The Assassin's Favorite Plant

[@antaress8128]

Hi. In my grandparents house we had castor bean plants as decoration in the garden. I didn't know the name of the plant back then when I was a kid. It was a common plant in many gardens. I collected and played with the castor bean seeds cuz they were pretty. Didn't know how poisonous they were. When I grew up I learned about this plant and I'm happy I didn't eat any of those back then.

[@derekw9724]

Damn

[@victoriaeads6126]

The plant itself isn't all that dangerous unless the beans are ingested or aerosolized (by crushing, especially when dried), but I am still glad to hear that you never suffered any ill effects

[@tonyabailey183]

Thank the Lord you never ate any of the castor beans! Wow! God was watching over you.

[@SuperManning11]

Same. I loved to collect the seeds because of the beautiful patterns on the shell. I wasn’t the kind of kid to put things in my mouth, but I’m very glad our family dog didn’t get into the bowl of them I had sitting on my desk in my bedroom. I’m sure my parents had no idea…

[@ggwp7963]

Same story here

[@SirHenryMaximo]

Here in Brazil, castor oil plants are a really common sight, as they grow easily everywhere, even neglected backyards. When I was a kid, I heard from my mom and other adults to beware the seeds. Still, kids love to throw the fruits at each other playing catch.

[@victoriaeads6126]

"In fact, learning in general evolved as a concept so we can avoid stupidly dying." Exactly 😂❤

[@davidgold3nrose]

I honestly love her sense of humour

[@sunalwaysshinesonTVs]

Well It seems we're devolving.

[@milobem4458]

Nah, plenty of educated people died stupidly.

[@paulcoffman9514]

🤣

[@wonderwang1585]

Ending of life is fair nothing being stupid or smart. But it is interesting to learn as busy as you can lest you had little time to regret stupidity done.

[@connieembury1]

A lot of common garden plants are poisonous. Monkshood, Foxglove, Angel's Trumpet.

[@tessiepinkman]

Yeah, we had Angel's trumpets growing wild around our summerhouse when I grew up. My parents tried again and again to get rid of them, but they always came back. But they were VERY clear that I shouldn't even touch them (better safe than sorry with a kid) so I was terrified of them. But they are incredibly pretty.

[@kukulroukul4698]

Yew ! yew its very useful for Bear Grill style adventures and survival....they make for a very nasty tip of your arrows

[@MrBubmer]

Small pet peeve, synthetic oils are *infinitely* better at lubricating engines than castor oil, it's not one of the best lubricants but it is better than most seed oils

[@nos9784]

Afaik, castor oil was best a century ago. I am very confident that you are correct, and synthetic lubricants have been better almost as long. Just looking at oil change intervals... 60 years ago, those were 3000 km. These days, 30000 is normal. EDIT: other people say 10000km is a good limit, so maybe, don't wait as long!

[@WhatTheHellIsWrongWithYouu]

@@nos9784 You should never change your oil at 30k miles. 10000 miles MAX even with the best oil.

[@MiguelLer]

@@WhatTheHellIsWrongWithYouu they used kilometers, not miles

[@WhatTheHellIsWrongWithYouu]

@@MiguelLer I live in canada, so i normally use KM. When online, 90% of the time i’m talking to an american who doesnt understand metric. Either way, 10000km for an oil change interval is still decent.

[@nos9784]

@@WhatTheHellIsWrongWithYouu you are propably correct. However, changing the oil more often would not have slowed down the rust around my wheels. That car (vw golf iv) was too old to be economical to keep alive.

[@zyansheep]

14:48, "I personally have dabbled in learning from time to time". Oh hey, me too! In fact, I'm doing it right now!

[@desertdweller129]

The main problem with ricin is there is no antidote but a person with atropine poisoning can be treated by acetylcholinesterase inhibitors in early stages .

[@engmed4400]

I remember being trained to use Atropine autoinjectors when I was in basic training. They were park of the Nerve Agent Antidote Kit, or NAAK, and were one of two agents, Pralidoxime Chloride (2-PAM Chloride) and Atropine Sulfate. The kit comes as a set of two autoinjectors. Both are to be administered in the event of a suspected nerve agent attack. Beneficial as they are in such a situation, they will still leave you incapacitated. Our instructors were careful to let us know that we're out of the fight the instant the NAAK is given, so they stressed ensuring that we got into our chem suits as quickly as possible, and moved to decon ASAP.

