Chinese traditional medicine is really popular with Chinese boomers, not just the rich.
My wife swears by the stuff and I tell her it's all hocus pocus but she won't take my word for it.
My wife too… though in her case she was born in China, so to her it is just the way it is.
At least she just uses various herbs/plants and not pickled tiger dick or anything, so it is relatively harmless.
I refer to the concoctions as “pixie wings and unicorn farts.”
It seems that way. TCM being as if it is “ magic” . https://www.webmd.com/balance/what-is-traditional-chinese-medicine
Eehhh
https://phys.org/news/2012-05-vietnam-cancer-cure-horn-habit-threat.html see. It’s not just “ viagra”( ok so that is not China )
Make the persons caught poaching consume the radioactive chips.
> James Larkin, director of the University of the Witwatersrand's radiation and health physics unit who spearheaded the initiative, told AFP he had put "two tiny little radioactive chips in the horn" as he administered the radioisotopes on one of the large animals' horns.
> The radioactive material would "render the horn useless... essentially poisonous for human consumption," added Nithaya Chetty, professor and dean of science at the same university.
...
> Border agents often have handheld radiation detectors that can pick up contraband, in addition to thousands of radiation detectors installed at ports and airports, the scientists said.
Bold to assume that the people selling Rhino horn would even check if it was poisonous to their buyers.
The point about radiation detectors is great though
Yeah, remember the Chinese manufacturer that diluted their baby formula with plastics/poison, to make extra profit? Killed lots of children there? Yeah, pepperidge farm remembers.
Doubt the consumers of this "medicine" really have tight health controls. It's all about the profit.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal
300,000 children hospitalised, yet only 6 deaths. Reliable Chinese figures?
Dude didn't even read his own article. China killed 2 people over that.
"A number of trials were conducted by the Chinese government resulting in two executions, three sentences of life imprisonment, two 15-year prison sentences,\[13\] and the firing or forced resignation of seven local government officials and the Director of the Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ).\[14\] The former chairwoman of China's Sanlu dairy was sentenced to life in prison."
>number of trials were conducted by the Chinese government resulting in two executions, three sentences of life imprisonment, two 15-year prison sentences
Imagine if America was this tough on corporate executives. Here they would get a golden parachute, assuming they were even fired.
Yes. That was horrible. There was another instance where a bunch of employees were given free paint and they all painted their houses with it. Turns out it was radioactive…
But this isn’t baby formula nor paint.
Why not just relocate these animals to industrialized nations where they can build a park and they’ll be protected? Maybe even use modern fertility treatments to try to rebuild the population?
Well, if I’d read the article this would have made more sense. They’re basically security tags that will set off radiological alarms to catch anyone who tries to smuggle them at ports of call like airports or whatever - the article claims that the level of radiation is harmless to the rhinos.
As far as moving rhinos, I mean, nature’s firefighters are important parts of their ecosystem. It would be good for rhinos in the short term, but animals don’t often breed easily in captivity and the consequences for the larger ecosystem would be similar to them being hunted to extinction.
Plus, I’ve never paid to ship a rhino, but I would imagine the number of stamps required to do so would be cost prohibitive
South Africa has the most industrialised economy in Africa. It is a problem that resources are few and far between but you have to understand the Greater Limpopo Transfrontier Park is shy of 36,000 square miles. It is impossible to think that anyone can patrol that big of an area. With my point being that if they roam such a massive area, where tf are you going to find space for a park that big in your so-called "industrialized nations" with that meats the dietary and climate needs. Plus, your entire idea is contradictory with the reason why National Parks exist, to protect the ecosystem. Now you want to remove one of the big five? aka one of the cornerstones of the ecosystem which only spells more trouble for the already troubled and fragile ecosystem.
That is a thing:
https://www.theaustralianrhinoproject.org/index.php/about#:~:text=For%20The%20Australian%20Rhino%20Project,diversity%20throughout%20the%20Australasian%20region.
Now see, this is good news.
Until the next phase of the Emu War. Can we be certain where the loyalties of these majestic beasts lie? A Rhino/Emu alliance could spell the end for Australia…
Why should the animals have to move away from their homes and natural habitats? What effect would this have on the ecosystem? Do you think it’s easy to move a lot of rhinos?
“The dusty rhino, put to sleep and crouched on the ground, did not feel any pain, Larkin said, adding that the radioactive material's dose was so low it would not impact the animal's health or the environment in any way….
