raptor_dad Posted March 20, 2015 Share Posted March 20, 2015 DS8 has a persistent interest in the mechanisms of poisons... I expected there to be lots of upper elementary and beyond books on the topic, but I was wrong. I can't even find adult books on the topic. So far I am pulling on my ancient biochem background and DW's pharm/clinical chem background... but that is all 15-20yo... We've talked about variations of the heme molecule and poisons thereof. We have had a number of discussions of acetylcholine inhibitors like curare and botulinum toxin. But, my memory is failing me. I really want a book to guide this... I'm imagining a volume of Asmiov's "How did we find out about..." for poison or some thing like Usbourne's "What is [Physics,Chem,Bio] All About" but for pharmacology/toxicology. Fran Balkwill's books are not strictly topical but probably the closest analog. Any ideas? I don't mind heavily adapting adult books. I had hoped Peter Atkins "Molecules" might have something workable but alas... PS: The Horrible Science "Painful Poison" book is not available locally or through ILL but given my dislike of all other Horrible History and Math books, I assume it isn't what I want?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raptor_dad Posted March 20, 2015 Author Share Posted March 20, 2015 OK. Not exactly what I'm looking for but the "Pick Your Poison"[1] videos look pretty good... Definitely adaptable. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDBrdEF5UcE Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrysalis Academy Posted March 20, 2015 Share Posted March 20, 2015 Maybe this one? http://www.amazon.com/Wicked-Plants-Lincolns-Botanical-Atrocities/dp/1565126831/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1426881233&sr=8-2&keywords=poisonous+plants I think this author has a number of books about poisonous plants. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raptor_dad Posted March 20, 2015 Author Share Posted March 20, 2015 Maybe this one? http://www.amazon.com/Wicked-Plants-Lincolns-Botanical-Atrocities/dp/1565126831/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1426881233&sr=8-2&keywords=poisonous+plants I think this author has a number of books about poisonous plants. I have that on hold and will report back... DS is specifically pushing on why poisons works. Lots of these kinds of books are on the plants and the symptoms without any real explanation of mechanism... For instance http://www.amazon.com/Poison-Sinister-Species-Consequences-American/dp/1454907649 is a good book of that type, but despite being published in conjunction with AMNH it has no basic science material. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrysalis Academy Posted March 20, 2015 Share Posted March 20, 2015 Gotcha. Hmm, I wish I could think of something. It is fascinating, hearkening back to my study of neuroscience - I remember we studied why curare, and various venoms, and cyanide work the way they do. But I can't think of any books that cover that, it was probably a chapter in a biochemistry/neuropharmacology type text that I'm thinking of. Good luck finding what you are looking for! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThoughtfulMama Posted March 21, 2015 Share Posted March 21, 2015 The Elements of Murder : a History of Poisons by John Emsley is very good. In fact, all of his chemistry books are worth a read. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quark Posted March 21, 2015 Share Posted March 21, 2015 not relevant Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quark Posted March 21, 2015 Share Posted March 21, 2015 I looked at Nature's Building Blocks and Molecules at an Exhibition by Emsley and while they have some very interesting information, there isn't anything on the actual mechanism that I can see. We don't have the other Emsley books or Poisoner's Handbook at hand anymore so I am unable to check them. One other option might be to check how drugs work and track back from there for poisons. For e.g. Pills, Potions, Poisons has a chapter on Poisons that might be helpful. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quark Posted March 21, 2015 Share Posted March 21, 2015 Uppers, Downers and All Arounders also mentions how drugs work...I remembered this book because DS was once very enamored by mental disease, hallucinogens etc but it's a bit technical for a young kid. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dicentra Posted March 22, 2015 Share Posted March 22, 2015 The Poisoner's Handbook is more of a historical text on the birth of forensic science in New York City but it's still a good read. Wicked Plants is a very fun book with gorgeous engravings. :) I haven't read The Elements of Murder (Emsley) but I agree - anything by Emsley is probably good. How much organic chem/biochem knowledge does your son have, Raptor Dad? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miss Tick Posted March 22, 2015 Share Posted March 22, 2015 The Flavia de Luce books might make a nice read-aloud to go along with his interest... