Tooth & Claw: True Stories of Animal Attacks - A Venomous Conversation with Dr. Spencer Greene - A Toxic Tooth & Claw Interview

Episode Date: May 5, 2025

Wes and Mike are joined by a leading member of the toxicology community; one Dr. Spencer Greene. Jeff hops in on the back end of the episode to help round things out with some fun venom-related categories. Watch here: https://youtu.be/aAJ1m_DkLpo ~~ To advertise on the show, contact us! ~~ Tooth & Claw is brought to you by QCODE. Support the show and get access to an extensive library of exclusive episodes like this by supporting the show on Patreon or joining the Grizzly Club on Apple Podcasts. For the latest updates on the show and all things wildlife, follow us at toothandclawpod.com and social:  Instagram: @ToothandClawPodcast Twitter: @ToothandClawPod Wes: @GrizKid Jeff: @jefe_larson Mike: @mikey3ds Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

All right, everyone, welcome back to Tooth and Claw podcast. Jeff is actually on a little trip right now. So this is going to be a Wes and Mike episode. Dad's gone. But we have a special episode. Last week we talked about Sinanon, the cult that actually used a rattlesnake as a weapon to attack someone that, I guess a detractor or someone that was fighting them. And they used a southern Pacific rattlesnake, which we talked about at length last week.

And as I was researching that episode, I really... there's a lot that I don't know about Venom. Venom is very complicated and we've given some basics on it, but I wanted to learn more. So we reached out to Dr. Spencer Green. He is Director of Toxicology at HCA Houston Healthcare Kingwood and has a lot of experience in Venom. So Spence, Dr. Spencer Green, we welcome you to Tooth and Claw. Thanks. Very happy to be here. Yeah. And it sounds like you've done a lot of different shows, a lot of different podcasts and interviews and whatnot. So this is not your first rodeo when it comes to talking about Venom. My first today, but yes. Yeah. Okay, we can claim that much. You can put at the end of your credential list appeared on tooth and claw podcast. I think that's

a marquee staple. That's how you attract the ladies, yes. Yeah. I was wondering if you could just tell us to open up with a bit about your background and how you came to specialize in toxicology and specifically in Venom. Yeah. No, it's kind of a crazy story. So, you know, until I was five, I wanted to be an ice hockey player. That would not have worked out so well. But when I turned five, I want to be a doctor.

And specifically, and I had no idea why, I wanted to be an ophthalmologist. And that lasted through high school. And then at some points, I was like, oh, considering other specialties. But then I became a paramedic. So when I applied to medical school, I figured I would do emergency medicine with the ultimate goal of being a medical director for an EMS agency or whatever. And I went to medical school, you know, for pretty much the entire time there. I'm like, yes, emergency medicine.

And then I went down to Vanderbilt in Nashville for my emergency medicine residency program. And I got involved with local EMS stuff. I was doing some teaching at the university and the paramedic program. But then a few months into my residency, I met Donna Seeger, who was our toxicologist. And at the time, she was already like world-renowned. She was the president of the American Academy of clinical toxicology, and I realized that she had this whole body of knowledge that most doctors never learn, you know, all sorts of obscure things, all sorts of poisons and side effects of drugs and plants and mushrooms and snakes and other animals and occupational exposures. And I loved everything about talks, but nothing specific about talks. So when residency was over, I had an option. I had a military obligation to fill, and I could have done that right away, or I could have done my toxicology fellowship.

And I chose to do my military obligation just to get over with. So I went up to Wright-Patterson and Force Base, Wright State University, and I started teaching toxicology for the residency program. I basically started out a few weeks ahead of the residence. But over the course of three years, I learned a lot. And again, I loved everything about talks, but nothing in particular. Well, during my time on active duty, I got deployed to Iraq. And I was with a special unit, and I can tell you more in 2013 when my 25-year non-disclosure statement expires. But I didn't do a lot of medicine there.

I had a lot of downtime, like a lot of downtime. I think I saw 10 patients in 140 days-ish. But one day I found a snake on our property, a saw-scale viper. And I had multiple epiphanies. One, it was really hot in Iraq, and I really liked the hot weather. And I was really fascinated with the snakes and the other local fauna. And I'm like, you know, I need to do my fellowship somewhere where I can learn all this stuff. So I did my fellowship in Phoenix, which historically treats.

among the most bites in the country. And, you know, that was the rest. You know, I fell in love with snake bites and heal a monster in venomations and spider bites and scorpions things. And, you know, that's what I do primarily now. And someone had told me 25 years ago that this Jew from Long Island would be like famous for treating snake bites in Texas. I would have assumed they were doing drugs. But yeah. Yeah, you know, it's funny that you say that. So I'm a wildlife biologist. I work primarily with bears. And I actually initially thought I was going to going into optometry. So I kind of had a similar track into getting into where I got into. That's fascinating. And saw-skilled vipers. I did, but Marion optometrists. So, you know, I got that going for me.

Oh, okay. Perfect. Saw-skilled vipers, they're one of the more, like, some of the more bites in the world come from that snake, right? Yeah. Yeah. I think I heard one time, and I don't know if this is still true. I don't know if it was ever accurate, but I heard at one time that they're responsible for more deaths than any other species because there are so many of them and they're often in places where people can't get medical care. Okay. Because they're found throughout Africa throughout a lot of different places. So I actually had a couple of brothers who served in the Marines who also deployed Iraq, Afghanistan. Is that was that like something that people were schooled on to be wary of the danger of snakes? Or was that just? No. And to be honest, I only saw one in my entire time there.

Oh, okay. Wow. Okay. I mean, maybe some people who were in different parts. I was in Balad. So we didn't really have a lot of animals. Okay. So something we talk about a lot on the podcast when we're talking about venomous snakes is some basic information about the way the different types of venom and snakes work. And I know the three types that we brought up the most are hemotoxic, myotoxic, neurotoxic venoms. And I was wondering if you could give us just kind of a 101 explanation of how those three types of venom actually work. Absolutely. Now, technically, myotoxic would be a fourth one because the most common is actually cytotoxic.

Okay. Especially people who are familiar with the bites in the U.S., most of our bites are cytotoxic, and oftentimes they are exclusively cytotoxic. So that means tissue injury, tissue swelling, sometimes tissue necrosis, which could be superficial or it could be full thickness. But cytotoxic means it's tissue injury, cytotectomy and cell, but it's tissue damage. Hematologic toxicity can mean a few things. You know, sometimes people get bit and they're exposed to hemotoxic venoms or venom components that make them unlikely or unable to coagulate or somehow interferes with their platelets, so they're at risk for bleeding.

