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Tiny Matters
Take a dive into the genes, microbes, molecules and other tiny things that have a big impact on our world with Tiny Matters. Join scientists Sam Jones and Deboki Chakravarti as they take apart complex and contentious topics in science and help rebuild your understanding. From deadly diseases to ancient sewers to forensic toxicology, Sam and Deboki embrace the awe and messiness of science and its place in the past, present, and future. Tiny Matters releases new episodes every Wednesday and is brought to you by the American Chemical Society, a non-profit scientific organization advancing chemistry and connecting the broader scientific community. Tiny Matters is produced by Multitude.
Tiny Matters
[BONUS] Pollen-food allergy syndrome and stepping on 116 snakes: Tiny Show and Tell Us #13
In this episode of Tiny Show and Tell Us, we cover a study where a researcher stepped on 116 snakes over 40,000 times for science (don’t worry, the ‘steps’ were more like touches, no snakes were harmed in the process). Then we get into why a pollen allergy might trigger an allergy to some of your favorite fruits.
We need your stories — they're what make these bonus episodes possible! Write in to tinymatters@acs.org *or fill out this form* with your favorite science fact or science news story for a chance to be featured in a future episode and win a Tiny Matters mug!
A transcript and references for this episode can be found at acs.org/tinymatters.
Welcome to Tiny Show and Tell Us, the bonus series, where you write in with your favorite science news or factoid. We read your email aloud and then dive deeper. I'm Sam Jones and I'm here with my co-host, deboki Chakravarti.
Speaker 2:Hi, sam, I'm really excited to do these episodes. They're always so much fun. But before we kick things off today, just a reminder that we are always looking for you to write to us, because it makes future episodes possible. So email tinymatters at acsorg or fill out the form linked in the episode description. Okay, let's get into it. So, sam, I'm going to start off today.
Speaker 2:I have a story from listener Ian. I'm going to read it off. A dude stepped on 40,000 snakes to figure out ways to prevent snake bites. So this is from an article called Researcher Steps on Deadly Vipers 40,000 Times to Better Predict Snake Bites. This choice quote is Ian's fave. The hard part is that after my accident, some people started to see me as reckless, and that is not true. I ran these experiments with a solid scientific base, followed the same protocol thousands of times and had only one accident. Ian says like yeah, dude, you stepped on a snake and it bit you. That seems a bit reckless. There are lots of other fun, crazy details to that story covered in the article that Ian linked.
Speaker 1:I'm excited to hear about this because it doesn't scream.
Speaker 2:not reckless to me, yeah yeah, yeah, no, this is absolutely I guess we can argue about recklessness, but anyway. So this is from, like, a legit researcher. This is not just a guy who's like I want to see what happens when I step on snakes. So this work was done by a researcher named Jaume Miguel Alves Nunez, who is a biologist at the Butantan Institute in Sao Paulo, brazil, and he published his team's work in Scientific Reports in May 2024. He is a biologist, so, yeah, I should relate to him. I used to work in biology but, like he is a biologist in like all the ways that I would absolutely never have been a biologist because, truly, the idea of stepping on snakes thousands of times is worst, worst nightmare, like, actually, I've had nightmares that look like this. So thank you, ian, for bringing this to my attention. I think this has come up on the podcast before.
Speaker 2:I'm someone who thinks snakes are fascinating and would also like to them to keep their distance from me. The thing is, despite that fear, I think snakes, for the most part, also want us to keep our distance from them. Snakes are not out in the world trying to attack humans. They really are usually just responding to the feeling of being threatened. Yeah, according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, around 7,000 to 8,000 people are bitten by snakes in the US each year, and apparently it's like around 5 million people worldwide are bitten each year by snakes. But again, they're not trying to really get us. It's usually because someone is stepping on them or purposely trying to handle them, like putting themselves or accidentally ending up in a position where they're, just like you're, in the snake space, and also not all snakes are venomous, and even venomous snakes can do dry bites that don't have any venom in it. But with all that said, there's still a lot to learn about snake behavior.
Speaker 2:So, even though I myself am never going to be the person to investigate snake behavior like this, there are people who are like Jean-Miguel Alves Nunez, and so the study that Ian described to us is focused on a South American viper called the jararaca, which is apparently one of the most venomous vipers in South America, and what the scientists wanted to know is more about their defensive behavior. So there were around 116 jararaca snakes. They stepped very closely or lightly on them about 30 times each, so that added up to 40,080 total steps. So it was a lot of danger, but it was not 40,000 snakes. And again, I should really emphasize that they were stepping lightly on the snakes, they weren't putting their whole weight onto them or hurting the snake. And if you're wondering what the protective equipment is for this kind of experiment, alves Nunes told science that he wore leather boots that were covered in foam, and the foam went around three centimeters above his knees, and so from this work, the scientists were able to figure out some cool details about what makes snakes potentially more aggressive when it comes to biting. So, for example, the smaller the snake, the more likely it would be to bite, and also females were more likely to bite. They also found that snakes were more aggressive when it's hotter out, and it also mattered where you step on the snake's body. If you step on the head, you're more likely to get bit than if you step on the body or the tail. And that might all just sound like great I found out the snakes are terrifying in more specific details, but it is actually really helpful. Finding out details like this is helpful for figuring out how to distribute antivenom. So, for example, if it's warmer out and there are more female snakes in a particular area, you might want to have more antivenom ready in that area.
