In the world of biology,there are many fascinating things to learn and tour. Many of them, we have experienced or heard but are not aware about. Nature is the most captivating thing in the world, be it the aquatic nature, terrestrial, and microbiological…..

• Introduction

In the branch of Microbiology ,botulinum is a micro organism(bacterium) called Clostridium botulinum. It is gram positive. Gram positive basically means that the bacteria has a thick cell wall( ‘cell wall’ of a bacteria is called peptidoglycan).It is a rod shaped bacteria and is anerobic( meaning it survives without oxygen.In fact oxygen makes the cell to die.But, it does live in some situation where it has a chemical called superoxide dismutase.) It belongs to the class Clostridia.It is a pathogen(diseases causing micro organism).The organism being anerobic, can breed in canned food foodstuffs.It is the most dangerous toxin producer known to mankind.The microbe can sustain the most adverse conditions of nature. It is commonly found in soil. This organism occur at various place in larger quantities, for eg. North America, Europe etc.

• What makes it special?

Phew! That was a lot of scientific explanation, wasn’t it? Now, what does makes this organism shine in the limelight? Well, as toxic as this organism is, it also it’s good side. Which makes it weirdly special. We will not go too deep into the concept because this organism has literally 180 different species and…let me get this straight, that would be not be….so interesting. No offence, but remembering all the names is ridiculously hard. So ya,but the fact is that this microbe is also used in medical purposes. According to a site, Clostridium botulinum has been used for following reasons

1. Chronic migraine
2. Blepharospasm( have a great time pronouncing it ;).  – it means uncontrollable blinking)
3. Strabismus ( means misaligned eyes)

And the list goes on and on but what is the most exceptional thing about it is Botox

• What is Botox?

Botox is said to be a ‘neurotoxic protein’ which is produced by the bacteria itself. Botox is an enzyme and not the organism itself. The chemical formula of Botox is pretty big.    Formula: C6760H10447N1743O2010S32

( I know you didn’t read the formula fully)

Anyways, one must understand that the bacteria is produced by botulinum and and careless doses can cause infections from the bacteria. One can describe Botox to be a drug which makes the facial  wrinkles and frown lines to smoothen temporarily. There are some side effects of this treatment leading as far as

• Muscle weakness 
• Trouble in swallowing after the treatment
•  Dry mouth
• Headaches and fatigue
• Blurred vision
• Stiffness on limbs etc.

Botox is also used to check neck spasms etc. Botox treatments are temporary and usually last for about 3 to 6 months. Many celebrities go under Botox treatments. In fact, a few years ago, Botox treatments was a trend and literally everyone was going to the dermatologist ( the one who studies and cures patients from skin disorders). Ironic isn’t it that such a toxic substance is so eagerly taken by so many people. But honestly, you don’t need to feel bad about your wrinkles. Now you might get agitated, because your next question might be if those celebrities can, why can’t I? The thing is, celebrities have to maintain a particular composure, a particular face, how they carry themselves, to be recognised and remembered. Their face matters in their career. This makes the post extremely difficult as one has to go through various differenciations,for makeup,outfits, crowd work etc. This usually means that they need to have a really strong mental composure and deal with every kind of criticism. Breakdowns in their cases are so common that almost half of them get closed down towards socializing. And thus need great amount of confidence to stand,facing such a big crowd. And therefore, they have to go through many things. But we, as a normal human, must not be ashamed of afraid of wrinkles. It’s just a part of or personality. Sometimes, people persuade us by aiming our insecurities, but that’s when we need to stand up for ourselves. We all are beautiful within our soul. These external factors often influence us and make us go through these pains. Every person is gifted with something distinctive about them,we just don’t recognise it until someone points it out to us ,because for us it may be normal, but for others, as some like to call it ‘god’s gift.’ Yes, we all have our insecurities but that doesn’t mean that we give in so easily ,does it?

But at the end of the day, it all just boils down to our own choices and decisions. If one does a Botox treatment, there’s nothing wrong in it. One should not judge someone based on those factors. Because we don’t know what they have gone through, felt every decision they take aand we are no one to exploit them..