But hematoxic venoms can also include things that cause you to clot. And then sometimes you get both effects. So you consume all your clotting factors, so then you bleed because you have nothing remaining. So hematoxic could be you bleed or you get clots or both. cytotoxic's tissue injury. Then neurotoxic means it affects your nerves. And sometimes that's isolated to abnormal sensations, what we call paristhesis, or if they're painful,

dysesthesias, the more worrisome neurotoxic manifestations include objective weakness, which might be confined to like your eyes, your throats, where you can't open your eyes or your eyelids drag, or you can't swallow. The worst manifestations would be skeletal and respiratory muscle paralysis. then myotoxic, you know, you get muscle damage, which may not correlate to the amount of local

tissue injury. So sometimes the tissue doesn't look that bad, but then there's, you know, lab evidence of serious muscle breakdown, which can result in weakness as well. Okay. So as I've kind of done, you know, again, a base level of research into these different types of venom and the types of snakes that have them, it does seem like I tend to see that the neurotoxic ones are the ones that tend to be the most complicated when it comes to a treatment perspective. Am I wrong in that? Are there ones that are more dangerous than others when it comes to venom types? Certainly neurotoxic are challenging, but what I hear a lot of that and what I see on occasion, I practice in Southeast Texas, so I have primarily copperheads and cotton melts.

But when I was in Arizona and when I get called about bites from other parts in the country, some of the most challenging ones are actually the hematologic toxicities. So we see severe thrombocytopinia with timber rattlesnakes, for example, and, you know, there's no really effective treatment. And then you mentioned Southern Pacific. Southern Pacifics can certainly be neurotoxic, but they're also often characterized by, you know, bleeding in thrombocytopinia, low platelets, that we just can't treat. So I think those might be really difficult as well. But yeah, you know, the most dreaded complications from some of our big bad pit fibers include, you know, neurotoxys. For example, the Mahavi in California is, you know,

so I did a study a few years ago showing that it's not nearly as common as people have been led to believe. And it's often much more mild than people have been led to believe. You know, a bite from a Mahavi in California is not a death sentence, for example. You're not more likely than not going to end up on a ventilator. You know, it's a possibility, but it's not likely. And there, I mean, there's hundreds of people that get bit by venomous snakes every year in the U.S. Thousands. Thousands.

Thousands. Okay. Yeah, there's five to 10,000 every year. And how many? fatalities do we see on average in the U.S. from snake bite? I actually know this really well because I wrote the paper looking at this a few years ago. Amazing. Yeah. We looked at a 20-year period from 1989 to 2018, and we found an average of 3.4 fatalities per year. Okay. So yeah, pretty low, especially compared to other countries. Yes. Extremely low. Are you, I assume you've probably had cases where you're

tending to bite victims who have unfortunately passed away. Is that something that you've dealt with? No, knock on wood, I have never had a snake bite fatality. I've had some patients with some bad outcomes, like one had a stroke while I was in the hospital. And recently, in a neighboring hospital in my town, it wasn't my hospital, but a neighboring hospital had a fatality just exactly a month ago, no, a month in a day ago. So, but no, in the 1,500,000 patients I've treated, I have never fortunately had a fatalty. So I have to, imagine that's a combo in the U.S. of access to really good anti-venom and then also not having access to some of these more dangerous types of snakes like, you know, spectacled cobras,

Russell's vipers, those kind of snakes that are responsible for a lot of deaths. Right. So there's a number of factors. You know, even our most dangerous snakes, you know, I like to gauge, you know, snake danger, if you will, by the untreated lethality rate, meaning what's the likelihood they're going to die if they never seek medical attention. And for some of our pit vibers, you know, it's anywhere from 20 to 40 percent. Like Mahavis is about 30 to 40 percent, tiger rattlesnakes up there, whereas like the western diamack, the eastern dinnacks is closer to 10 to 20 percent, and the timber rattlesnakes 10 percent.

On the other hand, like copper is a less than 1 percent. So part of the reason we have so few fatalities, fortunately, is because the snakes, like you said, on average, aren't as bad as some of the ones found in other parts of the world. The people who do die, they either die in the first few minutes because of a systemic invenomation or rarely from anaphylaxis, but that requires prior sensitization to sneak venomous. Or they die usually after about 24 hours because of multi-organ failure because they were, you know, just had a severe inflammation and they were under-resuscitated or whatever.

And then, of course, some people don't seek medical attention. It was interesting. In our paper, on our fatalities paper, every death in Kentucky, I think it was, and I think one other state, maybe Georgia, it was a religious leader who was handling a snake who got bitten and then did not immediately or at all seek medical attention. Makes sense. Yeah. That'll do it. Yeah. LinkedIn is pretty amazing at helping you grow your small business. We cannot make your email response time faster. We can help you sell, market, and hire in one place.

We cannot help you find space for your three desk drinks. Why do you have three? And while we can't help you find the perfect volume for your presentation video. LinkedIn can help you find the perfect audience for your business. Grow your small business on LinkedIn. Learn more at LinkedIn.com slash small business. Okay, that's really interesting. Yeah, so I guess a quick aside question too that I have is I've heard a lot of different pronunciations for anti-venom. I've heard anti-venin, anti-venin, anti-venom. What's the proper way to say that? So two of them are. acceptable. You know, anti-venin is what was originally used because it was derived from the French and then anti-venom is what is preferred. According to the World Health Organization,

in English-speaking countries, the preferred term is anti-venom. Anti-venin is fine. It drives me nuts when people say anti-venin. They sound obnoxious and I know they don't mean to be, but it's wrong. And I think I hate even more is when people are typing it and they put a hyphen in the middle. That drives me nuts. There's no hyphen in anti-venom. But yeah, the world health organization says antivenom. Now, interestingly, the associated press prefers anti-vening. Either one's fine. Just don't freaking hyphenate it. Okay. Deal. Yeah. I was saying anti-venin. That's just, yeah. I was saying anti-venin for a hot minute, and I was feeling very annoying. So I'm glad you said that it is. Yeah. West did self-correct, though. So, yeah. He didn't need

any outside influence to change course on that one. So I guess then, you know, were you specialized in the southeast, but you have this body of knowledge about snakes within the United States. Which species that people might come into contact with in the United States would you consider the most dangerous venomous venomous species? So the most dangerous is probably the Mahabee. Now, you know, people have looked at the LD50s of different snake venoms. And I think most people think the tiger rattlesnake has the most potent venom. But potency, while important, is actually less important than the total volume delivered. You know, it's the volume that determines the badness the most. And the combination of the potency and the volume of the Mojave

Rattlesnake makes it the most dangerous. Now, you'll hear something to say, oh, the most dangerous is the one that bit you. You know, that's a nice little cliche, but it's stupid. The most dangerous one, the one that's most likely to kill you is the Mojave Rattlesnake. Okay. And I want to point out, People always talk about coral snakes, you know, cousins of the cobra, they'll kill you. Yeah, no. There's never been a death from the Arizona coral snake. There's no documented human fatalities from the Texas coral snake. And the last death from an eastern coral snake was in 2006.

It was a drunk guy who did not seek medical attention. And there's been fewer than five in the last 100 years. So coral snakes are not the most dangerous, not even close. And I think I understand why. And that's because for a coral snake to really, you know, deliver a lot of venom, it really needs to chew on you. It's not like a striking snake, like a rattlesnake. So they don't deliver venom as efficiently as pit vipers.