[@Evolution__X]

Castor bean is poisonous, but castor oil is regularly used and commercially available in India, and have I seen castor oil used in a specific food (which I have eaten). People use castor oil as some kind of laxative(as a home remedy) and apply it on the skin. I am not sure if castor oil is poisonous. So far nothing has happened to me. Atropa belladonna ( I think it is called as sag angur) it is poisonous.

[@mnxs]

Commercial castor oil is heat-treated in such a way that it deactivates the ricin. If that had not been done, or done improperly, you'd be dead.

[@jakeryker546]

It's not. Castor oil is used for poopin hehe

[@GOOD_FARMER]

​@@jakeryker546 ok 🙄🐈

[@phoenixrisin2269]

Castor oil is great to warm up and soak a piece of cloth with and put it on your skin for many ailments. It’s called a castor oil pack.

[@ekramer2478]

@@jakeryker546 I use it on my scalp to assist with my hair growth. Thyroid. It is helping slowly...

[@erth8096]

Castor is a pretty common plant where I live, so I have been around castor plants since childhood, but I never knew that they were poisonous. My uncle in India farms castor plants every year for seeds. I have even helped him harvest seeds multiple times.

[@mandycreeksquad1722]

You forgot to add that nightshade also gives us hyoscamine, used for stomach cramping. Great video!

[@louischarley6775]

So hear me out: I once ate about half a berry from deadly nightshade... I was curious, the internet said I wouldn't die. Firstly, they're delicious. Like a sweety fruity chocolate flavour, highly recommended. The downsides: I felt nauseous for two days, and most frustratingly my vision was perpetually blurry so I was unable to read or see anything properly. I had extreme cottonmouth but other than that, it wasn't terrible... That was half a berry.

[@lovinthailand921]

I’ve tasted them too! The little bit I tasted was very yummy. Didn’t feel anything but it was very little.

[@philip5940]

There's varying degrees of tolerance and susceptibility among animals and persons. The king parrots like the berries but they also like green potatoes , I don't think even goats will eat green potatoes. I suspect it knocks out the gut parasites. I've noticed the berries in the scats of foxes too .

[@celiabrickell2500]

We're the visual problems permanent or temporary? How long did the visual problems persist?

[@louischarley6775]

@@celiabrickell2500 Thank god only for a few days - suddenly not being able to use a phone or read street signs and the like was the most frustrating thing.

[@louischarley6775]

@@lovinthailand921 Perhaps someone can find a way to cook them into a safe and tasty jam on day!

[@wheelchair_charlie]

As soon as I see a Real Science video it's an instant click, an instant like and I'm never disappointed and always amazed at the narration, production and massive information compacted into their short videos! Thanks for enlightening me a little more with another fascinating video RS!

[@williamsutter2152]

Scopolamine is also known as hyoscine (particularly outside the US). I think you have mistaken its use as an antidepressant for use as an antipsychotic. Hyoscine has been used as a rapid-onset antidepressant, but I am unaware of its use as an antipsychotic, in fact I'd imagine it'd make that worse given it can trigger hallucinations.

[@peterszeug308]

It has been used historically for sedative purposes in psychiatric wards, together with opium, back when synthetic drugs weren't a thing. Opium was the main antipsychotic while the scopolamine was used to moderate the amount of opium needed, as it is much cheaper, and doesn't cause tolerance to the same degree. Synthetic antipsychotics actually antagonize the same muscarinic receptors that scopolamine also antagonizes.

[@tessiepinkman]

@@peterszeug308 That was really interesting to hear for someone like me, who's been taking different antipsychotics on and off for half of my life. I didn't know this. Thank you for teaching me something new about the drugs I sometimes need for a short time (most times it's about two weeks, the longest I've been on antipsychotics is 3 months) to get out of a psychotic episode.

[@williamsutter2152]

@@peterszeug308 True, some do antagonize those receptors, but not all do and that is not their mechanism of action at relieving psychosis. The main value of antagonizing the mAChRs for antipsychotics is that it can lessen the extrapyramidal side effects. That being said it's also responsible for causing many of the adverse effects of antipsychotics, like dry mouth, constipation (even to the point of paralytic ileus), blurred vision, etc.

