Castor beans can be are used to make ricin, which can be used in a biological chemical weapon.

Get it right people. Ricin kills by preventing protein synthesis in the body.

Ricin can be purified in anyones kitchen if you know how. Unfortunately or fortunately, depending if you are on the sending or receiving end of it, you have to be dammed careful making it because it is so lethal you're very likely going to kill yourself and everyone in your house before you get to use it.

Heh, that made me think of this ^{(^)}
(may not be SFW)

When I was much younger, and living in Florida, we had a big Castor Bean plant in our yard. We had several other poisonous shrubberies, but the Castor was the prettiest. Fortunately for me, if not for others, I never had any desire to taste the beans.

The castor bean plant, which grows wild but is also cultivated as an ornamental, is the most deadly of all plants, according to USA Today.

I'm not saying it isn't the most deadly of all plants, I have no idea personally, but can they site a more reliable source for scientific knowledge than USA Today? Is it that hard?

why didn't he just chug a bottle of castor oil?

picturescrazy: The castor bean plant, which grows wild but is also cultivated as an ornamental, is the most deadly of all plants, according to USA Today.

I'm not saying it isn't the most deadly of all plants, I have no idea personally, but can they site cite a more reliable source for scientific knowledge than USA Today? Is it that hard?

FTFA- "The castor bean plant, which grows wild but is also cultivated as an ornamental, is the most deadly of all plants, according to USA Today.


USA Today = Poison Control Center?

/grandmother gave us Castor Oil &TM; every Friday night
//blech!!!

Bucky Katt: site cite


Eh, It's 1:30 in the morning.

If you're gonna die, at least do it with style.

Wrestle a bear, taunt some nazi skinheads, go to Africa and hunt down Gustav, the man-eating crocodile, with nothing more than a knife and a death wish.

Is the Castor bean the evil twin of the Pollux bean?

CygnusDarius: If you're gonna die, at least do it with style.

Wrestle a bear, taunt some nazi skinheads, go to Africa and hunt down Gustav, the man-eating crocodile, with nothing more than a knife and a death wish.

a poem by Paul Gilmartin

Undignified Ways To Die

Skin-diving with tanks you stole from a dentist.
Renting a basement apartment in Venice.

Wearing clown shoes while walking thru a mine-field at night.
Getting a life-size tattoo of someone your height.

Mistaking a python for your favorite tie.
Hang gliding at night on the Fourth of July.

Having a bowling ball dropped on your head.
Mooning some cannibals that haven't been fed.

Teasing some Scots for wearing their kilts.
Approaching a chopper while walking on stilts.

Swimming with sharks in a suit made of meat.
Flashing yourself to a hippo in heat.

Slapping the head of a bald drunken sailor.
And telling your date's burly dad, "5 bucks says I nail her."

the magical fruit...

Kickass, you get the castor beans and I'll get the tacos and chips ready! Sounds like this one's gonna make for some interesting farts.

Stuffs also a nerve poison, can kill by giving you the worst case of the shiats. Not a huge threat by oral ingestion, super-toxic by sub-cutaneous injection. They call it a 'protein-poison' 'cause maybe it is a protein, I forget.

FTA: An incident involving poisonous castor beans caused a ruckus at a Phoenix hospital Friday night.

"Ruckus"? Who talks like that?

/rue the day

Is this what the guy had in mind?

Denial_of_Death: FTA: An incident involving poisonous castor beans caused a ruckus at a Phoenix hospital Friday night.

"Ruckus"? Who talks like that?

/rue the day

I like the cut of your jib. I hope you can make it to our next Fark shindig.

signaljammer: Stuffs also a nerve poison, can kill by giving you the worst case of the shiats. Not a huge threat by oral ingestion, super-toxic by sub-cutaneous injection. They call it a 'protein-poison' 'cause maybe it is a protein, I forget.

I actually had to research this stuff for a class in college, and you're correct: The stuff kills you by diarrheing you to death, and injecting you with it is the best way to kill you.

The most famous case of ricin poisoning involves some seriously awesome, true life, james bond style stuff

/best class I ever took, knows the difference between semtex, RDX and C4
//post 9/11 too!

How very 1840s of him.

So it kills you by pooping you to death, so the fear was that the hospital was threatened by NATURAL HOLISTIC ORGANIC Ricin fumes?

Damn, but hahahaha, but damn.

Eight ingested beans is considered a lethal dose, quoth the wiki.