Pit vipers are like, you know, the apex venom delivers. It's like, shoo. But it's a myth that coralsing has to chew. They absolutely do not have to chew. But they have small fixed front fangs and they're not as efficient. But the other thing is, even though the venom might be potent, they don't deliver a lot of venom. Got it.

Great. So another question I had here. we've covered some basic safety information in our episodes about venom snakes. The point that I've really tried to drive home is that you hear a lot of information about things you can do if you're bitten. But really the two most important things from what I've read is that you know, you get your keys and your phone. You call for medical attention and you get to medical attention as quickly as possible.

Everything else is kind of window dressing. I'm curious if there's anything you want to add to that if there's any other information. So, I mean, everything you said is just right, although I would point out that I don't encourage snake my victims to drive themselves. Maybe call an Uber or call somebody else. But, yeah, basically get to medical attention and in the interim, don't do anything stupid. You know, things that have been proposed in the past to treat snake bites range from useless at best to harmful at worst.

So many things that were once recommended should not be done. You know, one of the worst ones is a tourniquet. You know, turnicets are great. if you have life-writain bleeding, but cutting off the arterial blood supply to an venomed limb is just going to condemn it to more tissue injury and maybe entire tissue loss. Cutting and sucking is stupid. It doesn't work. And, you know, first of all, you're introducing mouth flora into something that's not usually going to get infected. And cutting into something is just going to make this any worse.

But the funny thing is, you know, you can't actually remove venom with suction, whether it's your mouth or using one of those extraction devices. But if you could, theoretically, if you had a lesion in your mouth, you could absorb that venom. And, you know, personally, the people I've seen try to do this cutting and sucking are the ones who are likely to have lesions in their mouths. So take that for what it's worth. So, you know, the extraction devices don't work. You know, the best editorial ever, or best titled editorial over, came out in 2004. February 2004, my friend, Sean Bush, wrote an editorial in Analyst Emergent Medicine. It said, extraction devices don't remove venom. They just suck. And it's true. These things don't help. Nothing else.

using electricity. I hear so many people say, oh, well, you know, venom is protein. I want to denature the protein. You know what else is protein? People. You don't want to denature the people. I mean, I know it's cool in a Tarantino sort of way to hook your friends up to a car battery, but it's stupid. You know, if you're lucky, you'll just burn them, otherwise you'll kill them. And then ice. So this is the challenging one. My friends, I have a lot of friends who've been bitten. They tell me ice makes them feel better. But the problem is we know that prolonged ice is absolutely harmful to the tissue. It's reasonable to do five minutes on, 10 minutes off. I see so often, I always either with the victims or like EMS or whatever, they'll just throw the ice pack on and leave it there. And that's harmful. If you can do just a few minutes on, a longer period off, that's okay. But yeah, in general, the pre-hospital stuff is just not going to help. Get to the right place and don't do anything stupid.

So the right place, I would assume, like the best ideal circumstance would be to get to somewhere with a toxicologist like yourself. Is it reasonable to expect any major health organization or maybe not even major but like anywhere you go will they have someone that you think will be fully capable of dealing with the situation or not not at all so and that's a great question you know i'm in south i'm in houston which is one of the biggest things in the country and there's a whole bunch of hospitals here and i don't want to throw my cogs out under the bus but i'm going to frankly most of them around here suck they are terrible you know most hospitals have antivenom, but what I'm constantly telling people is that it takes more than the antigenome. It takes someone who knows when and how to use it and what else to do and what else not to do

and how long to watch the patients. I'm involved with a group on Facebook called National Snake Flight Support. And every day, every single day we hear about patients who were watched for two hours and then discharge without any labs. And then they come in the next day with their entire limbs swollen and, you know, blistering with their, you know, labs all abnormal. So many places are so bad at this. So no, you want to go to a place with an expert.

And, you know, most hospitals aren't going to have a toxicologist. There's only about 600 of us in the country, and we're not evenly distributed. There's an entire state without toxicologists. And interestingly, some of the toxicologists in the Northeast have never freed the snakebite. So, you know, they have some rudimentary training in fellowship, but they don't have any experience. Conversely, you don't have to be a toxicologist. You know, one of the nation's experts on snake bites is Chuck Gerardo out of Duke. He's not a toxicologist, but there's no one in the galaxy who knows more about copperhead

he does. So you want to identify beforehand where are the places where they have knowledgeable people and, you know, the skills to manage the entire bite. So in like a hypothetical situation, if you can't end up somewhere in the ideal place to get it treated, what would you advise patients to do in that circumstance to kind of like vouch for themselves to make sure they're getting the best treatment? You know, there's all these guidelines that are readily available online. You know, the most famous is the unified algorithm, which came out in 2011. And there's a new version that's currently undergoing the peer review process. I'm one of the authors of that one.

And we emphasize certain things, including watching bites for a minimum of eight hours, even if they have no symptoms and that they have any symptoms, 12 to 24 hours, and having a low threshold to treat with anti-menom. So there's the Unified Outer, there's the American Academy of Emergency Medicine Guidelines. There's the Wilderness Medicine Guidelines. We have a new version coming out later this year as well, and I'm one of the authors of that. And I authored the American Academy of Emergency Medicine Guidelines. are things online that people can see what should happen. You know, people have to advocate for

themselves because oftentimes their treating physician might not be familiar with snake bites. Yeah. Yeah, we did an interview of a girl who had been bitten, I think by the Southern Pacific. She was in Joshua Tree. And she went to the hospital and they just did not give her enough anti-venom and then wanted to do a fasciotomy. And she found like a Facebook group that was advocating for, you know, her advocating for herself and had listened to the podcast too and really pushed for more anti-venom and they ended up giving it to her and she recovered. But I almost had to do a fasciotomy, which would have been, you know, a very kind of, I don't know too much about what a fasciotomy entails, but I know it was a lot more than she wanted to do. So. Or needed.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's good to know. And I'm glad, I'm glad we talked about that because I do want our listeners to advocate for themselves if they are ever bitten. Hopefully they aren't. Thanks for asking that, Mike. We had a couple other questions here. I'm curious, just what's your favorite venomous snake? Well, hopefully my mom won't watch this podcast because she doesn't know about this, but the whitewood tree viper is my favorite.