[@peterszeug308]

@@williamsutter2152 I find extrapyramidal side effects to be especially severe with antipsychotics.

[@SunilKumar-nf7ft]

My grandparents used to grow castor plants in the farm here in India. We as children used to play on them all the time. Sometimes we would climb over the branches, sometimes we sat under them. It was fun.

[@Kender591]

I'm from the Caribbean,the castor bean plant is very Popular here.most people don't know about its toxicity,when I was younger I even used to taste the beans.people also drink ricin as a way to clean up your whole system,they say.

[@THE-X-Force]

lmao .. _"people drink ricin"_ .. yeah .. ONCE.

[@eclogite]

I'd imagine they'd be drinking castor oil rather than prepared ricin, as one is a laxative and the other is hella toxic

[@mnxs]

Don't you mean they drink castor oil? Because that's a laxative, but it's been treated so that it contains no ricin. If they'd drunk untreated castor oil, they'd be very dead.

[@africanelectron751]

Probably talking about castor oil which is pretty harmless except the violet poop.

[@ddogg9255]

The backing tracks on this one are so good

[@deanagoes2791]

I remember when I was a child I once ate half a castor bean seed. And the world felt like it was spinning. Luckily I didn't die

[@KJ4EZJ]

In my more adventurous days, a group of friends and I once brewed a tea from the root of a plant that contained atropine, scopalamine, and hyscopalamine under the direction of a shaman I knew and trusted. It was a nightshade the shaman grew for this purpose, but not the one in the video. The tea tasted very strongly of potatoes and was bitter. It was hard to drink. I don't think I could eat potatoes for months afterwards, lol. Every time you took a sip of the tea, your mouth would become drier. It was by far the worst dry mouth I have ever experienced. Nothing even comes close. No matter how much water you drank, your mouth was as dry as the desert the second it was down. It was somehow dry with water in your mouth, even. We all got very tired and heavy. It became difficult to move, like when you first enter extremely cold water. The psychotropic effects took over two hours to set in. It was not like any other psychedelic, even fully immersive ones. It was most like dreaming, and I understand the acetylcholine receptors are involved in dreams. You would see the world around you, but thing would appear or disappear in a way that is completely illogical, and your brain would accept it as if it were real. For example, my computer monitor disappeared and a ten inch woman walked out of the wall behind it and had a conversation with me. A friend leaned over my shoulder and I knew him, he joined the conversation. It was a really rational and invigorating conversation, until my computer went to screen-saver. Instantly, the monitor appeared, the girl was gone, the friend was gone, and I realized in that moment I had been alone in the room and the entire experience of the past five minutes had not been real. There is no way to describe that feeling. My (real) friend had a conversation with a vacuum and tried to send an email by typing on a microwave. We had dilated pupils and blurry vision for the next three days. There was nothing pleasant about the experience, nothing at all. I do not regret it, but I haven't done it again and I do not recommend it. It is extremely dangerous. It is extremely hard to dose correctly and there is a very small therapeutic index, the difference between the TH50 (the lowest dose at which half of the consumers experience any effects), and the LD50 (the dose at which half of the consumers die). Different cuttings from the same plant can have different amounts of alkaloids. We had someone experienced who had trained with indigenous shamans and had administered this dozens or hundreds of times. It was interesting, but nothing about it was fun and it is not worth your life. Ultimately, I went on to study dreams. Seeing how acetylcholine analogs affected me awake has given me a bit of insight and appreciation for what our brains do when we are asleep.

[@calyxman]

Datura?

[@peixefish1]

​@@calyxman for sure! Zabumba !

[@got2kittys]

This sounds like Datura Stramonium. Or D.Meteliodes.

[@honderdzeventien]

That was likely to have been Datura indeed, like there's an all absorbing hedgehog in your throat. It's more wise to use as an enema;-) (Edit; you still have a dry throat, but there's no hedgehog there. The best way is to have the extract age for at least six months in the fridge, that way it'll even become pleasant)

[@patriciapalmer4215]

No potatoes, tomatoes, peppers ! 1985 Physician to me, after auto immune disease diagnosis, have deadly nightshade properties. Seems he was ahead of his time.