Intravenous extract in practically any amount would probably be lethal.

so the deadly plants are something we're allowed to grow in the garden, but a non-toxic plant that happens to give you a buzz is grounds for going to prison?

rock on, america.

What was he going to do, sh*t himself to death?

The ricin toxin has to be extracted from the outside of the bean. Although the amount of ricin in 8 beans would be a lethal dose, further research into the actual cases in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine found that in the two cases reported, vomiting and diarrhea essentially cleared the toxin from the body before "reported manifestations of castor bean toxicity, such as hepatic necrosis, renal failure, erythrocyte hemolysis, convulsions, and shock," could occur. The real danger to the patients was dehydration caused by the vomiting.

Unless you're talking about military-grade ricin, there's no such thing as "ricin fumes."

Bucky Katt :why didn't he just chug a bottle of castor oil?

Castor oyl?

"I put some ground-up castor beans in 'em, so I'd look sick enough to get in here."

Bucky Katt: why didn't he just chug a bottle of castor oil?

The oil is just the oil. It does not contain the proteins that cause poisoning.

I was warned early on about Oleander as it grows near where I grew up. Every part of that plant is toxic. It's even bad to breathe the fumes of it when it burns.

If mushrooms can be included in the running for 'Most Poisonous Plant' they'd probably win.

He is likely to have problems with the oil hits his anus.

Just like Rock Hudson.

What a way to die...self-castoration.

Pilotgeek:

Just came here for that, thanks.

SkullOne: He is likely to have problems with the oil hits his anus.

I lol'd. That was one of the better things to come out of the TotalFark Discussion tab in what, 2005? I had the thread saved on my machine at work before a re-image, so it might be that old at most.

They could have just given him paracetamoxyfrusebendroneomycin (new window, NSFW if you're a kindergarten teacher or similar).

Driver: Is the Castor bean the evil twin of the Pollux bean?

Ohhhhh. Nice! *Golf clap!*


433: SkullOne: He is likely to have problems with the oil hits his anus.

I lol'd. That was one of the better things to come out of the TotalFark Discussion tab in what, 2005? I had the thread saved on my machine at work before a re-image, so it might be that old at most.

[threadjack]
I missed that one as well as the cat-lipstick one. Anyone got the links to 'em? I've got the recent classics like the Ballsack Conundrum and the Xerox Thread, but my l33t fu doesn't go back much more than that. :( Wish I'd saved the Jalapeener one, too. That was gawdawful hillarious.
[/threadjack]

L33t Squirrel:
[threadjack]
I missed that one as well as the cat-lipstick one. Anyone got the links to 'em? I've got the recent classics like the Ballsack Conundrum and the Xerox Thread, but my l33t fu doesn't go back much more than that. :( Wish I'd saved the Jalapeener one, too. That was gawdawful hillarious.
[/threadjack]

I know it might not work out, but try a headline search. The title was something like "What would happen if I were to boil poison ivy leaves and drink it?"

Found it. What ould happen if I were to boil Poison Ivy leaves and drink it like tea? (new window)

433: I know it might not work out, but try a headline search.

Ahhh, so THAT'S where it started! I've tried a couple of searches before for this and others, but I can never remember the headline to most of 'em, and for the "oil-anus" one, I guess you had to be there to know. :) +1 awesome for you.

From the article:

"The castor bean plant, which grows wild but is also cultivated as an ornamental, is the most deadly of all plants, according to USA Today.

"Eating just one bean can be deadly, but patients who live more than five days usually survive."

From Wikipedia (a fairly static article - I've looked it up before):

"The toxicity of raw castor beans isn't well-known, though reports of actual poisoning are relatively comon.Many children die from as few as three beans; adults may require eight or more. As an example of the rarity of castor bean poisoning, in recent years there have only been two cases reported in all of England, and in both the victims recovered uneventfully."

Befuddled: I was warned early on about Oleander as it grows near where I grew up. Every part of that plant is toxic. It's even bad to breathe the fumes of it when it burns.

If mushrooms can be included in the running for 'Most Poisonous Plant' they'd probably win.

Yup, got a whole patch of Destroying Angels out back under the white pine trees. Pretty lil suckers.

Befuddled: I was warned early on about Oleander as it grows near where I grew up. Every part of that plant is toxic. It's even bad to breathe the fumes of it when it burns.

