X-Message-Number: 10386 From: "Geoff Lee" <> Subject: Defences Against Death - Something of Interest Date: Sat, 5 Sep 1998 12:13:19 -0000 In the August 1997 Issue of National Geographic, there is an article by John L. Eliot which starts as: > Mongoose Edge: Immunity to Venom > > "Eye to eye and head to head . . . > This shall end when one is dead." > Thus Rudyard Kipling's tale pits the valiant mongoose Rikki-tikki-tavi against > Nag the cobra, doomed by the mongoose's lightning quickness. John Eliot then goes on to indicate that Sara Fuchs, an Israeli researcher, and her collaborators have discovered that Rikki-tikki-tavi had an added advantage in that mongooses are relatively immune to snake venom. "Relative to their body weight, a mongoose can withstand 20 times the venom that is lethal to a mouse," says Fuchs." Long Life Geoff Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=10386