Blurred out for you. The whitewood tree viper is my favorite snake in the world. It's cool. Prime Restors, Abolabas. But I also love corals. You know, my favorite native snake is definitely a detective. squirrel snake. Cool. White-lived tree vipers there in Komodo? Is that, is that that one? They are in Thailand. Okay. Cool. They're responsible for almost all the significant

venomations in Thailand. All right. There's other trimorussia species throughout the southeast. Yeah. When it comes to snakes around the world, what do you think is the snake that you would least want to get bit by? So it's really funny. We talk about this a lot. Certain snakes, I wouldn't want to get bit by in certain locations, but I'd be fine in other locations. For example, in Africa, I wouldn't want to be bit by a mamba because I'm likely so far from definitive medical care that there's a good chance I'll die. Yeah. But, you know, I had a friend get bitten by a black mamba a few years ago in Houston, and he was 30 minutes away from the hospital. That's great. He went home the day, you know, two days later. In fact, he could have gone home the next day, but we kept him

just for observation. And that was after he was on the ventilator for a day. I'd rather get bit by a mamba in the United States than a rattlesnake because after 24 hours I'm going to be fine from the mamba bites but I might have significant tissue injury for days to weeks after the rattlesnake bite but if I'm in Africa I'd rather have a bunch of tissue injury than be dead yeah so it really depends on where I am obviously some of the Australian snakes are really potent you know the Malaysian blue coral snake could be really painful and can cause significant skeletal risk of muscle paralysis. Okay.

I've heard, and maybe this is a myth you can help dispel if it's in your wheelhouse, but I've always heard I'm a diver, so I spend time in the water, the sea snakes are often more venomous than terrestrial? Is that true? They have really potent venom, but it's really hard to get bitten by one of us. You basically have to go up to it, you know, stick your hand in its mouth and squeeze its head. They have no desire to bite you.

They know they're not going to eat you. Good to know. So you really have to make it. effort to get bitten by a sea snake. But yes, their venoms are potent, but there's not a lot of Lyme, and more importantly, they have no desire to just, you know, inject you with that venom. This is a Bose moment. You've been there before. Somebody's apartment, small talk that's going nowhere, plastic cup that's almost empty. It's not great. Then someone hits play on a Bose speaker. Heads nod, feet tap, one person dances than everyone does. Awkward becomes a

electric. When Bose sound fills the room, you don't just hear the music. You feel it. Your life deserves music. Your music deserves Bose. Find your perfect product at Bose.com. Now at McDonald's, a McDonald's is $2.50, so you can get your gym gains on or just get lunch. For only $250. Get more value on the under $3 menu. Limit time only. Prices and participation may vary. Prices may be higher for delivery. Bada-b-b-b-b-b-b-b- That leads really well into my next question. which I'm curious, in your opinion, worldwide, which species of venomous snake would you consider the most dangerous? So that's including the whole package, like willingness to bite, venom load, venom toxicity, everything. So we're not talking about access to care in something, just the snake

itself. Yeah, in a vacuum, you know, not access to care. Just you're in a room with the snake, which one do you least want in that room with you? I mean, classically, the answer is the Taipan. but, you know, the Gaboon Viper has a huge fangs, delivers a lot of venom. That's bad. Saw scales, again, account for a lot. Russell's Vipers pretty bad. Boom slang, you know, bleed to death. Yeah.

Okay. So those are some of your top picks. Okay. I know when we talked about Russell's Vipers, there was some really interesting stuff about, like, reverse puberty. Reverse puberty, a few, like, weird things that they can do to your whole. hormones and whatnot when you're bitten by a Russell's Viper. You heard anything about that? A little bit.

I'll be honest. I'm not as familiar with them as with some other species, you know. That makes sense where you're based out of Houston too. I do treat a lot of non-native bites because in Texas you can own whatever you want, but I've never known, I've never treated anyone with the Russell's Wipers. So I'm more familiar with various cobras and mambas and such. Yeah, they're not a big collector snake either. So that makes sense.

Do you? Okay. Maybe this isn't even a logical question. it's just something that came to mind, but if a snake, a venomous snake bit another venomous snake, even of the same species, are they like resistant or immune to the toxins passed on from the others? So it's funny. Some are, some aren't.

It kind of depends on the species and it kind of depends on the species. And then, of course, some species have greater resistance to certain, even some non-venomous snakes have some resistance to them, you know. from certain species. And then non-snakes have varying degrees of resistance. You know, people are always asking, you know, why aren't we making antivenoms from opossums? Because they have, you know, they're immune to snake venom. They're not so much immune as they're highly resistant. But commercially, we have not used possums to make antivenom. Okay. Interesting. I had no idea that possums were like. Yeah, some people doing some really good work looking into it. And maybe someday, someday, maybe we'll have

some products derived from possums as a result. Okay. Oh, that's actually something I wanted to ask about because obviously, and for good reason, there's a lot of negative association with like envenomation, venom, toxins, etc. But I also know that a lot of those same venoms are used in research and development of like new therapies and treatments and stuff. Do you have, is that part of your world at all is like contributing to the positive contributions that venom can have to the world at large? Or is that something you're knowledgeable

about what's going on? I apologize. I misshap it. So you say how venoms are beneficial? Is that what you asked? Yeah. I know just some of them can be used for like therapies. Absolutely. Yeah. So one of the most commonly prescribed class of drugs for hypertension are ACE inhibitors. The original ACE Inhibitor, Capitriol came from the Jaraka, Botclips Jarara. So that's a huge thing. Yeah. Yeah. There are some, you know, anti-plateletin medications used for cardiac patients that are derived from snakes.

And then beyond snakes, you know, what's huge right now, you know, Ozenbic and similar drugs, these are all GLP agonists. The original MACDADDADDADDGGIS was exenotide, which comes from the GILA monster, which incidentally was responsible for the absolute worst of minimation I've ever seen. And then beyond, yeah, I'll tell you about that in a second if you want. And then there's a medicine. we use for people with chronic pain, it's given intrithecally, and it's called zechonotide, and it comes from cone snails. Yeah, there are literally dozens of venoms that are being used

in varying degrees. Some are on the market, some are being studied. People have looked at contortrophoxin from copperheads as a treatment for breast cancer. So there's a whole bunch of stuff that's already out there or in the works, and some of those may pan out. Another reason to like snakes, right? Yeah. Go snakes. I knew about the Hilo Monster of Zemphic connection. But now that you brought it up, I'm very curious to hear about this. Hew Monster Invenomation. Now I published a ton. You know, 15 years ago, I was not good about doing that scarlie activity stuff.

And I regret it because this would have been like the best case report ever. So there's this guy. He had had six previous snake in Venomations. He had lost one of his thumbs to a snake in Venomation. And he woke up one morning in Southern Arizona and he decided, well, first he had, you know, his typical breakfast of two pictures of beer. Then he decided he wanted to be a pirate. I can tell you, there's a conspicuous absence of parrots in southern Arizona. So instead of putting a pirate on his shoulder, he put a Hama Monster, which shortly thereafter bit him on the neck.

Went to the first hospital. He had massive airway swelling. You know, his blood pressure plummeted and he had horrible diarrhea, which is redundant because there's no good diarrhea. And they gave him everything, and they, you know, they forced a tube down his throat. and they gave them all sorts of meds and treatments, and they flew him to us. He actually arrived about 10 minutes after a woman who had had a rattlesnake bite, and she was stable.