[@LuoJun2]

Castor oil was used to lubricate aircraft engines in WWI. Engines at the time were not particularly well-sealed and tended to spray oil as they ran. One reason the pilots wore that dashing scarf was to wipe the castor oil spray off of their goggles. The scarf was not effective in keeping the castor oil spray from the pilot’s mouth and nose, so pilots often ran headlong to the latrines shortly after a flight due to the laxative effect.

[@dasstigma]

"Stupidly dying" is one of my favourite expressions now.

[@TheAlchaemist]

There was a castor tree in the next block from my home, right there in the sidewalk. No one knew what species was it. And I liked the spiky balls, so I used to play with them, and the seeds are really nice like dotted. So I made bonsai trees from them, they grew easily. I only found out they were so poisonous recently. Last time I went to visit, I checked and the tree was no longer there. I guess I was lucky.

[@The-three-eyed-Prophet]

some Poachers in Europe Allegedialy use Deadly Night shade to dialate their pupills to see better at night while poaching but this can obviously be dangerous and deadly ...

[@theemissary1313]

Regarding castor oil, i remember hearing that all british pilots during the battle of britain had diarrhoea because of the castor oil used to lubricate spitfire and hurricane engines. Weird to think of the extra level of danger involved in that time of history. I'm also sure you can buy castor beans in a supermarket near me, although I am pretty sure it must be a separate variety of the plant.

[@adriandunne4382]

Castor oil was used in World War 1 aero engines which used oil mixed with the fuel mainly rotary engines ; used oil was discharged in the exhaust.

[@dirtpathart]

Love your series. Wanted to point out the in the video at 7:30-7:40 you show 2 brief shots of black nightshade (Solanum nigrum). A related plant, whose *ripe* fruits can be cooked into safely edible pies and jams. Note the fruit clusters and toothed leaves, vs the solitary fruits and entire leaves of deadly nightshade.

[@PlumpChickenButtocks]

Thanks, I noticed that too. Hobbyist fruit grower here😂.

[@honderdzeventien]

Yeah it's a bit selectively assembled, cutting some corners obviously

[@victoriaeads6126]

In all fairness, there are several plants, like pokeweed, that have edible parts despite being toxic/poisonous. I live in a biodiverse rural area, so I have taught my kids "don't eat it unless *I* am sure it's ok. Never eat it unless you check with me, and if I don't know the plant, we aren't risking it without research." They haven't died yet, so here's hoping. My husband knows some plants, but I am the amateur botanist in the family.

[@charlieq4944]

Omg , back when i was a kid ... we used to play with the castor plant... they grew everywhere

[@DeyvsonMoutinhoCaliman]

Near my house there are some castor bean trees, never realized they were so dangerous. There is also some black berries that we call "black maries", but I don't think they are nightshades, they taste sour, so it's hard to eat much of it, and I didn't see anybody getting sick.

[@WVgrl59]

I love castor bean plants especially the different colors. In the 30 years that I have grown it I've never had anyone come to my door to see if I was planning on killing people. 😂

[@AliTheIrfan]

So rexford is alive!

[@kelleemerson9510]

I know. I thought it BS saying government keeps track on those buying castor beans. My mom grew them, I've grown them. Very showy. Got some to 10 ft. with old horse barn soil.

[@margodphd]

Same,I have a miniature poison garden and the cop next door didn't recognize even poppies 😂

[@amberkat8147]

Uh-oh. Maybe I should tell my brother. He's been deliberately growing castor plants in our parents' yard. Not because they're poisonous- he just loves all plants the way Clint of Clint's Reptiles loves pretty much every animal, except a bit less wide-eyed and a bit more "can I propagate this?" He grows them because they are beautiful to him. I'm the crazy pants who had to talk herself out of trying to acquire some seeds to make poison with. "It's too d*mn dangerous" and "when would a situation severe enough that you could even justify using it?!" worked, though. Especially the danger vs potential usefulness. Because the only situation I could see it seeming fair would be if a hostile foreign power managed a land invasion of the U.S., because in that case poisoning their food or water would be tempting. But that would also be a war crime, and if they weren't committing them before it would make them feel free to commit war crimes on us civilians after, so even in that extremely remote case it would likely be worse in the end than not doing it, and then there's the difficulty of even making the stuff without accidentally killing yourself and trying to store it so that no one could ever accidentally find and consume it. So yeah- tempting, but really, really not worth it.

