September 8, 2021
Your future may include frog foam
Scorpion venom, caterpillar fungus, so why not … frog foam? Frog foam, for those of you who said, “Huh?” is apparently a coating on eggs that prevents them from drying out “while also offering protection from predators, extreme temperatures, and damage from ultraviolet rays and harmful bacteria.”
It also — found Scottish researchers — can be used to deliver drugs via the skin. And it seems to do that better than “industrial” foams used today, because it’s gentler, releases drugs more steadily, and doesn’t degrade as quickly.
The team also loaded the foam with the common antibiotic rifamycin, which was released over the course of a week […] Roughly half the antibiotic was delivered in the first 24 hours, but the slow release that followed over the next six days was longer and steadier than existing pharmaceutical foams.
