Government Shells Out Clams to Study Clams

Just call them Super-clams. Scientists have found that mollusks known as the quahog just may hold the answer to neutralizing bioterror agents in the event of a biological terrorist attack.

A new report by the Associated Press quotes Dr. Bal Ram Singh, a chemist working with a grant from the Department of Homeland Security, as saying that researchers believe there is some sort of antidote to botulism in the quahog’s blood. The report says the researchers injected the clams with enough botulism toxin to "kill 1,000 people," but they found the shellfish was somehow able to neutralize the enzyme.

The botulism, Singh said, is a muscle relaxant but it had little effect on the quahogs. The researchers noticed that the water the shellfish were in became cloudy, a sign that they were secreting mucous.

"We could inject a quahog with enough poison to kill 100,000 people, and it wouldn't die," Singh is quoted as saying. "Something in the quahog appears to destroy enough of the toxin in order to survive it. There will be more to this story."

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