Скачать или смотреть The Deadly History of the Fireweed Epidemic

This video explores the strange history of “fireweed,” the old rancher’s name for Astragalus bisulcatus, a plant that quietly turns an essential trace mineral into a deadly poison. Moving through the science of selenium and the phenomenon of hyperaccumulator plants, it traces how this unassuming species pulls selenium from the soil and transforms it into a toxic organic form that destroys the bodies of grazing animals from the inside out. Along the way, it untangles the biology behind “blind staggers” and the gruesome symptoms that terrified livestock owners across the North American West.

Set against the backdrop of 19th and 20th century rangelands, the story connects field observations, early toxicology, and modern environmental science to show how people slowly uncovered the link between strange animal deaths and a single plant rooted in selenium-rich ground. This is a historical and scientific look at how landscape, chemistry, and living things combined to create what many ranchers saw as an epidemic, and what researchers came to understand as a lethal partnership between soil and plant.