[@LTMenezes]

I like how loving plants escalated to war crimes so quickly

[@douglascolman4501]

Then why don't soldiers shoot rubber bullets and throw flour bombs? Because the objective of war is to eliminate the enemy by fair means or foul. If poisoning the enemies food and water supplies is necessary to obtain victory then do it to them before they do it to you. All's fair in love and war.

[@banditthedog6268]

You have too much time on your hands 😂

[@davidgold3nrose]

POV: You're realising you wrote a scene where someone dies of belladonna poisoning wrong but you don't care because you never specified the poison in the story

[@fuzzyhair321]

There's another plant that will ask you to throw off a cliff in northern Australia. It's leaves have a fibre glass needle that's like glass, it takes months to years to shed it out

[@Likelybiking]

I have a friend who likes to forage, and he went to the ER after eating a bunch of castor beans. He said they taste like Jalapeño cheese bread.

[@theworldofpanda6559]

i mean tobacco isnt bad inherently, its all the chemicals we put in it to make it smoke better. only the leaf practically has 0 effects

[@Talus-hallux1]

There are various medicinal uses of the alkaloids these plants. Castor oil is used to treat constipation. Atropine is also used in snake poisoning. It reduces the affects of overactivity of Acetylcholine on the cardio- respiratory systems. Atropine is also used in anesthesia to increase heart rate when there's bradycardia. It is very useful to reduce secretions during intubation and ICU scenarios. Hyoscine is used as an antispasmodic in abdominal colic and pain. Scopolamine is used to treat motion sickness.

[@UniDocs_Mahapushpa_Cyavana]

Scopolamine's psychological effects, should get their own video 📹.

[@Leanzazzy]

My parents: Plants are good for you. The plants:

[@WarmWeatherGuy]

3:50 I guess the graphics person didn't understand the definition of LD50. The more it takes to kill 50% the less deadly it is.

[@mnxs]

That, and the scaling between the two is all wrong. Inhaled/injected ricin is, as per the numbers presented, _three _*_orders_*_ of magnitude_ more deadly than when ingested - far, far more than the 100-150 % the graph seems to suggest.

[@chrisleblanc581]

Don’t know why, but this a a popular thing folks plant in my home town. I’ve seen folks with their entire front yard covered with it. Unsurprisingly, it is one of the most common things that poison pets and kids.

[@dmac1465]

'Learning evolved in the first place so we could avoid stupidly dying, its also useful for other stuff' looool 10/10

[@mokomdane4297]

Ironically I use to harvest and play with the thorny fruits of the Castro bean plant totally unaware 😮.

[@mnxs]

It happens. Someone really should have known better, and supervised your play better, I'd say (I presume you meant when you where a kid). On the bright side, (ingested) castor bean toxicity is much less of a problem unless the beans are actually chewed - they contain ricin, they're not covered in it.

[@tomlxyz]

That's not ironic, just unfortunate

[@phhdvm]

atropine is used routinely to maintain blood pressure and heart rate during anesthesia

[@GlassBoxHero]

I know people growing Castor plants in their yard as a decorative plant. If this plant is so deadly, how is it legal to grow when things like marijuana have been illegal for so long? Finally the stigma behind marijuana is leaving, but it was just the best example I could think of.

[@agranero6]

The plant that produces Ricin is so so so common here in Brazil: here it is called Mamona (Ricinus Comunis), there was even a very famous band called Mamonas Assassinas (Killer Mamonas). The fruit has spikes all around it, when green they are not hard but they tangle in your hairs and are difficult to take off. At my school on the 1st to 5th grade the back of the school besides the sports court had Mamonas (they grow anywhere are really pervasive) and it was common for children to do Mamonas fights throwing at each other (it is nasty to take the from the hair). Mamona's fruits are pressed just like Olives to extract the oil called Óleo de Rícino (Ricinum Oil also called Castor Oil) that was used as a laxative in old days like the 19th Century to the 1940s, the oil does not get poisoned as the poison is not soluble in the oil as it is on the seeds. The oil is also used as a lubricant for fine machinery and it is still very used as a hair product. Despite the plant being very common I have never heard or read in the news anyone poisoned by Ricin, the oil is incredibly bitter and the fruit has a lot of spikes, so not usually a child or animal would try to taste it. The case you mention is the only exception I heard of and it was on a factory that processed the plant and it was 11 years before I was born. I doubt they extract the oil on the same way 71 years ago.