And I said something to her that I've said to none of my thousand bite victims before or since. I said, excuse me, I'm going to go see somebody more interesting. And this guy, he looked like the Michelin, man. He was so ademinous. And they forced a tiny tube down his throat. We actually switched it out, and he stayed on the ventilator for eight days. Wow.

Because he was that sick. Yeah. That's crazy. And their whole system of venom delivery is completely different. It is. It's much more rudimentary. You know, it just basically the venom travels and the glues of their teeth. And they really have, you know, they plant on.

And sometimes it's really difficult to remove the hill monster from the victim. Huh. So I know in like in other lizards, they think now and, you know, venom experts like yourself or whoever think that maybe some of the varanids monitor lizards whatnot might have like a rudimentary type of venom as well okay yeah so i i lectured on this in denver in 2020 23 was it yeah in 20203 i talked about venomous lizards of the of north america so i focused on human monsters and be the lizards but i did spend five minutes because you know it's going to come up is the commodo dragon venomous or not and some people say yes some people say no

i say it is not okay well it depends on how you divine venom you know if you use a very loose definition than they are, but then so are humans because we have components in our saliva that aid in digestion. So if you divine venom very loosely, then yeah, they are, but so are we. If you use a more narrow definition of venom, then humans are not, and nor are Komodo dragons. Okay. That's good to know. I'm glad you answered that because even when I did hours of research into that and I couldn't find what I considered like a straight answer on that. Yeah, I would say they're not. I know I have some colleagues who say they are.

They're wrong. It's okay. Yeah. Appreciate that. All right. I got one or two other questions for you. We tend to talk about movies a lot, even though we're a wildlife podcast. I'm curious if there's any snake bite scene in a movie that stands out for you,

like a favorite snake bite scene from a movie. Well, I would, naturally, I have to address snakes on a plane. Yeah. It's an entertaining movie. It is a ridiculous movie. It's nonsensical from start to finish. So it's frustrating from a toxicology standpoint for so many reasons, not the least of which they got a herpetologist, not a toxicologist. You know, herpetologists don't treat people.

Yeah. People, we treat herpetologists. But, yeah, that movie's insane. But yeah, I saw that question. I'm wondering, are there any scenes I really like? Now, everyone asks me about Lonesome Dove. I have not seen Lonesome Dove, so I can't comment. comment on other than yes I know someone died I was a bunch of cotton nuts I guess but I've

never actually seen a movie but literally someone asked me about this yesterday while I was working out you know my favorite movie that has anything anything to do with the snake my favorite movie of all time is actually escape from New York and of course the protagonist is snake cliskin he's got a cobra tattoo yeah and it's funny we'll accept that answer yeah so that's my favorite movie and it's funny because I've actually you know when I'm having some of my delusions of Granger I actually sometimes think of myself as snake fliskin because, you know, he's got a bad eye, and I'm mostly blinding my left eye. He has a snake tattoo.

I've got a snake tattoo. For part of the movie, he walks with a limp. Before I had back surgery, I walked with a limp. You know, you're the same person. It's crazy. And it takes place in New York. I'm from New York. But the film was actually filmed primarily in St. Louis, where I went to college.

So I'm like, this is my cinematic spirit animal. There you go. I like it. Well, I got one more. And then, Mike, if you have anything else, you can ask to. But, you know, we, again, on tooth and claw, we like to educate. people about potentially dangerous wildlife because often we learn that, you know, it's human error that leads to these interactions, negative interactions, not so much the animal being aggressive or

anything. And I think with snakes, that's especially true. Often people we've learned are bitten on the hands because they're trying to handle the snake. And a lot of these snakes even give us a physical warning before they bite us. So I'm just curious if you have anything you'd like to say to advocate for the general role of snakes in their ecosystems and why they're important. Yeah. Okay. And I want to address two things. So snakes are important.

Even beyond what we've already talked about, how, you know, they contribute to various, you know, medicinals and, of course, antivenom, which is, you know, made by making antibodies to the snake venom. You know, they have an important role in the ecosystem. You know, they're great for vermin control. And, of course, rats, mice spread diseases through the things that are on them. So they have an important role. But honestly, even if they didn't, so what?

There's a lot of people I consider useless, but we're not actively trying to remove them from society. You know, they belong here. You know, they have a right to be here. But that said, they're also, you know, beautiful creatures who are part of the ecosystem, even if they didn't directly benefit us, but they do because of the medicinals. But I want to point out there's so much misinformation about how bites happen. Most bites do not happen following intentional interaction. Multiple studies, including two I've been involved with, found that it's between like,

10 and 20% that result from people intentionally messing with the snake. You know, the study published, I think, in 2013, we found that only 19% were the result of intentional adoption. Most people get bitten by the snake when they're not aware of it. And I have a paper coming out in a little while that looks at how bites happen at different times of the day. And we found, you know, at least in Southeast Texas, a lot of the bites in the morning were people sticking their hands where they can't see it, whether they were gardening or,

you know, reading meat or stuff like that. And at nights, a lot of the bites were to be lowered so many because they were walking outside in the dark wearing either no shoes or inappropriate shoes and then they step on or near the snake. You know, the number of bites that are that come from people grabbing the snake on purpose like you know where they're wear it. It's, it's minimal. Now, that's not true for coralsnakes. To get bitten by a coralsnake, usually you have to mess with it. I've only had three coral snake bites that were the result of bad luck. The rest were people messing with the snake. Now, sometimes it was good intentioned messing like there was a kid who was trying to save the coral snake

from the road and he got bitten the process. Another time, there was a kid who was camping and the leader of the camping trip told him it was actually a safe snake to pick up, so he picked it up and it was a coral snake, so he misidentified it. But yeah, in general, most bites happen when people are unaware of the snake. So the advice I'd give people is, you know, wear appropriate footwear, especially outside at night, and never stick your hand in a place you can't see where snakes live. Like where I live, there are no venomous snakes. In my neighborhood, there are no out of snakes so I can go stick my hands feet wherever. But if you're in place with those snakes, always be aware of where your hands and feet are, and use flashlights

where appropriate footwear. That's great. Thank you. I'm glad I'm glad I asked you that question because I think a lot of the stuff I'd read online said that, you know, it was people messing with snakes, so it's good to talk to an expert. Yeah. And we, you know, like I said, we had a paper that showed 19% were intentional. My colleagues from University of Arizona using a complete different dataset, it was like 12.6%. And, you know, using the North American Snake Fight Registry, the updated data, I think it's something like 14.5%. So really, it's a minority of people who are messing with the snake. Now, people who have multiple bites in their in their lifetimes, they're usually messing with thing. That's the paper

I'm working on today, actually, and the presentation I'm doing on Venom Week. But yeah. Amazing. Or if it's a helo monster or a coral snake or something like that, you're probably messing with it. Yes. Kayak gets my flight, hotel, and rental car right. So I can tune out travel advice that's just plain wrong. Way better than points. Never fly during a Scorpio full moon. Just tell the manager you'll sue.

