Last of his species ... Lonesome George. Photo: Reuters
At age four, Bryan Fry announced he was going to make venomous snakes his career. True to his word, Fry is now a world expert on venom and spends much of his time catching and milking poisonous snakes, lizards, spiders, fish, octopuses, scorpions and jellyfish, then studying the compounds at his laboratory in Brisbane.
''I have this child-like curiosity about the evolution of these animals,'' says Fry, 40, an associate professor at the University of Queensland and the head of its Venom Evolution Laboratory.
In May, Fry was presented with the Australian Academy of Science's Fenner Medal, for distinguished research in biology by a young scientist.
The medal follows a string of awards and research grants over the past 20 years for his work, which has established that snake venom is much older than previously thought and there are more than 2000 venomous snakes.
His ''eureka moment'' came in 2006, when he discovered venom in the Komodo dragon lizard. Previously, it was thought these giant lizards had toxic bacteria to infect prey they had wounded with their large serrated teeth.
Fry's work showed the real source of the toxic bacteria was swampy water, where wounded larger prey, such as water buffalo, stood and became infected. Komodos did, however, inject venom to speed up blood loss from the wound.
''Komodo dragons are very clean animals; that stuff about bacteria never sat well with me,'' says Fry, who nominates the dragon as his favourite animal. ''But the toxic bacteria idea became the paradigm, the stock and staple of every documentary about them.''
His approach to his work conjures up images of Indiana Jones or Steve Irwin, rather than a white-coated laboratory scientist hunched over a microscope.
Fry catches and milks his own animals, then takes his samples to laboratories all over the world to test the compounds.
''My competitive advantage is that I am able to seek out entirely new venomous animals to study and thus have a complete monopoly on an area,'' says the self-confessed adrenalin junkie, who does skydiving, rock climbing and big-wave surfing in his spare time.
His hands-on ''extreme science'' has led to plenty of injuries, including 26 snake bites, 23 broken bones, 400 stitches and three concussions.
His scariest moment was being bitten by a Stephens' banded snake at Mount Nebo, near Brisbane, while he was researching his PhD. By the time tiger snake antivenom was effective, 18 hours later, Fry was bleeding out of every hole in his body.
Fry was born in the US and came to Australia in 1997 to do his biochemistry doctorate on taipan venom at the University of Queensland after completing undergraduate degrees at Portland State University in Oregon.
He then spent two years at the National University of Singapore, followed by eight years at the University of Melbourne before returning to Queensland this year.
As to where his interest in toxins comes from, Fry points to a four-month stint in hospital when he had bacterial meningitis as a toddler, causing permanent deafness in his right ear. ''It's a daily reminder of the power of toxins and my own mortality,'' he says.
THE BIG QUESTIONS
Biggest break Being offered a PhD scholarship to the University of Queensland in Paul Alewood's venom laboratory - a positive, intellectually stimulating environment.
Biggest achievement Debunking the scientific voodoo surrounding Komodo dragons and the myth of toxic bacteria. It was a combination of field observations of what was really going on with water buffalo [after they had been bitten by Komodo dragons] and then following this up with rigorous laboratory work.
Biggest regret Falling off a four-metre termite mound and breaking my back. Luckily a mate of a mate is a world-leading neurosurgeon in Beverly Hills and did a magnificent job repairing it using a procedure not done in Australia. But there were occasions where the pain was so great that I tasted madness.
Best investment All the money I poured into my education - nine years at uni.
Worst investment Many cars along the way. The worst was probably a Pajero - the false economy of buying a used car.
Attitude to money Very casual. I have all my bills on auto-pay and just glance at my bank account every now and then. As long as my balance doesn't dip below an arbitrary amount I have set, then money is pretty much the last thing on my mind.
Personal philosophy Pillage before you burn. And follow your passion, do what makes you happy. I use my passion as my fuel.
They've lost arms, legs and ankle parts but nine survivors of encounters with sharks, including Australian navy diver Paul de Gelder, say that the oceans' greatest predator - not man - should fear the water.
The survivors gathered at the United Nations in New York on Monday to tell the world that their attackers, like the great white, desperately need protecting.
De Gelder, whose right hand and lower right leg were torn off last year in Sydney Harbour, said he wanted to "speak out for an animal that can't speak for itself".
Rampant overfishing is driving some species to the brink of extinction, with 73 million sharks killed annually just to feed Asia's demand for shark fin soup.
"We're decimating the population of sharks just for a bowl of soup," de Gelder said.
Pew Environment Group, a Washington-based organisation that brought the survivors to the UN, says 30 per cent of shark species are threatened or near-threatened with extinction, while the status of 47 per cent is not properly known.
Scientists say that wiping out sharks, which are at the top of the ocean food chain, creates a destructive ripple effect throughout the marine eco-system.
For example, sharks eat seabirds, so that a reduction in shark numbers leads to more seabirds, which then eat up the bait fish needed by tuna, another endangered big fish.
Another example is the gradual collapse of life on coral reefs once the primary predator is removed from the balance.
"The ramifications on the ocean eco-system are vast," said Matt Rand, director of shark conservation at Pew.
Pew is lobbying for an end to finning, whereby fishermen simply slice off shark fins and throw the mortally wounded creatures back into the sea, and for strict catch limits to be imposed worldwide.
Currently "in the open ocean there are no limits on how many sharks can be caught," Rand said.
The survivors said the fear inspired by sharks, most famously in the massively popular film Jaws, is hugely distorted.
Fewer than 70 people are recorded as being bitten annually worldwide, although the number does not include incidents in countries where statistics are not kept. Of those, just a handful die, making fatal shark attacks less likely than lightning strikes.
Debbie Salamone, who went to work for Pew after a shark severed her Achilles tendon in 2004 in Florida, said that at first "I was really not a big fan of sharks. I wanted to plot my revenge and was planning to eat shark steaks."
She said that she came to understand that, instead, she should go the other way and help the fearsome, but vulnerable fish.
"I decided I needed to find some sort of reason," she said.
"I decided this was a test, a test of my commitment to environmental conservation."
AFP
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