Farming Killer Cone Snails a Risky Affair (AP) AP - Jon-Paul Bingham puts his life on the line every week for the sake of science. One wrong move, and he could become the hapless victim of a snail attack that could kill him. Bingham, a biochemist at Clarkson University, is a self-described "conehead" whose livelihood depends on scuba diving for tropical marine cone snails and coaxing them to discharge their venom in his laboratory.