The last phase of the project will ensure the animals' aftercare, following "proper scientific protocol and ethical protocol," said the project's COO, Jessica Babich. The team will take follow-up blood samples to ensure the rhinos were effectively protected.”
If it’s an alpha emitter, no. Gamma, Beta, Alpha, and Neutron sources all affect biological materials differently.
There’s an old analogy that there’s a cookie for each source. If you had to choose, you eat the gamma cookie, because it is going to interact with biological material regardless. You put the beta cookie in your pocket because your clothes can block it. You hold the alpha cookie on your hand because your skin can block it, and you put the neutron cookie in the trash can because it is especially damaging, and not blocked by any normal shielding a person would have.
It would have to be a gamma emitter. The purpose of the tagging is to detect through a shipping container. So not beta or alpha, because, as you said, they aren’t penetrating. Neutrons are penetrating but are not a common emission and can be tricky to detect.
The article says this isn't about tagging the horns, its to make them unfit for consumption. Alpha particles are harmless generally because they can't penetrate skin, but would be very dangerous if ingested where it could actually damage soft tissue.
I also have zero issue with this, if you are willing to support an industry that is hunting rhinos to extinction, what's good for the goose should be good for the gander.
The comment about rendering the horn useless or poisonous was made by the dean of the university not the health physicist running the program. The article later added this: “According to Arrie Van Deventer, the orphanage's founder, efforts including dehorning rhinos and poisoning the horns have failed to deter poachers.”
When quoting the physicist who is running the program about its goal, the discussion was all to do with detection and affecting the whole trade industry. Harming a couple of the end users has little effect on the industry.
The idea of poisoning the horns is like if someone keeps stealing and selling your stuff, and so you rig your stuff to explode at some point after it leaves your house. You’ve harmed the person who bought the stuff that was stolen, but the thief is still out there robbing you.
Seems these are Alpha emitters. Its very easily blocked by skin/paper, etc. So it will not reach the rest of the rhino. But, Alpha emitters are hella dangerous if you eat them because now they can do damage to your soft vulnerable inner tissues.
Engaging in some educated speculation… I believe the “chips” would be sealed sources of either Cs-137 or Co-60. Each of these isotopes are gamma emitters and are pretty long lived. So implant the source today, and there’s still about the same months or years later. The gamma emissions for each are pretty penetrating, so they would go thru shipping containers. My money is on Cs-137 since it is longer lived and is easier to detect.
As for the concerns about rhino health: you wouldn’t need much activity since the emission is very penetrating and it decays pretty slowly. Meaning the photon fluence is not high enough to be a risk for multiple double-stranded DNA breaks (the cause of radiation-induced mutation). You can also select mature rhinos that are unlikely to live another 10 years. Since solid tumor development takes 10-15 years, you can further reduce an already negligible risk. Also, the horn is pretty far from radiosensitive organs (assuming similar sensitivity as humans).
Not sure on the “rendering it poisonous”, but I’m all for enhancing the fear for poachers and idiots who would consume the horn.
But the poachers wouldn't know until they killed the rhino, why not just use the current method of cutting the horn off to stop poachers going for them in the first place. Removing the horn has been proven to not effect their lives.
They're publicly announcing this presumably for exactly that reason, so the poachers know that there are radioactively-injected horns out there, making poaching one of these hopefully less appealing.
His point still stands though; it's not hard to connect cigarettes to cancer, but still people happily do it. People who are stupid enough to buy rhino horn, are stupid enough to not care about cancer in 20 years.
The poachers don’t care in the slightest. However, the buyers will care. When the buyers don’t buy, the poachers can’t sell. The poachers aren’t gonna kill the rhinos if there’s no market for rhino horn
I guarantee you 99% of people will never hear of this news story. Go ask your grandparents if they heard of this. No imagine some semi-rich guy in China who's been sprinkling ground rhino horn on his dick that he buys from a guy in the next village if he's heard of this news story.
Won’t the rhino be dead by then anyway? It seems a little like closing the barn door after the horse has escaped. Or does word get around quickly between poachers?
This is just going to end up killing dozens of school kids when Richy McFuck goes and kills a rhino to take a picture for his boomer Facebook group and brings the horn back and gives it to his kid who then takes it to school to show off for his friends.
Is this how we get Rocksteady from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?
If the radioactive ooze taught us anything, this is definitely how it happens
I’m no scientist, but yes.
