PhotoHONG KONG — The Malaysian authorities said on Friday that Kim Jong-nam, the half brother of North Korea’s leader, had been killed by VX nerve agent applied to his face. What is a nerve agent? A nerve agent, sometimes called nerve gas, acts on the nervous system of an organism and prevents muscles from functioning properly. In the 1960s, testing of a nerve agent that may have been VX led to the accidental deaths of thousands of sheep in Utah. Syrian government forces are accused of using a related nerve agent, possibly sarin, against civilians in 2013.

Source: New York Times February 24, 2017 07:33 UTC