Instant room upgrade. Stop taking bad travel advice. Start comparing hundreds of sites with kayak and get your trip right. Kayak, got that right. Mike, do you have anything you want to ask before we let Spence go? I think the one thing that's gone unanswered is, have you ever been envenated yourself? Not yet. Just another time.

So almost twice. Back on election night, 2008, I was talking to a friend while walking outside of my car. I had just driven down from Phoenix to Tucson to interview for my job at University of Arizona. And while walking outside in the park on my barefoot, I almost stepped on a juvenile western dominant-back rattlesnake. And then one time, I was taking care of a kid with a snake bite, and they had brought in the dead copperhead. So I was carrying around showing people, and that dead copperhead started thrashing about because it was less dead than I realized. So I've not been envenomed yet The odds are better than 50% that I will at some point

Because I go looking for snakes And I'm blinding when I But yeah As of right now I've only had bites from non-venomous snakes All right We're gonna knock on wood for you The old princess bride almost nearly dead Or whatever it is

I love that snakes can do that Just keep living even when they're not It's awesome Yeah All right Well we appreciate your time If we ever have Like some unanswered question

I may email you and ask you just so we're not ever spreading any false information. But thank you so much for talking to us, Dr. Day. Thank you, Spence. Oh, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. All right. We'll see you later.

All right. So for the back half of this episode, we have another special guest. We're here joined by Jeff Larson, podcaster extraordinaire. Jeff, welcome to tooth and claw. Thank you. Yeah, West said that last interview was a little too intelligent for me. And he didn't think I could hang. but he said I could come do the pop culture stuff still.

Yeah, now that we're going to talk about stupid shit, Jeff's welcome back. He's like, you're perfect for the second part, Jeff. All right. Well, we just talked to a venom expert, Dr. Spencer Green, who is a toxicologist. Great conversation, really fun. I learned a lot of things from him, and I learned we've been saying some stuff wrong. So, Jeff, just so you know, more people are bitten by snakes. just because of like surprise encounters than people that are handling them,

which we had said that a lot of snake, most snake bites come from people like trying to mess with snakes. So we got that wrong. I knew that. And then you knew that. Okay. I should have had you interview this guy. And then also he doesn't think Komodo dragons have venom.

And he's like an expert on that. Oh, yeah. What do they have? They have like proteins in their saliva that some people think are venom. But he said if they have venom, than we have venom. So maybe we have venom. Yeah, it's just really gross spit, basically.

Yeah. Anyway, it was a good conversation. But let's move on to our categories. Our first one is one I came up with. It is, I want you guys to rank venom the, like, anti-hero, or what do you say he's a villain? I think he's a villain. Rank venom among the Spider-Man villains.

Well, he's not cooler than Green Goblin. I know that for much. Yeah. Well, let's hear where he is in your ranking then, Mike. Two, I guess. Well, who else are we even talking about? Let's do Green Goblin is number one. Green Goblin's your first?

Yeah, how about that? All right. I actually wrote mine down and ranked them because I, you know, did the assignment. So I went with Carnage number one, venom number two, because I just liked how carnage is like essentially venom, but a lot more destructive. Green Goblin was three. Lizard was my fourth. I really just like a big lizard as a, as a,

Venom. He's maybe my number one. Or as a villain, yeah. His whole goal is just to make people reptiles. Yeah, turn everyone into lizards. Is that what he's kind of? That's like his whole mission is he thinks that humans need to evolve into lizard. That's great.

He's my new number one. I'll go with the big rhino guy too in front of venom. Just a rhinoceros. He just turns into a rhino and that's sweet. Just so everyone knows, Mike and Jeff are sharing a mic right now. We're sharing a mic. Yeah. And Mike's being...

I feel like I'm doing a good job, but I don't know what Mike's doing. You're like afraid of... You have to lean it. Just look at me. Okay, let's go like this. I also had Doc Ock in my list. I think of all the like Toby McGuire villains. He was my favorite.

And then in the cartoons, Morbius was my favorite. But not in the live action ones. It's morphine time. It's morpent time. Morbin time. Morbin time. Yeah. He's going to morb.

Do you know where Venom falls in your list? You kind of got invited to the category's last minute, so. Yeah. I never thought Green Goblin was cool. Why do you think Green Goblin's cool? Mostly because of Willem Defoe. Yeah. I'm not really like a big Spider-Man guy.

I don't know anything really outside the context of mostly the Toby McGuire movies. All right. I'm a big Spider-Man guy. I watch the cartoon a lot. I would probably put him third. I'd go the lizard guy. then Doc Ock and then Venom. Venom's just not, I don't really know Venom's goal.

Yeah, it's a symbiote. You know, it's trying to take over a new planet. But Venom kind of fights it and makes it just kind of like a fun superpower. But yeah, I think Venom's a great villain. I don't like him as much when he's like a hero. So that's where I know. It would have been fun to have like the Venom and the Tom Hardy and the, what's the Spider-Man? Or Tom Holland.

Like a crossover, Tom Squared, yeah. Get your professor Tom Smith in there, too. All right, Mike, you had a good category about venoms and poisons. You want to ask your question? Oh, yeah. So toxicology, it's not all just about venom, it turns out. Toxinology, especially, that's a new word I learned. So would you rather be poisonous or venomous?

What would you want? And how would you want to deliver your load? Yeah, I think that's what they, the word they use. I think I'd rather be poisonous. Because I feel like if you're poisonous, you're only delivering your load if you're like being attacked, you know, you don't ever have to be the aggressor. And I think that's how I'd want it. I think I just want people to know like, oh, I can't do anything to that guy because it might

hurt me. Well, I guess that can be venom, though, too. I'm going to take that back. I think I'd rather be venom when you would describe all that. Yeah. Yeah. I'd rather be venomous because you have to like get eaten to be poisonous usually or like through their skin. So yeah, I'd rather be venomous.

Black widows are venom or poisonous, right? Venomous. Black widows are venomous. Venom's always injected. So it's like a tree frog or something is poisonous. Like a dart frog or like a puffer fish is poisonous. Something you either eat or is absorbed through your skin is going to be poison. Venom is always injected.

So it's bitten or a barb. And I think if I'm venomous, I want to barb. I want to have like a sting ring. Yeah, do you have an argument for poisonous even, Mike? No, not really. Well, so poison, can you, like, control it? Because it feels like if you just, like, lick a poison dart frog, you're going to get a little poisoned, right?

Yeah. So, like, there's no hugging or kissing or anything. It depends on the species. Like a puffer fish, you could, like, lick and you'd be fine, but you can't eat on them. But, like, a dart frog. You can't lick because their poison is excreted through their skin. So it just depends on the species.

So you could be poisonous and excrete it through your skin. But I think I'm going to be venomous. And I'm going to have a barb that if I can like, you know, have that barb shoot out and inject if I need it to. Yeah, I want to be venomous and I want it to be just like my pinky finger. And I can inject venom because I feel like I won't have too many. I'll for sure have some accidental Invenomations, you know? But at least my other fingers are longer.

