this post was submitted on 15 Sep 2024
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Science Memes

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[–] mononomi@feddit.nl 58 points 10 months ago (4 children)

And then humans came along to mess with em

human in protective clothing harvesting horseshoe crab blood in a lab

[–] Tja@programming.dev 32 points 10 months ago

Stupid life-saving copper based blood...

[–] ulterno@lemmy.kde.social 21 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I find it hard to understand, what special thing the blood has, that is not synthetically manufacturable. With most foodstuff companies trying to synthetically manufacture as much of the food as they can, what makes this "Near Threatened" animal, so important to harvest?

[–] Dave2@lemmy.blahaj.zone 30 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I googled it for you, there is LAL which is a blood clotting agent (that exists only in the blood of horseshoe crabs) that reacts with the bacterial capsule which makes it important for vaccine safety tests. Alternatives do exist but ya know, money is more important to corporations than some animal's life.

[–] threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works 15 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Alternatives do exist but ya know, money is more important

What are the alternatives, and how can we reduce their costs to match that of horseshoe crab blood?

[–] Dave2@lemmy.blahaj.zone 15 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I have done some more googling (I can't stress this enough, I am just googling)

The top alternatives are rFC (genetically modified cells produce the required enzyme) and MAT (human monocytes do the detection) They're more costly, picking ready fruit is easier than growing an orchard.

Also I should mention how new the alternatives are, they're just (2018 is just now for me lol) getting their approvals and regulations so given time LAL will be replaced.

[–] threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works 4 points 10 months ago

given time LAL will be replaced

That sounds encouraging!

[–] mayo@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago
[–] ulterno@lemmy.kde.social 6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

So they'll use alternatives once the crabs go extinct.
Well... 😶

[–] KellysNokia@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago

It's like a more realistic representation of what Neo would see when he wakes from the Matrix

[–] whodatdair@lemmy.blahaj.zone 46 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Science abhors a vacuum but it fucking loves a crab

[–] Paraponera_clavata@lemmy.world 23 points 10 months ago

Nature abhors a vaccuum

[–] apex32@lemmy.world 38 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Nice doggie!

Nice doggie!

[–] owenfromcanada@lemmy.world 26 points 10 months ago

Heckin sea roomba

[–] RebekahWSD@lemmy.world 14 points 10 months ago

One of the best things I got to do as a kid was go down to horseshoe crab time at the shore at pet them and hear a science human talk about their fancy blood. The fancy blood of the horseshoe crabs, not the science human's blood.

[–] meowMix2525@lemm.ee 14 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Yet some of them still managed to evolve into spiders...

[–] SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 10 months ago

They were bored one afternoon

[–] kindenough@kbin.earth 12 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Fascinating creatures. TIL they are more closely related to arachnids than crabs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_crab

[–] piccolo@sh.itjust.works 19 points 10 months ago (3 children)

How close are they to horseshoes?

[–] Agrivar@lemmy.world 17 points 10 months ago

Practically identical.

[–] kindenough@kbin.earth 3 points 10 months ago

Hihi...asking the most important questions.

[–] roguetrick@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

How about hand grenades?

[–] Honytawk@lemmy.zip 4 points 10 months ago

Lazy bastards

[–] caseyweederman@lemmy.ca 3 points 10 months ago
[–] sqw@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

all extant species (except hu-men) be like: evolve? whats that. just livin out here.