All right you right to grab the back end uh. Well, no, not at the moment yeah. Not yet so you can lock him in the scratch from this species will knock you knock you down, could kill you or oh definitely, yeah, oh yeah, you're, you're, absolutely dead. Yeah, so i am back in australia.

Doesn't that venom turn your blood like goo? I never, though, and it just flogs and you just die - that everything in this country is trying to kill you, particularly snakes and spiders, and here at the australian reptile park they actually milk, snakes and spiders. So they can use their venom to make anti-venom and save lives. Let's go see how they do it all right so come on in man. This is, without a doubt, the most dangerous room.

I think in the country. You're currently surrounded floor ceilings and the only thing that keeps the snakes in is those little locks, yeah just the little locks in the other thin glass. So you can see this australian room, yeah yeah. So kid was tapping on the glass.

I told him not to his parents like nah, it's all good and i'm like don't tap on the glass man. The snake goes. Kid ran out the uh smelling of uh crap, so yeah for real yeah, yeah yeah. Technically they went screaming out the room.

They could break the glass by just jumping on in australia. We lost one to three people per annum to snakebite. Internationally estimates by the world health organization is 120 000.. So not only do we have some of the best antivirus products anywhere on the planet, but we have a federally funded anti-venom program, which means no matter who you are you get anti-venom for free, so we'll probably play with a big coastal taipan to start with yeah And uh, so why why are we starting big? Oh might as well? You tell me what i need to do right here.

I'm just gon na grab my valve from behind you, because obviously we use only that's, not gon na get stuck right pieces of equipment here at the reptile park got it. It's our shot, glass, beautiful and i might even get you to hold that for me. A second, this is one of our big boys, hopefully he's in a good mood, as you can see quite a large individual wow yeah wow. What we're going to do? Does it yeah technically? Couldn't you just like: go bang like and and bite him just pin him now.

Wait, wait, wait! Give him up there. You go. You hold that i'll. Take that vial off okay! This feels absurd.

There we go as you can see yeah. I got scared. It's not stupid, he doesn't want to bite the jar he wants to bite me thing is the target this there we go. Oh, my goodness, that was a lot of venom delivered very quickly, yeah they're, not mocking around wow.

Now, what we'll do is we'll actually give his venom glaze a little bit of a massage. So what you would consider is cheeks give them a little bit of a roll see if we can get an extra drop or two, because every drop matters. Now because my hand's starting to cramp up i'm going to put him away so i'll get you guys to jump back for me, and this is the sketchy bit yeah. When you get him out, you got the hook when you're putting him back.

It's just who's quicker, ready your hands trembling, a bit yeah yeah every time. So how much venom do you actually need to make anti-venom about 15. 15 snakes to make one vial of any of it? Venom evolved from saliva and it's used primarily for catching and digesting prey. Each species of snake has a different venom tailored to the specific animals they hunt.

Venom was originally squirted into a snake's mouth. There's no thing doesn't this will definitely be a test. I'm not getting this the whole thing, so i better pay to this day. Almost two-thirds of all snakes are rear, fanged.

Now why the rear tooth? You might ask! Well, it's because the venom gland itself is actually behind the snake's eye, so the shortest distance for a duct is directly downwards to the back end of the top jaw in some species. Evolutionary pressures caused the fangs to move closer and closer to the front of the jaw, improving the snake's ability to catch and kill prey, while the location of the fangs was evolving, so were the fangs themselves, they started off as smooth ordinary teeth, with venom flowing down The outside, but over time some snake lineages evolved a groove in each fang to channel the flow of venom in some species. The groove became deeper and deeper, eventually closing in to form a hollow tube and now the teeth literally inject venom into prey. But this is not the norm.

Only one-seventh of the world's snakes have hollow fangs, but of course, almost all the venomous snakes in australia do have hollow fangs. So we set up this macro shot to take a closer look about evolution, though okay i get it. I get it for things like, oh, that you're taller, oh and you survive more type of thing right, so so you get naturally selected. But what do? What are these things that it'll the end goal is something that's over there? What makes what makes them to be chosen to get there, how do they? How do they get there if the end goal is useful right? How do they get from one to the other? Do you it's random? Oh, it's random! Okay, this one's rolling that one's rolling, we're ready when you're i'm trying to say is that the groove helps when it's a groove right.

But if a mutation isn't really a groove, it doesn't help. So why does that one get selected, then what would it get selected? All right, everyone's ready, yep wow that still helps it's got like jets, so jet's a venom coming in so like the 0.2 percent buff that the creature gets by having a minuscule mutation that makes a smallest groove right over time. You're telling me that it'll survive more because that tiny thing and in those even more what's right, because they did it even more than a bit and over millions of years it actually gets there interesting interesting. Has this guy not been milked in a while or yeah? It's been a little while not only do we have some of the most toxic snacks on the planet here we also selectively breed them for the production of anti-venom they're bred to produce more venom than their wild counterparts.

