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[-] mononomi@feddit.nl 56 points 5 months ago

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 5 months ago

Stupid life-saving copper based blood...

[-] ulterno@lemmy.kde.social 21 points 5 months ago

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 29 points 5 months ago

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 5 months ago

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 14 points 5 months ago

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 5 months ago

given time LAL will be replaced

That sounds encouraging!

[-] mayo@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago
[-] ulterno@lemmy.kde.social 6 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

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

[-] KellysNokia@lemmy.world 3 points 5 months ago

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

[-] whodatdair 43 points 5 months ago

Science abhors a vacuum but it fucking loves a crab

[-] Paraponera_clavata@lemmy.world 23 points 5 months ago

Nature abhors a vaccuum

[-] apex32@lemmy.world 38 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Nice doggie!

Nice doggie!

[-] owenfromcanada@lemmy.world 25 points 5 months ago

Heckin sea roomba

[-] Zacryon@feddit.org 17 points 5 months ago

There's no evidence for gods though.

[-] idiomaddict@lemmy.world 60 points 5 months ago

There’s also no evidence that horseshoe crabs have individual names and understand the concept of evolution.

[-] ignotum@lemmy.world 20 points 5 months ago

We do have evidence that at least one species give their members individual names, and at least a portion of the members understand the concept of evolution

So i would say we have more evidence for this meme being accurate than any god being real

[-] Zacryon@feddit.org 8 points 5 months ago

Fair point. Although one may say this is fine here for comic purposes.

The same argument could be made about the statement "Gods perfect creation".
But I'd argue that the suggestion of a creationist god expands the distance to scientific contexts even more while simple speech bubbles are fine due to less ideological conflict potential.

Admittedly, I am also rather allergic to religions, which is why I am having a difficult time with that part of the meme.

[-] Annoyed_Crabby@monyet.cc 9 points 5 months ago

Just for a moment pretend God banged so hard he created the Big Bang which create all life, and laugh at religion joke.

[-] Zacryon@feddit.org 1 points 4 months ago

Due to the "being allergic" part this is unfortunately not possible for me. But thanks for trying to provide me with a different perspective.

[-] ZeroCool@slrpnk.net 39 points 5 months ago
[-] Zacryon@feddit.org 8 points 5 months ago

Me too. It's a science meme community after all.

[-] ZeroCool@slrpnk.net 24 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Yeah, I got it the first time.

[-] Zacryon@feddit.org 6 points 5 months ago
[-] meowMix2525@lemm.ee 14 points 5 months ago

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

[-] SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 5 months ago

They were bored one afternoon

[-] RebekahWSD@lemmy.world 13 points 5 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.

[-] kindenough@kbin.earth 10 points 5 months ago

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

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

[-] piccolo@sh.itjust.works 17 points 5 months ago

How close are they to horseshoes?

[-] Agrivar@lemmy.world 16 points 5 months ago

Practically identical.

[-] kindenough@kbin.earth 3 points 5 months ago

Hihi...asking the most important questions.

[-] roguetrick@lemmy.world 1 points 5 months ago

How about hand grenades?

[-] Honytawk@lemmy.zip 4 points 5 months ago

Lazy bastards

[-] caseyweederman@lemmy.ca 3 points 5 months ago
[-] sqw@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

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

this post was submitted on 15 Sep 2024
700 points (100.0% liked)

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