According to scientists, a poison arrow in the quiver may let loose a very sticky nether-region massacre.
The poison in question has spattered from the tips of African weapons for centuries, rubbing out wild beasts and halting the hearts of warriors. But, according to a study in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, a crotch shot of an ancient toxin called “ouabain” can also take out sperm. By tweaking the poison’s chemical backbone (or scaffold), it can selectively paralyze trouser troops and prevent them from storming eggs, the authors report.
The study’s authors, led by Shameem Sultana Syeda of the University of Minnesota, are optimistic that, with further aiming, the poison’s progeny could one day strike as a safe, reversible male contraceptive.
The chemical descendants that the authors have already spawned “interfere with sperm motility and sperm hyperactivation,” they report. Thus “this novel scaffold represents an attractive chemical structure for further development of a highly specific male contraceptive,” they conclude.
For centuries, African warriors and hunters have extracted ouabain from the two eastern African plants that make it—Acokanthera schimperi and Strophanthus gratus—and slathered the poison onto their arrow heads.
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The researchers have a long, long way to go before any ouabain derivatives make it into male pill form. But they argue that the strategy is worth pursuing.
Read full, original post: Poison arrows inspire new male contraceptive, scientists report