So some of our coastal type-ins nearly seven times what their wild counterpart would and that's just from selective breeding. You find your two most psychotic ones. You put them together, you hope for the best and the absolute worst comes out, so keeps you on your toes. That sounds horrendous, so you're saying that these are the most venomous snakes in the world, and then you have bred them to be more venomous.

Yeah they're super snakes. Scratch from any of these animals could kill you, and some of these snakes are giving four and a half 4.9 grams of venom per bite, which is just stupid amounts. We spoke to venom, expert timothy jackson, who argued these snakes produce more venom because they are regularly milked, unlike wild snakes, either way, the snakes in this room contain more venom than virtually any others on earth. We house the second, the third, the fourth the fifth and about the 12th or 40th most toxic, depending on who you talk to one bite from a king.

Cobra contains enough venom to kill 13 000 mice, and we know this because of a study from 1979 that tested the venoms of 25 different species of snake on lab mice. From this, we can estimate that the venom from one king cobra bite could kill around four humans, though, to be precise, we'd have to say four human-sized rodents, because thankfully no one's tested these venoms on humans and by this measure, the most venomous snake in the world Is the inland taipan which conveniently lives in the middle of australia? Inland taipan has enough venom to kill half a million mice or more than a hundred humans, so yeah. Why not milk that one next for the next one we're going to step it up another notch? So this is the inland taipan, also known as the fierce snake, the most toxic land snake on the planet. Chances guys.

Can you actually get to the place that gives you venom? They give it an antidote if it bites you or if it's so strong. You just dash it up and insensitive to knock over 100 adult humans, so stupidly toxic. So quite a lot smaller than the last couple of animals we've used but makes up for it in toxicity, very, very quick and very naughty when he wants to be, but an absolutely gorgeous pattern. You can grab that bit for me mate.

Yes, i'm gon na grab this vial from behind you and, as you can see, he's very keen on the killing there we go. That is extraordinary, the most venomous snake in the world just incredible animals on there. They didn't get much of that, though. That was quick.

Yeah those ones make me proper nervous. I don't know about you guys, but can you see the hands the moment i stopped doing that after a milking is the day i quit. The concept of the most venomous snake is complex. Why not wear gloves made out of like steel, like um like like um, like in the medieval times the they get like big ass chainmaille, because snakes evolved their venom specifically for potency against their usual prey in turn, their prey evolved resistance to their venom, the honey Badger, for example, is almost completely immune to cobra venom, so the lethality of a bite depends on the snake, the animal that got bitten and the amount of venom injected.

The reason scientists test different venoms on lab mice is to get an estimate of the amount of antivenom that would be required to neutralize a bite. Snake venom is lethal to us because we are closely related to snake's main prey: rodents, rodents and primates split on the evolutionary tree only 75 million years ago. So we share a lot of the same biology from the structure of our cells, to the way our blood clots, to how our nerves send signals. Venoms typically target very conserved molecular pathways that exist across, maybe all vertebrates or maybe even the entire tree of life in in some cases, rats, yeah, they're, very useful.

These are they're. These are in labs a lot but they're going into stuff like ld50 right like lethal. Those at fifty percent of the population - okay, and what? By interfering with neurotransmitters, the signaling chemicals that go between neurons, it can be hemotoxic, thinning out your blood, preventing healing and causing internal bleeding. It does this by.

He said what blood preventing wounds from healing and causing internal bleeding. It does this by disturbing the delicate machinery of the blood coagulation system. Yeah venom can also be cytotoxic attacking cells leading to severe blisters, necrosis and cell death. It can also be myotoxic destroying muscles and causing paralysis.

The worst part is that snake venoms can contain up to 200 compounds. Most venoms contain a combination of neurotoxic, hemotoxic, cytotoxic and myotoxic proteins. This is what makes snake bites so difficult to treat. It's not just one toxin you're trying to neutralize, but dozens all working together to try to kill you.

Oh boy, there we go, no he's losing a lot of it. I've been at the park for 10 years this year, uh i've been running this facility for uh. Seven and a half eight have you ever been bitten, um yeah, so about three and a half years ago i got a scratch. Um one finger got nicked that was 36 hours in icu and eight of those are on a recess bay, so very, very serious, and what was that experience like that? That was crappy as it turns out i'm highly allergic to anti-venom, which is not ideal.