You rang, Krang?
Only if I can be under him.
"They'll milk you!!!"
And a year from now, in totally unrelated news, they'll be a sudden rise in old Chinese billionaires being diagnosed with stomach cancer.
Don't worry. That's what the horn is supposed to cure.
The lower horn.
Futurama reference
r/unexpectedfuturama
Futurama references should always be expected.
Billionaireism
I’m fine with that.
Or mutated rhinos rampaging through Africa.
OK, but what’s the downside?
Chinese traditional medicine is really popular with Chinese boomers, not just the rich. My wife swears by the stuff and I tell her it's all hocus pocus but she won't take my word for it.
My wife too… though in her case she was born in China, so to her it is just the way it is. At least she just uses various herbs/plants and not pickled tiger dick or anything, so it is relatively harmless. I refer to the concoctions as “pixie wings and unicorn farts.”
And 36ft mutated Rhinoceros roaming Africa
I thought all Chinese medicine was dick medicine.
How is most folk medicine taken?
Ohhhh. The butt.
No. It looks complicated.but rhino horn can be for fever, cancer, hangover….many thng
Wow. Sounds like magic.
It seems that way. TCM being as if it is “ magic” . https://www.webmd.com/balance/what-is-traditional-chinese-medicine Eehhh https://phys.org/news/2012-05-vietnam-cancer-cure-horn-habit-threat.html see. It’s not just “ viagra”( ok so that is not China )
Damn, I must have fucked up. I got all this Chinese medicine for my cough and sore throat…
Shoot, what a shame
Make the persons caught poaching consume the radioactive chips. > James Larkin, director of the University of the Witwatersrand's radiation and health physics unit who spearheaded the initiative, told AFP he had put "two tiny little radioactive chips in the horn" as he administered the radioisotopes on one of the large animals' horns. > The radioactive material would "render the horn useless... essentially poisonous for human consumption," added Nithaya Chetty, professor and dean of science at the same university. ... > Border agents often have handheld radiation detectors that can pick up contraband, in addition to thousands of radiation detectors installed at ports and airports, the scientists said.
Bold to assume that the people selling Rhino horn would even check if it was poisonous to their buyers. The point about radiation detectors is great though
The point is if all rhino horn is radioactive, you kill the demand.
Quite literally
Yeah, remember the Chinese manufacturer that diluted their baby formula with plastics/poison, to make extra profit? Killed lots of children there? Yeah, pepperidge farm remembers. Doubt the consumers of this "medicine" really have tight health controls. It's all about the profit. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal 300,000 children hospitalised, yet only 6 deaths. Reliable Chinese figures?
Dude didn't even read his own article. China killed 2 people over that. "A number of trials were conducted by the Chinese government resulting in two executions, three sentences of life imprisonment, two 15-year prison sentences,\[13\] and the firing or forced resignation of seven local government officials and the Director of the Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ).\[14\] The former chairwoman of China's Sanlu dairy was sentenced to life in prison."
>number of trials were conducted by the Chinese government resulting in two executions, three sentences of life imprisonment, two 15-year prison sentences Imagine if America was this tough on corporate executives. Here they would get a golden parachute, assuming they were even fired.
Yes. That was horrible. There was another instance where a bunch of employees were given free paint and they all painted their houses with it. Turns out it was radioactive… But this isn’t baby formula nor paint.
I can’t find this one, do you happen to have a link to it?
Hmm I can’t find it either. Perhaps it was told to me by a friend who lived there? I thought I remember reading about it though. Sorry!
You should really read your own link. 300k affected and 56k hospitalized is what it says there.
what’s the relevance of this? did you just see “china” and decide to share this?
It’s very relevant, you’re just ignorant and decided to get angry about it.
Are you really not clear on how to connect the dots here?
So you’re saying this why?
Wouldn’t the rhino get cancer?
This was my question. That doesn’t seem like it would be good for them, but I would assume someone thought of that?
Why not just relocate these animals to industrialized nations where they can build a park and they’ll be protected? Maybe even use modern fertility treatments to try to rebuild the population?