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrysalis Academy Posted March 22, 2015 Share Posted March 22, 2015 The Flavia de Luce books might make a nice read-aloud to go along with his interest... Right, I bet he'd like those! The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie is the title of the first one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raptor_dad Posted March 28, 2015 Author Share Posted March 28, 2015 After getting books in on hold, I quite like Emsley's stuff. "The Elements of Murder" is a little verbose and forensic for what I want. But "Nature's Building Blocks" has the same info. "Nature's Building Blocks" is the closest I've found to what I want. Black Mamba Venom blocking Potassium channels is great... various heavy metal binding sulfur containing aminos and proteins... elements inhibiting oxidative phosphorylation... excellent! I still haven't quite found what I want. I remember lots of problem sets and exam questions from biochem and beyond that involve these sorts of compounds. I think these sort of cases are a great way to introduce and explain cell signalling. However, given existing resources, Emsley's stuff looks like the best bet. ETA: Blum's "Poisoner's Handbook" looks like a great forensics book and video but not quite what I'm looking for... a great resource for when DS revisits the subject at 12-14yo... 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kerileanne99 Posted March 28, 2015 Share Posted March 28, 2015 Hhmm, I have read almost all of the above mentioned 'pop-science' style books and enjoyed them:) Hubby and l are both chemists and I have much more of a biology and toxicology background. Your search actually reminded me of a toxicology class I took. Whilst I had several, one in particular stands out as it was for designed for students with an interest in drugs and poisons:) We had a textbook called The Basic Science of Poisons as a spine (see below) which went through general (and many specific!) pathways and mechanisms, but the fun part was keeping a notebook. The professor gave everyone a poison or toxin every week and had them research it. It is relatively easy to find scientific papers on each known or predicted pathway, but we were also encouraged to find the fun cultural references, the historical uses, crazy instances of murder and mayhem, etc. Then we presented each to the class and were given copies for our own notebook. It was a total blast! And no one book could have provided such a both broad overview with the very specific molecular info we were studying. Just a thought, but a project like that could be tailored as in-depth and broad as needed, then kept around as chemistry/biology/cell physiology knowledge deepens:) http://www.r2library.com/resource/title/0071470514 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dmmetler Posted March 28, 2015 Share Posted March 28, 2015 He may be a little young for them now, but there are two cozy mystery series written for adults, but generally fairly innocent that often involve toxicology. The first is Donna Andrew's Meg Langslow mysteries (Which all have birds in the title somewhere). The protagonist's father is a mystery buff with a strong interest in poisons (and lots of other stuff) and who maintains a garden of poisonous plants-and is prone to wax poetic about them. The first one, Murder with Peacocks, goes into this at length, and several of the others involve toxicology as well. They're some of my favorite mysteries, and one of the few sets that I actually have bought all of, instead of just reading them. The second is Nancy Fairbank's Carolyn Blue mysteries. Carolyn is a food critic who's husband is a toxicologist. Many of the earlier books in the series involve her running into a mystery while being an "Accompanying person" at chemical conferences. The protagonist is much less sympathetic and interesting than the Langslow ones. I consider these "Get from the library when there's a new one available" books. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dmmetler Posted March 28, 2015 Share Posted March 28, 2015 Another thought is to check journals and see whether he's ready for them. My DD started reading open source journals in herpetology at about age 8, and we started getting her memberships to the major societies/groups at age 9 to get behind the paywall. If you go on google scholar, you'll find a lot of abstracts, and digging on the authors' websites often finds the full paper, especially if it's a few years old. (This is a trick DD's field bio mentor suggested to us. Most journals now give authors their distribution copies digitally rather than in paper, and it's most common to put it on their personal web page-where, usually, they sit unclaimed). If you have or can get a card to a college or university library, you can also often access journals through them. DD now has three :). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kathy G Posted March 28, 2015 Share Posted March 28, 2015 I think the issue is that you really need a good understanding of chemistry to fully understand how they work. My kids have like to look at my toxicology things from med school but they couldn't have understood without chemistry. It will likely be hard to find something that explains it unless your child is at that level. