Spider Bite Allows Man To Walk Again 221
Manastorm writes "A man who was wheelchair bound due to a motorcycle accident twenty years ago gained the ability to walk again after being bitten by a recluse spider. 'I can't wait to start dancing,' he said as he looks forward to a full recovery after experiencing what some call a 'true miracle.'" I think we all know how this story is going to end. I hope The Sinister Six have been practicing.
Re:What a misleading headline (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What a misleading headline (Score:5, Insightful)
Brown Recluse venom isn't neurotoxic, it's necrotic. If his legs rotted and fell off, I'd think it was possibly due to a bite from a brown recluse. Starting to work again? Doesn't sound likely.
I would think it is equally plausible that he fell and it knocked something back into alignment, or he's been showing a long term improvement that wasn't quite to the detection threshold before.
Attributing the improvement to the spider bite is very thin.
Re:What a misleading headline (Score:5, Insightful)
You are completely oversimplifying the article to the point where your statement is misleading.
And you are making almost absurd leaps of logic.
They administered THE SAME TESTS this man has taken before with no results and he was able to FEEL something... which he COULDN'T do before.
Yes.
My guess is, spider venom is a nerve toxin... it just so happened to manipulate the biology of these nerves in the same way a swift kick to the TV used to fix bad reception.
Er. No. As you said, he hadn't been able to walk for 20 years. And he'd been in rehab previously with no success. While the article doesn't say, odds are it was a number of years since he'd last been in rehab.
In reality land, nerve damage heals very slowly.
I had a wisdom tooth extracted a couple years ago, and the procedure paralyzed a small strip on lip and chin. My mouth healed up nicely within a few weeks. The paralysis took almost a year. The doctor had warned paralysis was a possibility, that if it occurred it would take a long time to heal, and that there was a good chance it wouldn't heal at all. After six months it went from dead to 'tingling' when touched (sort of like the shooting sparks you get when your foot falls asleep), a few months later and it was healed.
All the spider bite likely did is cause him to be in the hospital, where he was re-tested. If he'd gone in without the spider bite, he would almost certainly have had the same result. In the interval between the last test and the current one, the nerves had healed to the point they would carry signals again.
After decades of no success, you don't go in to try every six months 'just in case'.
The odds the spider bite had anything whatsoever to do with it is minimal.
My guess is, spider venom is a nerve toxin.
Except that the Recluse spider venom isn't particularly neuro-toxic at all. Its primary toxin simply aggregates platelets and white blood cells to clog capillaries, which causes necrotic flesh wounds. Rarely is the venom carried by the blood stream further. The main risk is that the necrotic flesh becomes a breeding ground for 2ndary infections. Its really more like gangrene than anything else.
Re:What a misleading headline (Score:0, Insightful)
And we, of course, know everything about biochemistry and can prove that the chemical pathways involved in his cure are in no way related to the brown recluse spider toxin.
Your thinking is misguded. While science is the best we have, to believe that current science encompasses all knowledge is a very serious error. Shakespeare has something to say on the subject:
Horatio: O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!
Hamlet: And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Re:What a misleading headline (Score:5, Insightful)
And we, of course, know everything about biochemistry...
No, but we do know quite a bit.
...and can prove that the chemical pathways involved in his cure are in no way related to the brown recluse spider toxin.
No, but we can apply a little logic and a liberal dose of Occam's Razor and come to a reasonable conclusion. "Magical spider bite cures paralysis" is not that reasonable conclusion.
Re:No radioactivity involved? (Score:3, Insightful)
No, no, no! A proper evil overlord hideout requires liquid hot magma. A dormant volcano simply won't do.
It only appears dormant as the evil genius has been tapping it to geothermically power various projects. Should somebody in spandex or an impeccable tux come in unexpectedly...
Re:What a misleading headline (Score:4, Insightful)
The phrase "burden of proof" is something with which you might want to familiarize yourself.
Re:Still an execellant medical solution . . . (Score:2, Insightful)
> Maybe AIG should give these spiders out, instead of bonuses?
+1 I'll post your bail.
Re:Missing the point (Score:3, Insightful)
All atoms move randomly. Under normal circumstances, they move in all different directions. Statistically, if you stand on top of a building for long enough, they will all move the same way, out into the open skies. (And then back to random motion as you plummet towards the ground. Who said QM doesn't have a sense of humour?)