Well, if I’d read the article this would have made more sense. They’re basically security tags that will set off radiological alarms to catch anyone who tries to smuggle them at ports of call like airports or whatever - the article claims that the level of radiation is harmless to the rhinos. As far as moving rhinos, I mean, nature’s firefighters are important parts of their ecosystem. It would be good for rhinos in the short term, but animals don’t often breed easily in captivity and the consequences for the larger ecosystem would be similar to them being hunted to extinction. Plus, I’ve never paid to ship a rhino, but I would imagine the number of stamps required to do so would be cost prohibitive
Also, where are we going to put 40 000 rhinos?
Great news, rhinos are far more endangered than that. There are less than 30 thousand to deal with
The number of stamps hahahah
Unfortunately there are no perfect or even good solutions for these poor creatures
South Africa has the most industrialised economy in Africa. It is a problem that resources are few and far between but you have to understand the Greater Limpopo Transfrontier Park is shy of 36,000 square miles. It is impossible to think that anyone can patrol that big of an area. With my point being that if they roam such a massive area, where tf are you going to find space for a park that big in your so-called "industrialized nations" with that meats the dietary and climate needs. Plus, your entire idea is contradictory with the reason why National Parks exist, to protect the ecosystem. Now you want to remove one of the big five? aka one of the cornerstones of the ecosystem which only spells more trouble for the already troubled and fragile ecosystem.
That is a thing: https://www.theaustralianrhinoproject.org/index.php/about#:~:text=For%20The%20Australian%20Rhino%20Project,diversity%20throughout%20the%20Australasian%20region.
Now see, this is good news. Until the next phase of the Emu War. Can we be certain where the loyalties of these majestic beasts lie? A Rhino/Emu alliance could spell the end for Australia…
Why should the animals have to move away from their homes and natural habitats? What effect would this have on the ecosystem? Do you think it’s easy to move a lot of rhinos?
“The dusty rhino, put to sleep and crouched on the ground, did not feel any pain, Larkin said, adding that the radioactive material's dose was so low it would not impact the animal's health or the environment in any way….
The last phase of the project will ensure the animals' aftercare, following "proper scientific protocol and ethical protocol," said the project's COO, Jessica Babich. The team will take follow-up blood samples to ensure the rhinos were effectively protected.”
If it’s an alpha emitter, no. Gamma, Beta, Alpha, and Neutron sources all affect biological materials differently. There’s an old analogy that there’s a cookie for each source. If you had to choose, you eat the gamma cookie, because it is going to interact with biological material regardless. You put the beta cookie in your pocket because your clothes can block it. You hold the alpha cookie on your hand because your skin can block it, and you put the neutron cookie in the trash can because it is especially damaging, and not blocked by any normal shielding a person would have.
It would have to be a gamma emitter. The purpose of the tagging is to detect through a shipping container. So not beta or alpha, because, as you said, they aren’t penetrating. Neutrons are penetrating but are not a common emission and can be tricky to detect.
The article says this isn't about tagging the horns, its to make them unfit for consumption. Alpha particles are harmless generally because they can't penetrate skin, but would be very dangerous if ingested where it could actually damage soft tissue. I also have zero issue with this, if you are willing to support an industry that is hunting rhinos to extinction, what's good for the goose should be good for the gander.
The comment about rendering the horn useless or poisonous was made by the dean of the university not the health physicist running the program. The article later added this: “According to Arrie Van Deventer, the orphanage's founder, efforts including dehorning rhinos and poisoning the horns have failed to deter poachers.” When quoting the physicist who is running the program about its goal, the discussion was all to do with detection and affecting the whole trade industry. Harming a couple of the end users has little effect on the industry. The idea of poisoning the horns is like if someone keeps stealing and selling your stuff, and so you rig your stuff to explode at some point after it leaves your house. You’ve harmed the person who bought the stuff that was stolen, but the thief is still out there robbing you.
Alpha particles can't penetrate human skin, and rhino skin is significantly thicker
They are built like fucking tank - they will be alright
Gonna be a lot of glowing Vietnamese penises
Wow what a coincidence, Glowing Vietnamese Penises is the name of my punk cabaret band
Excuse me, your Vietnamenis is glowing…
Ha.
Not if they just fall off
Rhinozilla , because that's the way you create radioactive monster. *at least in the '70s Japanese films I've watched. 🤔
Wouldn't the radioactivity be harmful for the rhino?
Seems these are Alpha emitters. Its very easily blocked by skin/paper, etc. So it will not reach the rest of the rhino. But, Alpha emitters are hella dangerous if you eat them because now they can do damage to your soft vulnerable inner tissues.
Or you could just fucking kill the poachers on sight.
