In: Biology
Summarize in one line the cou have been caught outside in a snowstorm for a few days now. Your incredible survivor’s skills enabled you to build a wonderful igloo. Yet, your only chance for survival is to drink some melted snow to avoid dehydration. Unfortunately, you know that that this snow is spiked with 10mM of a very potent toxin, Brooklycidin with a molecular weight of 500 Da (g/mol). The lethal dose of Brooklycidin for humans is 10mg/kg of bodyweight. How much volume of melted snow can you drink before reaching the lethal dose? Would it enable you to survive? *
The concentration of toxin is given as 10mM and it's molecular weight is given as 500 Da (g/mol). From this, we can calculate it's g/L concentration as follows:
Hence, 5 grams of toxin is present in 1L of snow.
The lethal dose for toxin is 10mg/kg of body weight, hence if we assume the person to be a healthy male with an average weight of 70 kg, then the lethal dose of toxin as per his body weight will be 10 x 70 = 700 mg.
We have already calculated that 1L of snow has 5g of toxin, hence 700 mg of toxin will be present in 1/5 x 0.7 = 0.14L = 140mL. Thus, the person can drink less than 140mL of snow in order to survive. 140mL is the threshold at which person will not survive the poison. However, it is also stated that the person is already dehydrated and 140mL is not a sufficient amount to overcome dehydration. Hence, either the person will die of dehydration or because of drinking water from melting the poisoned snow.