I started swelling up looking like the elephant man. So then they whack you with the adrenaline to cancel out the anaphylaxis, and then they have to give you more anti-venom, more adrenaline, more anti-venom, more adrenaline, more antimatter, more adrenaline and thankfully i only needed the one jesus. Sir, no he didn't bought, but literally just just a scratch. I know that was so.

What is anti-venom exactly and how was it invented in 1870, a british military doctor, edward nicholson, is, i don't know much of pharmacology, okay, but isn't there a cap to how bioavailable adrenaline is in your body or whatnot? Isn't there like a like a like, like a cap to that or not i'll get it? You can do it indefinitely was stationed in burma there was a kappa and, as he watched the local snake handlers, he noticed something strange. They would, from time to time, deliberately get cobras to bite them in what he considered a form of tattooing nicholson, reasoned that they were intentionally exposing their bodies to the venom to develop an immune response. He observed that the the guided, what form of tattooing nicholson reasoned, that they were intentionally exposing their bodies to the venom to develop an immune response. He observed that the older snake handlers were less affected by accidental bites than the younger ones, so this dangerous practice seemed to be paying off.

20 years later. In saigon, a french medical researcher named albert calnet, was vaccinating local residents against smallpox. When he became aware of the threat posed by cobras, he wondered if it was possible to make a vaccine for snake bites back in paris. He tried injecting rabbits with a tiny amount of cobra venom, starting with just .03 milligrams, but each week he injected the rabbits again slowly increasing the dose and after eight months of this, the rabbits were receiving 35 milligrams of cobra venom.

At a time that is 15 times the normal lethal dose in rabbits, but they were still perfectly healthy. The rabbit's immune systems had developed antibodies to neutralize the venom, so you can be vaccinated against snake bites, just as you can against disease, but who wants to be vaccinated against all different types of snakes just in case one bites you it would be better calnet reasoned. If you could administer antibodies after a bite, so he drew blood from a venom, resistant, rabbit and isolated the serum, and then he injected it into another rabbit that had never been exposed to venom when he subsequently injected it with twice the lethal dose of cobra venom. The rabbit was just fine.

Immunity had been transferred from one rabbit to another. This was the first anti-venom, but how do you isolate the serum, though, or as the frenchman calmet called it antivenin, which is why my phone always makes that auto correction to this day? Anti-Venoms are made in much the same way at the reptile park, with a spinning thing that splits the blood cells from the plasma and and and and deconstruct the blood structure they collect, freeze the venom it's sent off to be diluted and injected into a donor. Animal. Usually a horse horses are used because of their size.

After increasing the dose over a period of months, the horse builds up immunity to the venom and then its blood is drawn and the antibodies are isolated. Only the plasma is taken, the red blood cells are returned. Exactly what i said and the antibodies which are isolated plasma, i said that only the plasma is taken. The red blood cells are returned to the horse.

Those horse antibodies are the life-saving antivenom. Anti-Venom works. For the same reason, venom works because of our shared evolutionary history with other mammals. The antibodies produced by horses are very similar to the ones produced by humans, so they bind to toxic compounds and neutralize them even in our bodies.

But this way of making anti-venom has downsides. Collecting the venom is dangerous. Many donor animals are involved and some people are allergic to antivenom. Scientists are now exploring the possibility of producing anti-venom using genetically modified bacteria.

They would produce the specific antibodies needed to neutralize each toxin. In a venom, but for now this is the way anti-venom is made interesting, how's your arm. That's a bit slow, the shoulder's, a bit tender. The work, zach and others like him do saves countless lives all around the world.

If you're up here for fame and fortune and oh look, how tough i am milk and snakes, you don't last long, you get chewed on and you go oh. This is not for me if you're up here, because you love the animals, and this is an opportunity to not only work with the animals. You love, but to actively be a part of saving lives like i'm, not smart enough to be a doctor i'll just i'll put that straight away. Couldn't they wear a suit that makes an apartment for them to get bitten and swing a snake, pretty good, hey milking snakes is a very hands-on activity.

Oh no trust me. It is trust me, i'm an expert who is learning with this video sponsor brilliant. I know my snake about one or two times a day. Sometimes three brilliant is a website and app designed to get you thinking deeply about science, mathematics and computer science.

They do this using highly curated problem sets and interactive puzzles, for example, their course. On probability, fundamentals is excellent. I've made a video before on the theorem, so brilliant is so good guys. It's insane.

I love brilliant step by step using interactive visuals. I've passed this course four times real world problems, much more memorable, demystified bayes formula. If you really want to understand something guys, that was pretty good, i injected enjoy that video a lot. That was really thank you for your time.

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