[@John223]

Both of these plants grow all over European gardens and forests. I never thought they were this poisonous. I think my grandmother has some in her garden next to her "beautiful flowers" 🤨

[@kukulroukul4698]

they are omnipresent and SOMETIMES they are even pest for the gardens in Europe . Yeah we all know about their toxicity but the Real Science didnt said anything about...Taxus baccata that our ancestors used for poisoning their arrows :)

[@deed5811]

Deadly Nightshade is a beautiful herb. Atropine is based on just one of many chemicals in this plant. So although deadly, it has also saved alot of lives.

[@stagnantfox3027]

Quote "Nothing and everything can become a poison, it's about the dose that determines whether something is useful or poisonous". Bathing in super super diluted bleach (we're talking like 1 part bleach to 1000 parts water) is something you can do to remedy specific temporary skin conditions for example.

[@Papa_and_son2024]

We used to play with ricin as children and we never got sick. I grew up in a place called Lupane in Zimbabwe, Africa

[@freeyourselfwiththeflame]

Actually this is my favourite yt channel, love her voice and the very well made videos

[@Green.Country.Agroforestry]

It is legal to plant castor beans .. but given the potential hazards of extracting the oil, I still prefer to use commercially produced castor oil to preserve our bottle gourds - once rubbed down with the oil, rodents will avoid the are where they are stored, allowing them to be used to dry store grains. If I ever _did_ need to extract the oil myself, I think I would use the native technique of just cracking the beans, and immersing in boiling water: skim the oil off the top with a dipper (made from a bottle gourd, of course!) and discard the rest. Ricin is not oil soluble, so the extracted oil is safe for human use. If I used my oil press, the press cake would be troublesome to dispose of, and I would not like to have any residue left when I'm pressing sunflowers!

[@bobwarfield3621]

Worked with this stuff in the 80's. Nasty stuff. To dispose of it you have to boil it in concentrated (10 Normal) Sodium Hydroxide for an hour.

[@derekw9724]

Bill Wilson, the creator of Alcoholics Anonymous, was administered Belladonna as some sort of treatment for alcoholism. He said that it initiated a spiritual experience, and he experience a complete release of control, some sort of oneness. This is a reason why religion is a big focus in AA, it's capable of creating such a powerful experience. Bill W. was very interested in LSD as a much safer/ less terrifying initiator of spiritual experiences, but AA ultimately did not agree, continuing to focus on complete abstinence from mind altering substances (excepting nicotine and caffeine). Crazy they were administering poison for alcohol abuse, but it seemed to work out in the end

[@Catandgoose]

This is really interesting. Where did you learn this? I’m intrigued by the spiritual rhetoric in AA and had no idea part of it was because of psychedelics.

[@CoDmajor1]

I never knew assassins had a favorite plant! This was such an interesting video. Can't wait to learn more about the different plants they use.

[@deavman]

From experience, I can tell you it is not that easy to get the results you want. Today's synthesis of compounds is much more efficient..;-)

[@justinmarino5601]

I hate ads but I gonna say, y’all are real smooth with the transition to the sponsor.

[@robertlee8400]

There’s one poison that’s common in household that I didn’t know existed , it’s in very small traces & it’s in a fruit we all eat , that Apple . The seeds of the apple have very very small traces of cyanide in them , didn’t know that & bananas are radioactive , they have very very small trace of being radioactive because of the potassium that’s in them . I did some research about samurai’s just looking up the history of them & in lead me down a big old rabbit hole , I seen poisons that ninjas back in the day used , none of them that could be used in the states just because most of them were sea based & I have to tell you the sea based poisons are the nastiest ones as far as effects on the human body , I’ve heard of snake venom being one too that they use to use .

[@forrestdion3405]

Also almonds

[@jsjsjjsud9556]

There is no cyanide. They contain amygdalin which undergoes hydrolysis in the presence of water which then produces the cyanide.

[@alexanderphilip1809]

1:20 Therr it is. Apparently people who want to self delete have consumed them to commit the act. I've also seen these things being dried out on plastic sheets(there seems to be some actual utility other than for self deletion, Though i dont recall what it is.)

