Luke O'Neill

speaker

4,222 appearances 22 recordings 2 series first heard Apr 2026 last heard 10 Sep

Luke O'Neill’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 22 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 6.

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Show Me the Science with Luke O'Neill · The Science of Stings · 10 Sep 2026 podcast

So now all that reaction you're getting from the sting is happening.

And all the inflammation, of course, and the swelling and all the rest of it's happening in the background as well.

Now, why is it happening, you might wonder?

Well, of course, the wasp is using this venom

to kill insects and eat them.

So the normal thing that this venom does is it kills spiders, right, and insects.

And then, you know, it kills them and then the wasp feeds off them.

So it's making the venom not for you, it's making them for its own way to kill its prey, in a way.

The second thing, though, is they think if you disturb a wasp nest,

They come out and they start stinging things that are damaging the nest.

And us humans would be doing that, wouldn't we?

So maybe the wasp is using the venom to protect its nest, as it were, and fight off things that are coming there, including us humans.

And clearly wasps predate us in evolutionary terms.

We come along, but we would be sensitive to them just like other creatures on Earth, I suppose.

But the main reason they have these venoms is to kill their prey and eat them.

If you do have a wasp sting, wash it carefully.

It'll be sore, but wash away because some of the venom will wash away.

A cold compress is fantastic.

Ice, cold towel or whatever, that will bring down the heat and decrease some of the pain because the inflammation is promoting the pain.

So to decrease the heat of the area, that helps.

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