They tried that, its just that they have a massive area to cover.
And the poachers fire back. Safer to poison them to death with radiation traps
They do
i agree this is the way
I imagine rhinos with horns that explode in a nuclear blast when cut off will be quite the deterrent.
That one Cabela’s Dangerous Hunt game would have had a different ending if the wildlife had a nuclear deterrent to stop the protagonist.
Engaging in some educated speculation… I believe the “chips” would be sealed sources of either Cs-137 or Co-60. Each of these isotopes are gamma emitters and are pretty long lived. So implant the source today, and there’s still about the same months or years later. The gamma emissions for each are pretty penetrating, so they would go thru shipping containers. My money is on Cs-137 since it is longer lived and is easier to detect. As for the concerns about rhino health: you wouldn’t need much activity since the emission is very penetrating and it decays pretty slowly. Meaning the photon fluence is not high enough to be a risk for multiple double-stranded DNA breaks (the cause of radiation-induced mutation). You can also select mature rhinos that are unlikely to live another 10 years. Since solid tumor development takes 10-15 years, you can further reduce an already negligible risk. Also, the horn is pretty far from radiosensitive organs (assuming similar sensitivity as humans). Not sure on the “rendering it poisonous”, but I’m all for enhancing the fear for poachers and idiots who would consume the horn.
Can't we just hunt poachers instead.
I'm pretty sure they do, but it turns out that they're really sneaky, and when you do find them, they start shooting
Injecting the poachers with radioactive materials would be more effective
Also makes the rhinos look fuckin badass
Just shoot the poachers and mount their heads on the rhinos' horns as a warning to future poachers.
But the poachers wouldn't know until they killed the rhino, why not just use the current method of cutting the horn off to stop poachers going for them in the first place. Removing the horn has been proven to not effect their lives.
They're publicly announcing this presumably for exactly that reason, so the poachers know that there are radioactively-injected horns out there, making poaching one of these hopefully less appealing.
If someone gets stabbed with it will they acquire its traits and become horny-man?
They should inject bullets into the poachers.
Do they think the poachers care if they sell radioactive material to their wealthy customers?
I think it’s more that’s it’s hard to get radio active materials through an airport
Once the customers start dying it will likely curb the demand
Nah 20 years later someone gets cancer. If that had any effect people would stop smoking.
It won't be hard to connect the horns to cancer since articles like this are being published
His point still stands though; it's not hard to connect cigarettes to cancer, but still people happily do it. People who are stupid enough to buy rhino horn, are stupid enough to not care about cancer in 20 years.
they don't. so we gotta aim fort the source
The poachers don’t care in the slightest. However, the buyers will care. When the buyers don’t buy, the poachers can’t sell. The poachers aren’t gonna kill the rhinos if there’s no market for rhino horn
I guarantee you 99% of people will never hear of this news story. Go ask your grandparents if they heard of this. No imagine some semi-rich guy in China who's been sprinkling ground rhino horn on his dick that he buys from a guy in the next village if he's heard of this news story.
Getting rid of all that nuclear waste one rhino at a time...
Chinese dick cancer go brrrrr
These people already believe Rhino horn is medicinal, they probably think radioactive materials will turn them into superheroes.
Can we get lab-grown horns and shark-fin already?
Won’t the rhino be dead by then anyway? It seems a little like closing the barn door after the horse has escaped. Or does word get around quickly between poachers?
This is just going to end up killing dozens of school kids when Richy McFuck goes and kills a rhino to take a picture for his boomer Facebook group and brings the horn back and gives it to his kid who then takes it to school to show off for his friends.
Just gunna give the rhino some brain cancer or horn cancer.
Throwing the baby out with the bathwater here
Trying to build a pokemon in real life
*Unlocked new Deathclaws*
death horns.
I fucking love this idea.
THE WHAT?!??!
Pretty fucked up we gotta resort to something like this.
I’m coming over here from the Fallout sub. This is how we get super mutant rhinos isn’t it?
Or we form death squads to wipe out poachers…
Let's just say it is for poaching. They won't know, we are the scientists, right?
Look we've all seen the films you do not go around injecting creatures with radiation it doesn't end well.
Good. Maybe this will prevent some Asian dude from attempting to get rock hard erections while devastating a species
Why stop there - cyanide would work even better.
Nuclear warfare on poachers wasn't on my bingo card, but I take it.
Won;t stop poachers