So I have to be like to get my pinky finger to inject someone. It's more deliberate, you know? If it is like your biggest finger, then you're going to be accidentally invanimating everyone. Yeah. Maybe I'll wear a glove a lot of the time. Ooh, like Rogue. Yeah, or OJ.

Yeah. Did he wear him a lot? I'm going to go teeth, fans, delivery. Because you can control when it comes out and when it doesn't, right? Yeah. You probably leak a little bit, though. So you probably taste just a faint hint of venom everything you're eating. Maybe not.

I mean, this is a hypothetical so we can control that, right? I should have set the rules up a little stricter, huh? All right. I like those answers. Let's move on. So another one we had was if you had that. So Dr. Green, Spence, really specialized in his career. you know, venoms, and it seemed like snakes were really like his real bread and butter.

So if you guys had to specialize in your career, you can either say podcasting or any career or job that you've held in the past in a very substantial way if you had to specialize, what would you want to do? I'll go first. So if I could specialize in any aspect of bear biology, I would really just want to dive into attacks. That's kind of what Tom did in a way. I just think they're the most interesting part. I guess in a way it's kind of what I'm doing. But if I could just be like the guy in the world for bear attacks,

that would be my dream when it comes to bear biology. You like bear attacks. I just think they're really interesting. And it would be cool to be like the guy that everyone consults when they need some information about a bear attack. Do you wish there were more? I don't. But I do think they're very fascinating.

Really? What's your guys? answer. I'd do podcasting still where I'm at, but like I'd want to be like the huge guys, you know, and be able to influence who becomes president. Yeah. I think that'd be cool. All right. Yeah. So your specialization is just being the most popular podcaster. Yeah. All right. With audio production, I want to be the guy that like tapes wires to informants and stuff that like sneaks into meetings. Oh yeah. Oh, yeah. That's good. That's my role. What's that documentary about the, like, killer who, like, had a hot mic when he was peeing?

And he's like, you did do it. The jinx. Yeah. Yeah. You could do that. That's me. That would be an interesting job, too, because if they did get caught and, like, killed, you would just kind of be like, whoops. Yeah.

I mean, like in blowout, you've seen the John Travolta movie blowout? I don't think so. He gets, I shouldn't spoil anything then. But it's great. You got to watch that. Good one. Right. These days it's... This spring, Uber Eats has you covered.

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Product availability varies per region. See, app for details. Okay, let's see what else we got here. Three bands you're currently into. I'm just curious what music you guys are listening to right now. So for me, whenever I travel, I always listen to L-1011. They're an instrumental duo. They make pretty prolific.

And they just have the perfect vibe for me to, like, have something really, really cool to listen to. But also, I don't need to be, it doesn't demand my attention. You know, it's just like comfortable music to drift off to sleep two on planes. I'm really into Panic at the Disco, specifically their second album, pretty odd. It's their best by far. And maybe their only good one. That's not true.

I'm not going to be that much of a hater. They have great music, but that band, that album is like Beatles worship almost. And I love the Beatles. What's his name? Brendan Uri? Yeah. Yeah. And then a Japanese artist named Fujikaze that one of our listeners turned me on to in India. Thank you, Sarah.

The really, really beautiful, soulful music. And I've been listening to that guy a lot. Go ahead, Wes. I don't have much on this. Okay. The three I picked were Broncho, which is Jesse's favorite band right now. They're kind of one of those bands that continually is evolving. And they just released an album that's just really, really good.

I like every track on it. Jesse loves every track on it. I really like them. Brent, our cousin, Brent. recently told me to listen to the Lambrieney girls, which is a punk band. I forget where they're from, somewhere in the UK,

but really liked them. It's kind of very high-intensity, fun, pop music. Shout out Brent. A great guy, Cousin Brent. And then I also kind of was late to the party, but recently got into Sabrina Carpenter.

I really liked the song, Espresso. I've been listening to that one a lot. And I think it's just kind of fun, poppy summer music, You know it's good with her? What? Her like social media clips and music videos and stuff. Yeah?

Oh, like a big fan. You're a big fan of watching those. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Yeah, I'm a fan of that. So those are my three. And then just a quick shout out, Pup, which is a band I brought up a lot on the podcast,

kind of a modern punk band that plays really, I think, great music. They just released a new album today, May 1st or May 2nd, whatever today is. So check that out. What if it sucks? You haven't even heard it yet. I've listened to part of it and I liked it. And I have enough faith in that band that people like it. What if like the second half of it's just like climate change isn't real?

Yeah. I'm sorry I recommended it. But I really doubt that's what they're saying. I have a bad habit right now of like when a popular artist gets into controversy, I start listening to their stuff. When Kanye was going at Pete Davidson, I did a deep dive on Kanye music. and got really into Kanye. And recently with Zach Bryan and like the Brianna chicken fries stuff,

I just started listening to Zach Bryant. He's probably my favorite country singer. Like, he's really good. So hopefully nothing comes out horrific. Jeff's like the kind of guy that separates art from artists. But I am. But we almost had the Northern Lights here in Missoula last night. And it got me thinking about when I did see the northern nights at my parents' house in Missoula.

And it was like, maybe the most beautiful thing I've ever seen is the entire sky. And that night I was just like sitting in our driveway with like a sleeping bag or something waiting for them. And I was listening to Incubis Make Yourself on repeat. So I was thinking about that the other night and wanting to relisten to it. I also remember Wes was watching a movie. I was like walked in and I was like, hey, you should really come look outside for a second. He's like, Jeff, I'm watching a movie.

He had no confidence in me at that time period. But I did go outside. I had to come back in like two more times and be like, Wes, I insist. Yeah. All right. Okay. Let's do a couple questions from patrons. This one is very topical.

This is from Hannah. Hannah says, I live in the Ocagnan Valley in British Columbia, Canada. We get a lot of rattlesnakes in the summer. I usually catch them with a PVC pipe and rope and move them away, but my cat seemed to think that the rattle is a toy. One got bit last year and survived. My question is, is there anything I can do to deter the snakes? I've weed whacked as much as I can, but I live in the woods.

Thanks for your insight. First of all, I would encourage you probably not to catch them. Maybe to have someone remove them or to do whatever you can to avoid handling the snakes, but it sounds like you have a decent tactic for it. I would just say, probably should say don't handle them if you can avoid it. And then as far as creating less habitat for them, you're on the right track. Getting rid of weeds, getting rid of any kind of clutter that they can hide in is the main thing. So you want to decrease any hiding spaces for those rattlesnakes on your property.

So if you have like piles of rocks or wood or anything big and flat that they can hide under. A big cave. A big cave. If you have any caves on your property, you might want to get rid of those. But yeah, it's just trying to decrease things that might be attractive to them. That also includes rodents. So if you have lots of rodents, if there's any way for you to decrease the amount of rodents in an ethical way, that'd be great.

