Humans have an instinctive fear of large cats, or bears, or crocodiles, essentially anything big enough to maul us to death. It makes sense.

But why are we afraid of spiders, snakes or insects?

It almost certainly comes down to one of evolution’s great levellers. Venom.

So what exactly is Venom? How does it work and how can we turn it to our advantage?

Jonathan is joined by John Dunbar from the School of Natural Sciences at the Ryan Institute in NUI Galway