Okay, that’s not a great title. More accurately, we’re discussing toxins, the substances that organisms produce for chemical defense or attack against each other. Toxins are found in practically all living things, they function as part of immune systems, poisonous defenses, and predatory venom, and they have all sorts of amazing effects from discomfort to death. In this episode, we’ll touch on who has them, what they do, and what we know about the long, complex evolutionary history of venom and biological poison.

In the news: Spinosaurus teeth, an overlooked extinction, bird beaks, and Neanderthal DNA.

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The Intro and Outro music is “On the Origin of Species” by Protodome.

Musical Interludes are "Professor Umlaut" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0