Free Republic

Researchers today announced in the journal Nature Plants the discovery of the first-ever fossil specimens of an "asterid" - a family of flowering plants that gave us everything from the potato to tomatoes, tobacco, petunias and our morning cup of coffee. But these two 20-30 million-year-old fossil flowers, found perfectly preserved in a piece of amber, came from the dark side of the asterid family - they belong to the genus Strychnos, which ultimately gave rise to some of the world's most famous poisons, including strychnine and curare. Poisons that would later find their way into blow-gun weapons, rat control,...

GREVE, Denmark, Oct. 6 (UPI) -- Inspectors discovered strychnine in the water supply of a Danish town during a routine check. Investigators believe that someone dumped rat poison in one of the wells that provides water for Greve Municipality outside Copenhagen, the Copenhagen Post reported. The well's Plexiglass cover was smashed open. A vial labeled rat poison found in the bottom of the well has been traced to the pharmacy where it originated, investigators told the Post. "The episode worries me, because you think, what'll it be next," Erik Jurlander, a manager at Greve Waterworks told the newspaper Politiken. "We...