‘You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it.’
WARNING: The following descriptions of COVID-19–related insanity may be offensive to some readers.
Greetings, ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to the first round of Pandemic Pandemonium. Let’s get right to the action.
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This week’s preshow match-off involves face mask woes. The first comes to us from Alabama, where a woman wore a space helmet to a school board meeting to protest mask mandates. The second comes from Australia, in the form of mischievous magpies. We will explain.
It is not uncommon for magpies to attack those who come too close to their nests in the spring, or “swooping season,” as it’s affectionately called. The magpies are smart enough to recognize the faces of people they see regularly and not attack; however, it’s feared that mask wearing will change this.
While you’re chewing on that exciting appetizer, let’s take a look at our main course, which has a distinct governmental flavor. Jeff Landry is the attorney general of Louisiana, and, like our space-helmet wearer, he’s not a fan of mask mandates. According to Business Insider, Mr. Landry “drafted and distributed sample letters intended to help parents evade mask-wearing ordinances and COVID-19 vaccination requirements for their children in schools.”
Up against him is the Food and Drug Administration’s Twitter account. In an unrelated matter, the agency tweeted, “You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it.” This was in response to people using the nonhuman forms of ivermectin to treat very human COVID-19.
Well, there you have it. Who will win tonight’s exciting edition of Pandemic Pandemonium? The first reader to contact us gets to decide the fate of these worthy contestants.
From venomous poison to heart drug
It’s not likely that anyone who sees a giant, venomous spider is thinking, “Hey! That thing could save my life!” It’s usually quite the opposite. Honestly, we would run away from just about any spider. But what if one of the deadliest spiders in the world could also save you from dying of a heart attack?
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You probably don’t believe us, right? That’s fair, but the deadly Fraser Island (K’gari) funnel web spider, might also be the most helpful. Investigators from the University of Queensland in Australia have found a way to extract a molecule from the spider’s venom that might help stop damage from heart attacks and may even preserve hearts being used for transplants. “The Hi1a protein from spider venom blocks acid-sensing ion channels in the heart, so the death message is blocked, cell death is reduced, and we see improved heart cell survival,” Nathan Palpant, PhD, of the university, noted in a written statement.
No one has ever developed a drug to stop the “death signal,” so maybe it’s time to befriend spiders instead of running away from them in horror. Just leave the venom extraction to the professionals.