Killers that also cure.

• Position: Snake venoms - Brief Article

It's the ultimate Fear Factor nightmare: Chase down one of the world's deadliest snakes, grab it by the head, and squeeze the venom from its fangs. Bryan Fry, a biologist at the University of Melbourne in Australia, does just that with rattlesnakes, king cobras, death adders, sea snakes, and other reptiles most of us would rather avoid. "Working with some of these snakes is the biggest adrenaline rush you could ever do," says Fry. But that rush is not what drives him to handle some 3,000 snakes a year. Fry's goal is to decipher the evolution of snake venoms over the past 60 million years. This research could lead to medical breakthroughs, he says. For the past 35 years...