Talking about beans, banes and biocrimes: colour, concentration and India's outlook on Ricin
Author Affiliations
- 1Department of Botany, Fergusson College, Pune-411004, India
- 2Department of Botany, Fergusson College, Pune-411004, India
Res. J. Recent Sci., Volume 8, Issue (2), Pages 52-59, April,2 (2019)
Abstract
This study examines the details of the extraction procedure, analysis and the use of the biochemical compound Ricin from the seeds of the plant Ricinus communis (Castor). It is a very lethal chemical compound, a carbohydrate-binding protein called as lectin which can easily kill a human being within 2-5 days of exposure to it. The ricin extracted in the laboratory was not-so pure to kill any lives around it and was safely disposed off after analysing its colour and concentration. A total of 48 incidents involving ricin from 1914-2018 have been reported. India is also under constant threat of a probable ricin attack with an earlier threat from Al-Qaeda and being the major player in the market of castor oil production explains the wide spread availability of R. communis under plantation and in wild, which is indirectly projecting a picture of ricin production as waste in the industries annually, making it an inexpensive biological tool which doesn't harms the environment and only kills their requisite living target by making it a futuristic bio weapon to be used during silent wars.
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