[@TheCaptainLulz]

You showed more woody nightshade than deadly nightshade in your video. Woody nightshade isnt the same thing, and isnt nearly as toxic. Thats the nightshade with the red berries and purple stem on the plant.

[@211212112]

We have castor beans all over. My grandmother and the other grandmothers planted them because they supposedly keep moles away. They even call them Molebeans. We never had an FBI agent show up. It is kinda scary thinking about me smashing those deadly beans in my hands.

[@tezer2d]

The production quality is high as always, it's a shame the algorithm doesn't like you

[@bhargavsukumar6024]

My grandmother makes curry out of nightshade plants leafs . It tastes really good

[@got2kittys]

Castor beans are naturalised in Southern California. Thousands of seeds are available for the picking.

[@scooterelway9191]

one of the best channel on youtube, thanks for the content! i love your narration too!

[@OmegaBlack999]

I love this channel. Your monologue at the end about learning is epic.. 😂❤ Thank you! You're amazing!

[@naik3334]

That intro was amazing

[@FlameLegend100]

Wow nice to know. A lot of deadly plants exist.

[@Bia-bk9zp]

Castor bean plants is such a common plant here in Brazil, most of the people don't know how deadly it is in fact as kids me and my friends used to play with the beans throwing at each other cuz it hurts a lot so somehow it was funny as hell but little did we know that we could've died because of it

[@santhoshrider7348]

We in India eat them in optimum quantities (to make idlis fluffier)! 😂 It's oil, half a table spoon, used in cooking . Castor oil is taken orally for purgation, once in six months (even for kids) Yet to see someone from India says it's that dangerous as claimed to be!

[@ekramer2478]

Grows all over out West in the US.

[@ВиталийКотиков-т5э]

Brutal

[@ix-Xafra]

The background music was overwhelming with headphones on.

[@jusufagung]

1:49 the fruit is exactly similar to rambutan fruit. The difference is that rambutans are edible.

[@wigmargonzalez632]

I remember watching a KZbin documentary on how to get ricin from raw castor beans and the presenter encouraged all the time to use it with different methods against Russian. It was evident his aversion to the Russian people.

[@SuperFilmregisseur]

As soon as I saw the thumbnail I immediately knew it had to be ricin because I have rewatched breaking bad 3 times in 3 weeks

[@eloimumford5247]

Not toxic but extremely hot : as kids visiting botanical garden they were growing experimental chili pepper with warning NOT to taste which my younger brother did ...the effect was horrible , he cried for 6 hours ...beware of < natural > stuff. Excellent video.

[@Thegrifter69]

Atropine is also a super commonly used cardiac medication. And low-dose atropine eye drops are being used to treat progressive myopia in children. Night shade is an amazing plant!

[@Indrakusuma_a]

As a kid, we used to play with castor beans as some sort of 'toy', where we would press 2 beans against each other with our palms to see which one cracks and the one still intact as the winner. Let's just say we're lucky we never accidentally ingested one :s

[@christianheichel]

I heard they would use castor beans in baby rattles. I'm not sure if that's just an old fiction horror story or real.

[@ekramer2478]

They did.

[@kylerussell1942]

Not stupidly dying is one of my favorite past times...

[@ryanreedgibson]

The closed captioning doesn't match!

[@agranero6]

4:06 this graph is weirdly wrong: shows the Lethal Dose in 50% cases on y axis but the most poisonous delivery method is the smaller bar. And the title says Lethality Rating.

[@DreadEnder]

And to think I’ve been taking those things and ripping them apart to look inside!

[@DominikJaniec]

beautiful presentation, very neat animations ;)

[@speedster0073]

It's very common plant in my village. Day before Holi we have a rituals make a logs with it, and burn this in fire.

[@gef56]

Small error at 3:57 LD50 is actually the "median lethal dose" (abbreviation for "lethal dose, 50%")

[@tomlxyz]

I wouldn't call it an error necessarily. When you say "lethal dosis" it has to refer to some percentage. It's not like everyone drops dead at a certain threshold at once

[@gef56]

​@@tomlxyz LD50 refers specifically to the median lethal dose. One sigma would be the least ambiguous lethality threshold. No one implied a universal lethality threshold; that is a preposterous notion.