Speaker 2:At the same time, the submission like they alluded to like a recklessness and accident situation, while Alves Nunes was working with rattlesnakes, one was actually able to bite him through his boot, and that was when Alves Nunes learned that he's allergic to both snake toxins and anti-venom. Oh no, right that. I just read that. I was like, ah, that's so scary. Yeah, yeah, what'd he do? I mean, he just went to the hospital. I guess he's like, yeah, I was on medical leave for 15 days. Whoa, I would have been on medical leave for the rest of my life.
Speaker 2:I shown up in the lab again, he was apparently recording this whole encounter with the rattlesnake on a camera and when he got bitten he called his mom, and so there's video of him crying to his mom, which is relatable to me Of all of this. Again, that is the detail. That's relatable Because if I got bitten by a rattlesnake immediately I would call my mom. He still continues to do work in this field. I think it did scale back the degree to which he can be involved in the experiments, because finding out that you're allergic to antivenom is not great. If you're wondering what antivenom is, it's actually antibodies that bind to snake venom and they usually come from animals like horses or sheep. So I think that's pretty neat that there are animals out there that are better able to kind of deal with snake venom and so we're able to use these antibodies to help people.
Speaker 2:But in general, just some safety stuff Don't get in a snake space. I mean I guess if you're a snake person maybe you will. But like a great way to avoid snake bites, just don't get in their space. If you do get bitten, the Mayo Clinic says that you should stay calm and get medical attention. Don't apply a tourniquet or open up the wound or try to suck out the venom. Also, don't try to catch the snake. But a really good thing to do is try to remember its size, its shape and its color. Even better if you can get a picture so that if you go to a medical provider they can get the right antivenom for you.
Speaker 1:That's really smart, something you wouldn't think about in the moment. Necessarily, you're just like I have to get out of here. Yeah, for sure. Okay, yeah, basic safety stuff. Also, we're not here to give medical advice. Yeah, to give medical advice, yeah, but don't mess around with a snake bite. Yeah, it's really the advice. Yeah, exactly, that's really interesting and also makes sense that it was actually not 40,000 snakes total, because I was thinking how do you even make that happen?
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Having it though over 100 snakes and stepping over 40,000 times is still wild.
Speaker 2:Yeah, one snake is enough to freak me out. The idea of just like being like here's 116 venomous snakes is a lot to handle. They also like had to keep track of details like temperature, the size of the snake, sex of the snake, where on the snake they're stepping, like on the head, body, like there's a lot to remember while you're also dealing with venomous vipers. I just science is cool, but there's some science out there that I don't want to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there are limits to my interests and thirst for knowledge Right.
Speaker 2:But at the same time, like I have to say, it is good that there are people who want to do this research because, it is really valuable information for figuring out how to deal with snake bites and figuring out how to help people who are in my actual nightmare scenario.
Speaker 1:That is actually also a nightmare scenario for me that I get a snake bite and I'm in the middle of nowhere and so I can't get access to antivenom Like that is so scary to me.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Thanks, joão for your sacrifice, yeah, okay. So I have a tiny show and tell us from listener Adriana. Adriana wrote in saying I'm from Brazil and I recently traveled to Chicago and noticed all the ivies in the city, including the Cubs Stadium, which is full of them, made my nose feel uncomfortable, I'm allergic to pine and I learned on a website that there is a cross-reaction. So let's talk a little bit about allergic cross-reactions in your body, like what is actually going on when you have an allergic cross-reaction, meaning you're allergic to one thing and then that translates to you also being allergic to some other thing. Generally speaking, just thinking about your immune system, when a foreign substance, like a virus or bacteria, enters your body, your immune system will mount to defense right by creating antibodies that target that invader. But for some of us and I include myself in this, because I'm an allergy person.
Speaker 2:You're calling yourself out.
Speaker 1:So for some of us, the immune system creates antibodies that recognize something totally harmless like pollen or tree nuts right, like how many people are allergic to tree nuts or pet dander? I'm allergic to cats, so my immune system seems to do this some as well. So your immune system recognizes that as a threat when it's really not so. When we then encounter these allergens in the future, our antibodies will tell our immune system your body is under attack, and so then that causes symptoms like a runny nose, sneezing, itchiness, fatigue, and then, in some severe cases, someone might actually experience difficulty breathing, which fortunately I don't have, but that's really scary thinking about like swelling rash, anaphylaxis. So Adriana mentioned hearing that there was a cross-reaction between IVs and pine. Allergic cross-reactivity occurs when you have proteins from one substance, one thing, that are really structurally similar to an existing allergen. The person's antibodies are going to bind to that substance and their immune system will mount the same defense. In Adriana's case, she's allergic to pine and for some reason her immune system seems to be recognizing some type of ivy the same way it recognizes pine, and so then she's having this allergic response. It was hard to find anything specific about pine and ivy cross reactions. There are so many different kinds of pine. There are also so many different kinds of ivy, but apparently English ivy is a really well-known common ivy and it is also really well-known for being an ivy that causes people to have an allergic reaction. Oh no, and also English ivy isn't actually native to here, it's an invasive species, but it's here.