That's one thing that confuses me about CA highways. In a lot of the Central Valley, the center divider of the highway is usually just a chain fence or something smallish with a ginormous hedge of oleanders growing up and over it. It's pretty, and it's used because it's a very hardy plant and is damn hard to kill, but I remember it being kinda toxic, and wondering what the effects are if you crash your car into it, and worse, something catches fire. But maybe I have too much time on my hands or I'm missing some important detail...

Oh that note, I remember a buddy once telling me about a prank he always wanted to play. He planned to get a whole LOAD of golden poppy seeds and some cannabis seeds. Then, he was going to make little paper sachets with a mix of both seeds and throw them into the divider at random intervals down the highway. The idea was that the paper would eventually decompose, allowing the seeds to take root and grow. At some point, you'd have cannabis plants growing along the side of the highway, mixed in with golden poppies. Here's the bit that made him giggle; because the GP is the state flower, it's illegal to dig it up, burn it, damage it, whatever. Because of this, you couldn't simply use a backhoe or anything to tear out the MJ; you'd have to do it by hand. That, and the image of stoners dodging traffic to get free weed in the middle of the highway makes us all laugh. :)

L33t Squirrel: Befuddled: I was warned early on about Oleander as it grows near where I grew up. Every part of that plant is toxic. It's even bad to breathe the fumes of it when it burns.

That's one thing that confuses me about CA highways. In a lot of the Central Valley, the center divider of the highway is usually just a chain fence or something smallish with a ginormous hedge of oleanders growing up and over it. It's pretty, and it's used because it's a very hardy plant and is damn hard to kill, but I remember it being kinda toxic, and wondering what the effects are if you crash your car into it, and worse, something catches fire. But maybe I have too much time on my hands or I'm missing some important detail...

Oh that note, I remember a buddy once telling me about a prank he always wanted to play. He planned to get a whole LOAD of golden poppy seeds and some cannabis seeds. Then, he was going to make little paper sachets with a mix of both seeds and throw them into the divider at random intervals down the highway. The idea was that the paper would eventually decompose, allowing the seeds to take root and grow. At some point, you'd have cannabis plants growing along the side of the highway, mixed in with golden poppies. Here's the bit that made him giggle; because the GP is the state flower, it's illegal to dig it up, burn it, damage it, whatever. Because of this, you couldn't simply use a backhoe or anything to tear out the MJ; you'd have to do it by hand. That, and the image of stoners dodging traffic to get free weed in the middle of the highway makes us all laugh. :)

Poppy seeds won't grow that way, or at least, they didn't when I did that. I should have had a hundred thousand dollar yard, but noooooooo...

That would be quite a sight. I imagine it's not too far off from seeing kids leap the fences quickly on Floridian interstates in the rainy season to grab up a blossom of mushrooms and book it before someone notices.

433: Poppy seeds won't grow that way, or at least, they didn't when I did that. I should have had a hundred thousand dollar yard, but noooooooo...

Awww. All of that opium income... :D

I've never grown flowers of any kind, so I don't know how well or when poppies would grow. Heck, back when I had cats, most houseplants I got had to be sturdy because the cats would eat them. Good thing we've got hardy ones now, because when we were away for the weekend a couple of months ago, the ferrets got out of their cage and ran amok for three days, tipping over and digging in all of the plants we'd left on the kitchen floor next to the glass door to get sunlight. Arrrrrrgh... What a mess.

But yeah, my friend never got around to 'seeding' the highway. Pity. Maybe I'll have to bribe him so that later I can submit the news story to Fark and get a greenlight for once. :) I can see it now: "Not news: Man grows cannabis. Fark: In the middle of Interstate 5."

L33t Squirrel:
But yeah, my friend never got around to 'seeding' the highway. Pity. Maybe I'll have to bribe him so that later I can submit the news story to Fark and get a greenlight for once. :) I can see it now: "Not news: Man grows cannabis. Fark: In the middle of Interstate 5."

Checking planter boxes in large cities for pot plants is routine maintenance. it was certainly a problem in college. In addition, I once did community service out at a TX state park, and one of the things we weren't allowed to do was go on the pot patrol. Apparently someone gets the idea to grow weed at the state park several dozen times a year, because they sweep it 2x a week, and don't come back empty-handed very often. I'd like to see what they're returning with. Given the frequency of the sweeps and the size of the park, I'd have to guess that they're very good at spotting seedlings or something. The Dallas area has been having fits finding gigantic, well-maintained farms on gov't land near the Trinity River left and right.