[@swaroopa1631]

We mix castor oil in all our lentils rice wheat etc to keep ‘em away from insects. That way we consume cast oil daily

[@chrilin5107]

5.31 seen those many times in the wild here in Spain, they get stuck to clothes and pets; ie easy to bring inside. So for people with small children, be careful.

[@Grove332]

The LD50 bar graph seems wrong.

[@radosawr5016]

I'm fascinated by deadly nightshade. I managed to grow it from seeds and I got first ripe berries this year. I ate one, do not recommend, they don't taste amazing 😂

[@opts9]

I tasted a wild Deadly Nightshade berry and it was quite sweet, with a dusky kind of flavour. However, I also do not recommend anyone tries one!

[@timothytumusiime2903]

.....this was a dark episode Even the music is on point esp towards the end of the Belladonna section

[@galacticmechanic1]

Now I know why the local council removed that small tree with the pointed leaves and spiky seed pods.

[@o0o-jd-o0o95]

I was just up at the grocery store the other day and they're selling Castor bean seeds up there along with all the other plant seeds that you can buy. it even says they're poisonous on the back of the packaging.... I was kinda shocked that they would sell those like that I see almost no good use for even planting any of them.... why bother? it's risky

[@mnxs]

It _is_ risky, yes, but many, many normal garden plants are in fact poisonous. So as for gardening plants, it's not really weird. Potatoes are a great food, for example, but _don't_ eat any other part of that plant.

[@q.b.3828]

​@@mnxs why what happena

[@amberkat8147]

Well, they're fairly harmless unless someone gets ahold of the seeds/beans and tried to eat them raw, including chewing on them. Cooking them would reduce the toxicity, and you'd need to chew or crush them to release any of the ricin. My brother grows at least one every year because he thinks it's neat. (He's a gardener. Absolutely obsessed with plants. He doesn't really care much what they could be used for or if they have any potential use.) He's hoping that over time, by selecting the seeds from whichever lasts longest he'll get it more cold-tolerant, because we're well north of the range they can live year-round.

[@mujtabajahangir1097]

At 7:04 , 7:31 , 7:39 they showed solanum nigrum not atropa belladona (7:24)(12:30) though both belong to nightshade family

[@SuperFilmregisseur]

I presume that's where hunger games came up with the nightlock berries, as it seems to be almost exactly the same name too, nightshade, nightlock

[@pravindahiya719]

Castor oil is a regular part of food in some states of India ! 🤣 others use it less frequently . still others use it as a part of joint pain treatment ( as lexative ) ! Night Shade is eaten in India wherever it grows ! the current teens in big cities don't know the plant but anyone with some rural connection or aged 30 + has eaten its fruit if not the green leaf as vegetable.

[@grindsaur]

Pet peeve: when finding footage of deadly nightshade, use footage of deadly nightshade not black nightshade - the two are quite different and visually distinct!

[@Pariatical]

On the poison vs medicine thing, "It's the dose that makes the poison"

[@xxmountaindewxx7893]

Wolfsbane used to be really popular in Europe aswell ^^

[@brianedwards7142]

Belladonna is an antidote for wolfsbane (aconite, another good assassin's tool).

[@mokomdane4297]

We literally cook the leafs of night shade as vegetables. I can't count the number of times I have actually tasted it.

[@chaoticdusk1316]

If it exists and doesn't kill us immediately humans will eat it.

[@riverAmazonNZ]

There’s more than one variety of nightshade. Only one is really bad, Deadly Nightshade, (atropa belladonna).

[@suspikachu3110]

Thank you i really needed this video....... For research purposes of course (and people that annoy me)

[@degraham9198]

Oh. I see. Devil's Breath. That fits. Who's their chemist?

[@ryanreedgibson]

It's complicated to make though. You do need a few more tools than what you find in your kitchen.

[@jhnyjoejoe69]

I like how the internet brought everyone knowledge of ricin and ayahuasca.

[@youdontknow8729]

I am really happy that I am alive, after all my childhood playing and hanging in ricing trees, and fighting each other in the hood with its seed. also I remember that we used to hit each other by a toxic plant that cause sever itching, that lasts too long, what a stupid behaviours.

[@pokeitwithastick7869]

ricin is a plant ; not a tree- you cant hang from it- you must mean a different tree

[@drewharrison6433]

Belladonna... Blind as a bat. Mad as a hatter. Dry as a bone.