glow in the dark cats and more read this excellent article on Wired

Tots More Socially Cognitive Than Apes

Toddlers may act up like little apes, but researchers who compared the species concluded a 2-year-old child still has the more sophisticated social learning skills.

In one test, preschoolers who wanted a toy hidden in a trick tube intently copied a scientist's movements to retrieve the prize. Chimps watched the lesson, but then mostly tried to smash or bite open the tube. When it came to simple math, however, the apes seemed to know more than the youngsters, apparently "adding" how many tasty raisins researchers had hidden.

In a novel study, scientists lured 106 chimpanzees, 32 orangutans and 105 toddlers to sit through five hours of testing over several days. Researchers were trying to tell which innate abilities are distinctly human.

"Human children are not overall more intelligent than other primates, but instead have specialized skills of social cognition," concluded the lead researcher, Esther Herrmann of Germany's Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. "They learn in a way that chimpanzees don't learn."

But the findings, published in Friday's edition of the journal Science, conflict with other research that suggests the great apes, humans' closest relatives, are quite good at social learning, too. In fact, a second study in the same journal suggests chimps and monkeys have some capacity to infer someone's intentions by their actions. That is pretty complex, human-like thinking.

In that work, the animals sought out food containers that a researcher had grasped purposefully, not just tapped, or a container that he had touched with his elbow when his hands were full, but not one elbowed when his hands were empty.

The chimps and monkeys expected someone to behave rationally and adjusted their own actions accordingly, according to the lead researcher, Justin Wood of Harvard University.

"That shows quite a subtle social understanding going on in these animals," said Dr. Frans de Waal of Emory University's Yerkes National Primate Research Center, a well-known expert in primate cognition who was not involved in the research published Friday.

Scientists to create human-animal embryos

Plans to allow British scientists to create human-animal embryos are expected to be approved tomorrow by the government's fertility regulator. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority published its long-awaited public consultation on the controversial research yesterday, revealing that a majority of people were "at ease" with scientists creating the hybrid embryos.

Researchers want to create hybrid embryos by merging human cells with animal eggs, in the hope they will be able to extract valuable embryonic stem cells from them. The cells form the basic building blocks of the body and are expected to pave the way for revolutionary therapies for diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and even spinal cord injuries.

The consultation papers were released ahead of the authority's final decision on the matter, which will mark the end of almost a year of intense lobbying by scientists and a fervent campaign by organisations opposed to research involving embryonic stem cells.

Using animal eggs will allow researchers to push ahead unhindered by the shortage of human eggs. Under existing laws, the embryos must be destroyed after 14 days when they are no bigger than a pinhead, and cannot be implanted into the womb.

Opponents of the research and some religious groups say the work blurs the distinction between humans and animals, and creates embryos that are destined to be destroyed when stem cells are extracted from them.

Two research groups based at King's College London and Newcastle University have already applied to the HFEA to create animal-human embryos, but their applications have been on hold since November last year amid confusion over whether the authority was legally able to issue licences.

If the authority approves the research, the applications will go forward to a committee, with a decision on both due within three months.

Professor Ian Wilmut, whose team cloned Dolly the sheep, is waiting for the HFEA's decision before applying to create hybrid embryos to study motor neurone disease with Professor Chris Shaw at the Institute of Psychiatry in London.

The consultation, a £150,000, three-month mix of opinion polls, public meetings and debates, found participants were initially cautious of merging animal and human material, but became more positive. "When further factual information was provided and further discussion took place, the majority of participants became more at ease with the idea," the HFEA's report says.

Most support was expressed for the creation of so-called cytoplasmic hybrid embryos, in which a human cell is inserted into an empty animal egg. Other hybrid embryos, such as those created by fertilising an animal egg with human sperm, or vice versa, were less well supported.

In December, the government sparked a revolt by scientists, patient groups and medical researchers when it published a white paper containing proposals to outlaw almost all research into animal-human embryos. The research has since been backed by Nobel prizewinners, the Medical Research Council, the Wellcome Trust, the Commons science and technology committee, and the government's chief science adviser, Sir David King.

In May, the government withdrew its opposition in a draft fertility bill and now seeks to outlaw only embryos created by mixing sperm and eggs from humans and animals. The bill will be put before parliament before the end of the year.

Martin Rees, president of the Royal Society, said: "The HFEA's consultation reveals welcome recognition of the potential of this research, [with] 61% of the general public agreeing with the creation of human-animal embryos, if it may help understand diseases, with only a quarter opposed to this research."

Source : Guardian

Genetic Experiment : Scientists create 12-headed jellyfish

Jellyfish with up to a dozen heads have been created in the laboratory by carefully monkeying with a few genes.

The genetic experiments could shed light on how natural colonies of other multi-headed organisms first originated, including some that build coral reefs.

Researchers targeted so-called Cnox genes, which help control how the bodies of jellyfish are laid out as their embryos develop. These genes are closely related to Hox genes, which play a similar role in humans.

How they did it
They experimented on the European hydromedusa (Eleutheria dichotoma), collected from the south of France. (In Greek mythology, the Hydra was a monster with innumerable heads, while Medusa had writhing snakes for hair.)

The researchers designed RNA molecules that specifically only "silenced" Cnox genes in these saltwater critters. Normally, the saltiness of these animals would prevent the molecules from entering their cells, but the scientists diluted seawater with freshwater enough "where the jellyfish still survived and the RNA got in," said evolutionary biologist and invertebrate zoologist Bernd Schierwater at the Hanover University of Veterinary Medicine in Germany.

By inhibiting one Cnox gene called Cnox-3, two heads often formed, where both were completely functional — regarding food intake, for instance. By deactivating another, Cnox-2, more than two heads usually sprouted — "up to a dozen," Schierwater told LiveScience.

He and colleague Wolfgang Jakob, also at Hanover, detailed their findings in the Aug. 1 issue of the online journal PLoS ONE.

Twelve heads better than one?
Animals with many heads are rare in nature, suggesting that two or more heads usually aren't better than one — having more than one head results in costs with no immediate matching benefits.

However, Schierwater noted that corals, which are animals, often form colonies by adding heads to a common stalk, each of which connect to a common gut, just as with the modified jellyfish that the researchers created.

Jellyfish are related to the creatures that build coral reefs — they are both carnivores belonging to a group called cnidarians, which means "stinging nettles," because of their stingers. Schierwater conjectured the solitary ancestors of corals and other colonial organisms might have adapted genes related to multiple heads long ago "in such a way that animal colonies were able to emerge."

Indeed, these findings suggest the suppression of just a few genes could have led to incredible diversity in body plans "from the very beginning," Schierwater said, shedding light on "the evolution and development of animal life in general."

Source : MSNBC