A BAND of brave volunteers has shown that an anti-jellyfish cream does reduce the chances of being stung.
A team at Stanford University School of Medicine in California cut off the tentacles of the box jellyfish found off the US, whose stings are extremely painful and can even kill children. Then they draped 5-centimetre lengths over volunteers鈥� arms for a few seconds. On arms slathered with the cream, only three of 12 volunteers were stung, whereas 10 were stung when tentacles were applied to the other arm (Wilderness and Environmental Medicine, vol 15, p 102).
The exact make-up of the cream, made by Nidaria Technology, is secret, but it is designed to fool a jellyfish鈥檚 stinging cells, making them respond to skin coated with it as if it was their own. But if jellyfish are likely to be more than a mild irritant, staying out of the water or wearing a stinger suit remain the safest options, team leader Alexa Kimball warns.
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The cream has yet to be tested against the notorious Irukandji box jellyfish of Australia, which puts dozens of people in hospital each year. 鈥淚t could work,鈥� says Lisa-Ann Gershwin at James Cook University in Queensland, 鈥渂ut I don鈥檛 see myself wading nude into the north Queensland sea wearing just the cream any time soon.鈥