If you could clandestinely transfer some sturdy seedlings into a wildflower project on the side of the interstate, you might could get it growing, but it all gets cut down. Still, the idea is entertaining. I would definitely do a double-take if I saw honest-to-god weed growing with ditch weed. Hell, I might even stop and check it out. Is this what we've wrought from a man eating castor beans?

So, how does one go about making... I guess you can't ask that. But I'm curious about the ricin thing. Are castor beans and their effects something that would appear on a routine toxicology report? Obviously, the effects will be apparent in the affected organs, but what about the thing that made them shut down?

Also, something else that I forgot.

In addition, I once did community service out at a TX state park, and one of the things we weren't allowed to do was go on the pot patrol. Apparently someone gets the idea to grow weed at the state park several dozen times a year, because they sweep it 2x a week, and don't come back empty-handed very often.

*Laughs.* When I was up at Ft. Lewis a couple of years back, during a break in training I was chatting with one of the people running the exercise. He mentioned that they have to have people go out into the wooded areas of Ft. Lewis all the time for just that reason, 'cause there's always some 'tard who thinks that he can sneak onto government property and grow weed without anyone noticing. They catch a lot of the growers, too. The CHP in CA will fly over fields all the time in the winter, looking for people growing it. Where most of the land and fields are gold or brown, you can easily ID the cannabis plots because they're still a vibrant green, even though they're hidden way aways from the road.

If you could clandestinely transfer some sturdy seedlings into a wildflower project on the side of the interstate, you might could get it growing, but it all gets cut down. Still, the idea is entertaining. I would definitely do a double-take if I saw honest-to-god weed growing with ditch weed. Hell, I might even stop and check it out. Is this what we've wrought from a man eating castor beans?

Well, that was the idea of mixing them with golden poppies; to make it more interesting for the state to rip it all out. And since nobody's talking about castor beans anymore, I think I can feel free to threadjack. :)

So, how does one go about making... I guess you can't ask that. But I'm curious about the ricin thing. Are castor beans and their effects something that would appear on a routine toxicology report? Obviously, the effects will be apparent in the affected organs, but what about the thing that made them shut down?

Personally, I'd really doubt they'd search for it on a routine scan. Ricin is a pain in the ass to manufacture, IIRC, so it's not going to be a common item to look for, and it sounds like you REALLY have to OD on castor beans for it to kill you. They might screen for it, but only if they ran the symptoms against a database or something for a really WEIRD death. (Fun fact: it takes only 1/10th the dose of ricin to achieve the same effect as arsenic.)

/would rather eat a peach...

ashlov71: /would rather eat a peach...

Allman Bros. > Nicholas Cage

Driver: Is the Castor bean the evil twin of the Pollux bean?

this slipped by me at first. Yes, teh castor bean is the twin of the Pollux bean, however, they both died in a terrible accident when they set fire to a bridge by standing in the middle, back-to-back, and shooting flaming arrows to either end.

Castor and Pollux never were bright boys, but bless their hearts, that son-of-a-biatchin' bridge had kil't over half they family, yet the chicken survived.

l33t squirrel
my ex's father had the sheriff as a routine visitor. "Bill, we got to clear some more dope off your land again." "Okay!" This was in Mennonite Kentucky. I would never think to trespass on an any kind of military installation for such a purpose, but then again, take Eglund (sp?) AFB in Florida. The thing is huge, and the land is mostly worthless from what I can tell. I would think that it would be safe to cross the fence in some areas, but that whole "deadly force authorized" thing serves as an adequate deterrent.

I would never think to trespass on an any kind of military installation for such a purpose, but then again, take Eglund (sp?) AFB in Florida. The thing is huge, and the land is mostly worthless from what I can tell. I would think that it would be safe to cross the fence in some areas, but that whole "deadly force authorized" thing serves as an adequate deterrent.

I would think the same thing, too, but people who break the law, as Fark statistics go, usually are Darwin candidates anyway. If it's possible, check out an aerial map of Ft. Lewis. Most of the place is nothing but WOODS. Parts of Washington state are classified as a temperate rainforest, and most of Ft. Lewis is left "wild" for training purposes, or left alone for nature to do its thing. Getting on-post in the first place would be a pain in the ass, but hiding out? They almost need to break out the dogs to find you. Unless they sic the Rangers on you. Then you're SCREWED. :)

Cool, it's 1730, work is over! I'm free!! I'll pick up this thread later tonight...

ashlov71: /would rather eat a peach...

You rang?

Befuddled,

Mushrooms are not plants.