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dmmetler Posted March 29, 2015 Share Posted March 29, 2015 I think the issue is that you really need a good understanding of chemistry to fully understand how they work. My kids have like to look at my toxicology things from med school but they couldn't have understood without chemistry. It will likely be hard to find something that explains it unless your child is at that level. I agree that it's likely to be hard, but over the last two years I've developed a hypothesis that states that when a kid is frustrated at the bottom of the funnel, with the little drops of information that they can get their hands on that IS at their level, toss them in at the top and see what happens. Looking back, I suspect my DD's move from paleontology to herpetology was simply a lateral one-that she couldn't get the detail and depth needed to sustain the interest on the paleo side, so she moved to the living creatures, who had previously been a secondary interest. I'm pretty convinced my DD wouldn't be where she is in biology if we hadn't had mentors at about the time she really started to get frustrated with the drips I could provide her, who took the "toss her in at the top" approach. And I don't think any of them did it thinking she'd get much out of it-more that this was simply the level that they were used to providing input at and had access to, so they went there naturally. The results of it is that she's scaffolded a lot of math skills-not necessarily linearly (there have been times she's had algebra books, calculus books, and statistics books all open at one time, trying to figure out how a specific test works), a lot of chemistry, not necessarily linearly (she can talk pretty in depth about acetyl pairs and benzine rings and how the same frog will have different chemical compounds depending on it's diet, but struggled to balance simple equations on the RCS challenge recently), and stuff like that. I've also seen her, more and more, go to journals that aren't just herpetological ones and look at related content, and she's starting to develop a larger circle of contacts, mostly PhD students in various fields (and, interestingly, she's starting to follow and keep up with and read journals and papers from quite a few paleobiologists, so we're kind of coming back to where it started in a way. I think she's trying to prevent mass extinction by the force of sheer will....) I'm not saying that the OP's 8 yr old will be able to necessarily understand most of what he finds interesting on a journal search, but it's very possible that there will be just enough there to feed the need and to build off of, or that he may find bridges into other areas where he can work now while scaffolding those chem skills, especially if he branches and connects into biology. I know there are a good number of herpetological papers on venomous and poisonous animals and the compounds they create/secrete, and I imagine the same is true in botany, which would probably be more accessible to someone who hasn't had years of biochemistry than the pure toxicology ones. At minimum, the abstract and first couple of sections may be of interest, even if he cannot yet understand all the details farther in-and usually the first couple of pages are available to read free on Google Scholar, even for papers behind a paywall. Here are two that came to mind pretty quickly. The first is behind a paywall, but as of a few months ago, DD was able to get a copy by contacting Dr. Burghardt at the University of Tennessee Comparative experimental tests of natricine antipredator displays, with special reference to the apparently unique displays in the Asian genus, RhabdophisA Mori, GM Burghardt - Journal of Ethology, 2008 - Springer Nuchal glands: a novel defensive system in snakesA Mori, GM Burghardt, AH Savitzky, KA Roberts… - Chemoecology, 2012 - Springer This one is available free on Research Gate. Both of these include quite a bit of information about the toxins, but since they're focused as much on the delivery system and the behavior response, are very accessible. And so are the authors, if your DS has questions. Chemoecology may be a good one to look at. Since it's an ecology journal, not a pure chemistry/biochem one, it tends to be a little more accessible and provide a little more support, and it would give a cross section of articles about poisonous plants, venomous animals, toad toxins, insect venoms, and so on. The Springer journals tend to be on the expensive side, but the abstracts are pretty readily available online, and usually the "contact the author directly" trick works, if you don't have a college nearby that stocks it (or, if you're like DD, who seems to collect papers the same way that other kids collect Baseball cards). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kathy G Posted March 29, 2015 Share Posted March 29, 2015 Dmmetler, I think I may have not communicated clearly. I totally agree to let them wander into topics and see what happens. When my 5 year old wanted to learn about black holes we gave him material and he had to learn a lot on his own about physics to understand. However, now that he knows calculus, his understanding is much deeper. The point I was attempting to make is that if the OP's child really wants a deep understanding of poisons (which it sounds like they do), there probably are not going to be good sources out there that would make sense without knowing some chemistry. They will most likely be too basic for her child to feel satisfied. It doesn't mean the child can't learn it, but OP's child may or may not want to learn chemistry at this point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
idnib Posted March 29, 2015 Share Posted March 29, 2015 Thanks for this thread. DS made a similar request last week! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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