There are many fascinating organisms like that heavenly, mouthwatering(admit it!) scent of soil when wet. Actually the scent can only be smelled when a dry soil is splashed with water. The scent , called petrichor is actually a smell released by Streptomyces bacteria. Sorry if I ruined it but that’s just a fact that it is released by this bacteria which is actually a soil molecule!

Nature and so many  engrossing and captivating things, it’s hard to grasp it all at once while still exploring for more!!

Note: This article was never meant to offend someone. If so, I sincerely apologise for it.

Ever heard of whales bursting? These are some nasty creatures to deal with. A dead whale can,that too washed on a shore can create some devastating scenarios. So, dive in! (  one of the worst puns ever!)

• Cause of death

Now, no animal can be immortal, can they? So even whales die.Most of the reasons being dehydration, collapsing under their own massive weights, drowning, tides,washed up on the shore etc.   

• The discovery

On the lands of Florence,Oregon, the people discover a dead sperm whale on the beach in Central Oregon Coast. The navy thus, decided to blast the dead whale using a dynamite as it was taking a lot of place.The person in-charge for the project was George Thornton who was an engineer. He described in an interview that he was not sure about the amount of dynamite they were going to need. Apparently, he was chosen for the particular project due to the supervisor who went hunting. Finally, a charge dynamite of approximately 450kg was selected to blast the whale. A veteran had previously warned about the vast amount was not necessarily needed, but his advice fell to deaf ears. The event of detonating the dynamite took place on Nov 12, precisely at 3:45pm. The whole event was recorded by Doug Brazil, for the famous show of Paul Linnman from a channel called KATU TV. Basically, what they thought was, by blasting the dead whale with a dynamite, the whale would disintegrate into smaller pieces and scavengers could feed on it. Seemed like a fair theory,didn’t it. But theoretical explanations are far more different compared to practical explanations, which are too unpredictable. What they didn’t think was that the whale could possibly…blast.

• Explanation

So the thing is, when any living organism dies, it produces gases like methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2).This gas gradually keeps developing. So your question might be….but why is this related with the whales? What happens is, even whales develop these kinds of gases inside their body. Now a whale’s body is pretty big. A typical blue whale’s height would be around 3.96 to 4.88. So the place is pretty spacious. Now , what happens is, a whale’s body produces admittedly large amounts of these gases. Even if gases are comparatively more compressible than other states, so the pressure inside the whale is very high. Now, gases are something you should not play around with. Methane is extremely flammable. In fact- Ch4 is what we also call  ‘natural gas’ used as fuels. So yeah, if it is so flammable,  accordingly, it becomes very dangerous as well. The only thing which keeps it from exploding is the blubber,which is a layer inside the body of the whale. Also, the outer  skin prevents the gas from coming out. But one should keep in mind that the blubber and the skin would eventually give in. What actually happened in 1970 Florence case was, they did  nothing but trigger the explosion  of the whale. How? Suppose you got hurt for reason. So , what happens? Well, you bleed. Yes, but one more thing that also happens is that the skin becomes a little damaged. Same is with the skin of whales. It has some weak spots as well. Even poking it with your hand( that would be disgusting) would do nothing but trigger the pressure of gases, which will just cause the explosion tobe sooner. What the navy did was nothing but trigger the explosion. It causes a massive explosion. The weird thing was, the crew expected the whale to disintegrate but ironically, most of the parts stayed intact. What must have happened was , the part where the skin was damaged, must have released all the gases at once. And the fire just made it more lethal. The scavenger didn’t even come to feed on the dead body, predictably due to the sound of the explosion.The whole mess was left to be cleaned by the workers of Oregon National highway. 

When a whale dies, two things can happen,

1.  The whale sinks into the bottom of the sea
2.  Or, the body is washed up on the seashore due to tides.

From these two, the second situation is the most common. After the incident, the people prefered to just burn the whale the moment they resided on the seashore to avoid such circumstances.

Many such incidents had occurred similar to these, the Taiwan incident for example.

This is nothing but one of the fascinating things nature has. No one can particularly make the happenings lessen but can only be cautious. The situation though, is not much common. Because the average lifespan of a whale is 70 to 80 years. So, the circumstances are not that common but it’s there. So the next time you find a dead whale…….run!!!!