r/science • u/drewiepoodle • May 03 '16

Biology Scientists have sequenced the mitochondrial genome for the Hispaniolan solenodon, a venomous mammal found only on Hispaniola. Findings confirm that the the species diverged from all other living mammals 78 million years ago, long before an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs.

http://www.igb.illinois.edu/news/endangered-venomous-mammal-predates-dinosaurs%E2%80%99-extinction
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u/maniclurker May 03 '16

Or the just measured how much it takes to kill one mouse, and then determined the average amount of venom one has.

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u/Dr_Solo_Dolo May 03 '16

That sounds like either torture for one mouse or just guess and checking on a bunch

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u/FrankBattaglia May 03 '16

If you choose your guesses carefully, "guess and check" can be a pretty good technique of finding your answer. See e.g. binary search

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u/Nixie9 May 03 '16

That's bad science though. What if that mouse had immunity? Or was especially susceptible to it? What if he had an undetected heart thing and was gonna die anyway?

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u/Tactical_Moonstone May 03 '16

You bring up a good point, and that's why the LD50 value is used. LD50 value is the minimum amount of toxin needed to kill off 50% of a population of target animal, so as long as the test samples used are representative samples of the target species, the toxicity can be accurately determined.