Venomous bites and stings from spiders, scorpions, snakes, lizards and jellyfish — even caterpillars, snails and octopuses — hurt millions every year and kill many thousands globally.
But these animals’ poisons are poised to help provide a new wave of medicines to treat everything from cancer to heart disease — even to slow down ageing.
This isn’t just some distant hope. Already a lethal animal venom is the secret behind the blockbuster weight-loss drug semaglutide, better known as Wegovy and
Palaeontologists have named a “weird” new species of fossilised sea creature that lived 500 million years ago after the terrifying sand worms — the “Shai-Hulud” — in Frank Herbert’s Dune.
Found in rocks called the Spence Shale that outcrop on the Idaho–Utah border, Shaihuludia shurikeni is a type of “annelid”, or segmented worm.
The species name, “shurikeni”, was chosen because the worm has stiff radial bristles known as “chaetae” that resemble the blades of Japanese
It might sound like something out of a Hollywood sci-fi movie — bringing a 46,000-year-old frozen worm ‘back to life’ after digging it up in Siberia.
But that is exactly what scientists revealed they had done in a landmark study published yesterday.
The experts managed to ‘resurrect’ a long-extinct roundworm from a hibernation-like state known as cryptobiosis, which allowed it to survive the harsh frozen temperatures.
Experts previously thought that roundworms could only remain in this state for less than
Sinead O’Connor revealed she was living like an ‘undead night creature’ since her son’s suicide last year in a poignant and desperate final Twitter post shortly before her death.
Ms O’Connor had struggled with mental health issues since her son Shane, 17, took his own life in January 2022 after escaping hospital while on suicide watch, comparing her existence to being in purgatory.
She said: ‘He was the love of my life, the lamp of my soul. We were one
A Russian fisherman has discovered an ocean creature that bears a striking resemblance to a cheeseburger.
Roman Fedortsov, 39, scours for cod, haddock and mackerel on commercial trawlers and sometimes fishes up to 3,000ft below the surface.
In doing so, the Murmansk-based fisherman reels in a variety of bizarre-looking sea creatures, the latest of which has been dubbed the ‘cheeseburger with teeth’ by people online who were stunned by its unique appearance.
The main course was even accompanied by a
