Why do people have blue blood?
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When it comes to blue blood, the first thing you need to remember is the blood of a horseshoe crab horseshoe crab. This bluish liquid is widely used in medicine since the 1970-ies, as it helps to fight against various diseases and is an important element in safety testing of vaccines and new drugs. A quart of horseshoe crab blood is worth $ 15,000, making it one of the most expensive resources in the world. However, even despite the exorbitant cost, the hunt for horseshoe crabs has set this amazing species on the brink of extinction. Blue is the color of blood due to the presence in it of copper, but this is not its most interesting feature.
the Most ancient animals on Earth
Horseshoe crabs – the oldest species on the planet, for which he received the title of “living fossil” in one form or another, these horseshoe crabs that inhabit the East coast of North America and Asia, there are at least 450 million years. Horseshoe crabs are not crustaceans, but belong to the order Arthropoda, and more associated with Scorpions than crabs. But as the blood of these animals became such a valuable resource?
The Pathologist Frederick Byrnes wanted to understand how the immune system of the animal. To study the properties of the blood of horseshoe crabs he conducted a series of experiments, for example, have introduced bacteria from seawater in the blood of the horseshoe crab, to see how the animal will react to it. It turned out that after the blood of horseshoe crabs exposed to water contaminated with the bacteria, the blood turned into a jelly-like mass. The same thing happened after the scientist introduced the horseshoe crab's blood in the water with the bacteria, which before this was boiled for 5-10 minutes. As a result, the pathologist came to the conclusion that it is a thickening of the blood is a natural mechanism designed to protect the rest of the body of a horseshoe crab from a foreign pathogen.
Now it is clear who inspired Riddly Scott, creating «Alien»
Frederick Barnes found that for high efficiency the immune system of horseshoe crabs is a special clotting agent that is used for the preparation of compound called Limulus amebocyte lysate or LAL. Before the advent of LAL scientists was not a simple way to know whether infected by the vaccine or medical instruments bacteria, such as E. coli or Salmonella. of Every year the medical industry catches approximately 600,000 horseshoe crabs.
How you extract the blood of horseshoe crabs
Being a very ancient creatures, the horseshoe crabs are capable without harm for themselves to "give" a certain amount of blood. In the laboratory, trained staff stuck under the shell of arthropod hollow, cylindrical stick, which pumps blood until a marine animal allows it. It looks like this:
So is the collection of the blood of horseshoe crabs
In General, horseshoe crabs are drained of 30% of his blood, however, up to 30% of crabs do not survive to the end of this process. Surviving animals, the researchers returned to the water, but no one really knows if they recover. In 2016, the international Union for conservation of nature the United States called the horseshoe crab vulnerable species – that is one step below being endangered. If the situation does not change, the population in the U.S. will continue to decline by as much as 30% over the next 40 years.
The Last received data writes , saying that many horseshoe crabs do not survive. After blood sampling from 10% to 25% of the animals die within the first two days. Because of the procedure, the crabs become weak and disoriented in space for a while. It is noted that females may have problems with spawning. Meanwhile, thanks to the blue blood of horseshoe crabs millions of patients can safely take medicines every day.
Given the threat of extinction of these fascinating animals, scientists are trying to find a synthetic alternative which will help to reduce the burden on the population of horseshoe crabs. Well, we just need to hope that they will succeed and these ancient creatures to continue .
Blue blood of these strange crabs saves hundreds and thousands of lives
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