And then you can also just put up like simple barriers. Small fences and stuff can be enough to keep rattlesnakes off of your property. So the main thing I would encourage, though, with this question and not to get on my soapbox too much is keep your cats inside. cats kill an insane number of birds every year. They kill a lot of reptiles. They are the world's most invasive animal as far as damage done to native wildlife.

So keeping your cat inside is the main thing I would recommend. All right, let's do another one. I was wondering, this one is from Lauren. Lauren says, I was wondering if you could pick a catchphrase what each of you would choose, either for yourself or for each other. I like the one in Glorious Bass.

It's, that's a bingo. That's a bingo. Is that for you or is that for one of us? Uh-uh. That's a question you have to give us beforehand. That's a real tough. It's a good question. It is.

I need to think about it for like at least one minute. All right. I accidentally, well, I deleted it already because I always delete them after I ask them. You deleted that question already? Yeah. Right after I ask them, I always delete them or else I forget. What? Wow.

Yeah. Control Z. Way too fast. Yeah. Sorry. Okay. Let's move on then. We'll just cut that.

Bill, you can cut that question. And I'll try to remember. I got to like that way. Yeah. All right. This one's from Connie. Connie has two questions.

First of all, your favorite movie soundtrack. We'll answer that one first and we'll get to the second question. Favorite movie soundtrack. The one that comes to mine, it's probably not my absolute favorite, but it's the first thing that came to mind. is the one from drive.

That's a good one. That one film called Drive. Yeah. That's about all the information. I try to think of names and directors. I can't think of any. Ryan Gosling. Nicholas Winding Riffin or whatever.

Winding Ruffin. Yeah. Jeff, do you have a favorite movie soundtrack? You know what? That inspired my choice just now. I'm going to go with Baby Driver. Like the way they incorporate the car to the music. And like, I don't know.

I love that soundtrack. I also want to shout out. Pirates of Caribbean, though, because that one just goes so hard. I was listening to Shane Gillis's podcast with, like, his friend who's on tires with him. And the guy was saying he listens to Pirates of the Caribbean, like, pretty much exclusively in the car. And he, like, just daydreams about being, like, a hero. And it was really funny. That's a good idea.

I got to start trying that. I think the one I've probably listened to the most is actually the Forrest Gump soundtrack. Because it just kind of like spans a bunch of. There's no way that's true. I think it is. What's on it? It's just like a bunch of really good songs from the 70s. But I'm not going to say that's my favorite because it definitely isn't.

My favorite honestly is Jurassic Park. Like I just like I just think it's like such an iconic one. And when the movie came out, I got the tape and listened to it nonstop. So that's probably what I would pick. That's my, I have an unpopular opinion that that's, I think that's John Williams best. soundtrack. I would agree with you. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, Star Wars obviously iconic, Indiana Jones, Jaws, etc. But I love the Jurassic Park music. Yeah. Oh, Brother Where Arc, that was another really good one. I like that soundtrack a lot. All right. And then Connie's second question, what kind of peanut butter

did you grow up with, smooth versus crunchy? And what peanut butter do you prefer now? I have a theory that people generally prefer the opposite kind of peanut butter that they grew up with. I hate to prove you wrong, Connie. But I grew up with smooth peanut butter and I like smooth peanut butter. Yeah, I like my peanut butter the way I like my brains. Smooth. No wrinkles. Mike? Yeah, I like my peanut butter the way I like my rumble strips, all chunky.

They serve as a warning to lesser people. What's a rumble strip? It's the like strip on the side of the road, all chunky and making sounds when you're chewing on them. Those would be bad, smooth. No, I'm a crunchy guy. For as long as I remember, I've always just preferred, like, as crunchy, chunky as possible. So I don't know what we, I grew up with it, I guess, but only because that's what I think we all wanted from the beginning, you know, I don't know. I'd say, like, just a spoonful of peanut butter, I prefer crunchy, but the smooth is just so nice for, like, putting on a flat surface of something, you know?

Like a slice of bread? Yeah, like crunchy on a slice of bread, I'll rip that bread apart. What other flat surfaces are you putting smooth peanut butter on? Graham crackers and I put some chocolate chips on there. Oh, that's pretty smart actually. Yeah, that's my whole thing too is like I think smooth peanut butter is much more versatile. Like you can, it's better for like sandwiches. And then like I love to take an Oreo and dip it in some peanut butter, which I know Jeff loves to do too.

And I prefer smooth to crunchy in that context too. But if I'm just eating a spoonful of it, I would prefer crunchy. I'll also buy like very basic chocolate ice cream and then just put some smooth peanut butter on there. Yeah. Oh yeah, dude. I just like the textures. All right. Yeah, I'm not.

I don't think you're wrong. I'm going to do one more. This one's from Nicole. Nicole says, Hey, guys, I have a question for you all. On one of my many re-listens, I heard Mike mentioned he loves breakfast. So what is better, sweet or savory breakfast? Sweet.

That's tough because I feel like the best answer is like they, they go really well together. Yeah. You know? That's what makes breakfast so good. You're making me do the Sophie's choice right now. Fair enough. But you have to.

Pick one. And like I'll take the boy. So in this case, that would probably be savory. All right. I think I pick, if I have to pick one, I'm picking sweet, but I 100% agree with you, Jeff. But in the Sophie's choice part, too, do you? I need people to slow down and really think about. about what Jeff just did there for a minute.

You can rewind if you need to. You would take the boy. I don't remember Sophie's choice. Will you set it up for us real quick? It's like, yeah, you would not have allowed that to just happen if you knew. What's the, she's like the most, the best actress ever. What's her name? Street.

Yeah, Merrill Street. And the Nazis are making her choose. can have either her daughter or her son and the other one's going to a concentration camp and they make her choose on the spot. Okay. So. I probably would have shut that down. Yeah. Too late.

Keep it in, Bill. And she chooses the boy. All right. Spoiler. Yeah. I am with you on your breakfast thing, though. I agree that like, for me, the ideal breakfast incorporates like a protein, some eggs, and then something sweet too,

and a nice cup of coffee. So, yeah. All right. That's going to be it for our questions today. Before we leave, Jeff, you got anything you want to add to our conversation on Venom? Yeah, I'd just like to say, I think Venom is something more consumed than injected. You're wrong there. Never mind. I'm sorry I opened this up. Mike, did you have any other categories? No, sir. All right. Well, we'll go then. Thanks, everyone, for listening. Thank you, Dr. Green for being on our podcast. We know he's a very busy guy. We were supposed to record this yesterday, and he had so many cases that he had to work on that he couldn't. So this happens a lot, a lot more than I even realized bites from venomous snakes. So be careful out there. The season's really starting for a lot of people. Listen to what he said.

Be careful about where you step, where you stick your hands, appropriate footwear in places where there might be lots of venomous snakes. And if you do get bitten, get to help as quickly as possible and then advocate for yourself. Make sure that you are getting the best help possible to treat your venomous snake bite. All right. We'll see you. Bye.