Speaker 1:When I got this email, it made me think of something that I've been talking about with my husband. Actually, because there are a lot of different cross-reactivities out there and there are many to different types of pollen and fruits. My husband developed an apple allergy after we moved to the DC area, likely because of the pollen here. The pollen here so some of the pollens here, I guess really closely resemble some of the compounds that are in, like apples and pears and plums, and so his mouth gets super itchy now, and this never used to happen, oh no. And so I guess there's this whole syndrome known as pollen food allergy syndrome, which is unfortunately PFAS, which is now really misleading.
Speaker 1:But also it's sometimes referred to as oral allergy syndrome or OAS.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so it occurs when someone's pollen allergy leads to a new allergy to certain foods. So I'm pretty sure that's what happened. So is it pollen in particular that often drives this? Yes, so you move to a new place, there's some tree producing some pollen that you're allergic to, and then all of a sudden you're like I can't eat this apple, or I can't eat this other food which is such a bummer. So I guess up to 60% of adults with pollen allergies may experience this syndrome, which is a huge percentage. And so for this episode, journalist Ari Remmel actually did the research and came across a website that had a whole table labeled cross-reactivity allergy list.
Speaker 1:Sensitivity to birch pollen seems to elicit cross reactions from a ton of foods compared to others. So apparently I don't know there's something about the birch pollen, but some of those are kiwi, bananas, celery and a bunch of other stuff, which I'd be so sad. If I couldn't eat kiwi or bananas, yeah, I'd be so sad. And another one that I thought was fascinating was latex fruit syndrome, which causes people with a latex allergy to develop sensitivities to fruits also like bananas, avocados, kiwis and chestnuts. And with all of our episodes we have on the page where the transcript is at the bottom. We have references. I will make sure that all of these links are listed so you can go and check out these tables for yourself. But it's really fascinating and it's super widespread. So thank you, Adriana, for writing in, because this opened up this whole world of allergic cross reactivities that I didn't know about, Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I had no idea that so much of it could be related or correlated to pollen allergies in particular. That's crazy to me. In my head it makes sense. I don't know if I'm constructing a logic around it where I'm like well, pollen is the thing in the trees and it helps them reproduce and like, so it's everywhere and somehow that's going to resemble fruits, like somehow. That makes sense, but it also seems so weird, especially like latex.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it made me think a lot more about, like, what is latex actually made of? What are the compounds in that that look similar to the ones?
Speaker 2:that are in the fruit that we eat. Is there something about kiwi too, in particular, because this comes up with both the birch pollen and the latex?
Speaker 1:There are definitely some fruits that are much more commonly going to have that cross reactivity and I really do. I wonder what it is. So there's foods that are listed to avoid if you have a latex allergy, but then there's also ones that are like oh, this is low or undetermined. Fortunately we've got like coconut, cucumber, chickpeas, cherries, apricots it's a huge list.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Lychee Great Love lychee, but yeah, the ones that have a potential cross reactivity. It's like avocados, bananas, chestnuts and kiwi are listed under high latex proteins, and then moderate latex proteins are like apples, carrots, celery, melons, papaya, potato, potato.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Tomato. It's fascinating. Wow, I could look at these charts all day and be like hmm, because there are certain things I eat where I'm like, oh, my tongue feels a little swollen. I'm like I wonder if that's a little bit of a cross reactivity. That's fortunately not too strong and hopefully doesn't grow. Yeah, but we'll see.
Speaker 2:Yeah, One of the things that right now we're trying to figure out. My baby has eczema and the doctor's like, oh, you can try eliminating dairy and then also try eliminating soy to see if that like clears it up at all.
Speaker 2:I don't really have dairy that much because my husband's vegan and so just like we don't really have much dairy in the house to begin with, so like that didn't really seem responsible. But right now I'm working on eliminating soy, which is much harder, especially when you are like a vegan person, because, like a lot of our protein, in the house is soy, but I think there is also like a cross allergy there as well. I'm not sure, though.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think so. I was also a little kid that had eczema, like a baby that had eczema, and also the same thing with my mom was like you got to get rid of dairy. And yeah, I don't think they mentioned soy at the time. Maybe they just didn't know.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I think also, like I remember a doctor saying that it's not clear if the soy protein gets into breast milk as much as dairy does, as the cow's milk protein does.
Speaker 1:Allergies are really, really weird and fascinating and a reminder that our immune system is very smart but, sometimes not so smart, because it's identifying stuff that is definitely not harmful and making you react to it.
Speaker 2:Thanks, ian and Adriana, for submitting, and thanks for tuning in to Tiny Show and Tell Us a bonus episode from Tiny Matters, created by the American Chemical Society and produced by Multitude. And a big thank you to science journalist Ariana Remmel who did the research for this episode.
Speaker 1:Send us an email to be featured in a future Tiny Show and Tell Us episode at tinymattersacsorg or fill out the form linked in the episode description. We'll see you next time.
