this post was submitted on 15 Sep 2024
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Science Memes

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Horseshoe crabs be like (i.ibb.co)
submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 55 points 1 month ago (4 children)

And then humans came along to mess with em

human in protective clothing harvesting horseshoe crab blood in a lab

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 month ago

Stupid life-saving copper based blood...

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 month 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?

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 month 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 15 points 1 month 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?

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 month 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 4 points 1 month ago

given time LAL will be replaced

That sounds encouraging!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Subsidies

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

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

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

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