Relax and take your scorpion venom

Think of a scorpion and you'd be expecting killer pain rather than a painkiller, but a better understanding of the toxins found in the sting has led to a medical use.

Pain is communicated to the brain through a sodium channel hard-wired into the central nervous system.

And scorpions - over millions of years - have developed toxins that really turn up the level of ouch.

But these molecules, though a bit of jiggery pokery, can be made to have the opposite effect.

They can be tweaked to give a human a similar experience as if they had been given morphine.

All happy and calm, and without any worries over the dentist pulling your tooth out,

But, of course, conventional meds have a darker side, and continued use can lead to dependency.

However, scorpion venom does not have this addictive nature and so could be much more effective.

Weird Science Factoid: One inch of rain is equal to ten inches of snow. Get the drift?

Join the Weird Science Facebook group here, or follow us on Twitter here or by searching for weirdsciblog.

Want to be sent the 'best' of the Weird Sci Blog every month? Then sign up for Weird News - a newsletter containing more info about the subjects we cover, plus some extra stuff that didn't make the blog. Interested? Subscribe by e-mailing wscience@me.com with the title 'count me in' and we'll do the rest.