• ulterno@lemmy.kde.socialEnglish
      20·
      3 days 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@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        29·
        3 days 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.worksEnglish
          15·
          3 days 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@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
            15·
            3 days 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.

  • witty_username@feddit.nlEnglish
    522·
    3 days ago

    Absence of paleontological evidence of change in appearance does not mean evolutionary stagnation

    • kbal@fedia.io
      141·
      3 days ago

      Doesn’t it? It doesn’t seem obvious either way. Are you an actual paleontologist, or just guessing?

      • witty_username@feddit.nlEnglish
        472·
        3 days ago

        Molecular biologist.
        It’s mostly a matter of what we don’t know. Paleontological evidence certainly shows that horseshoe crabs didn’t change much in their appearance. However, we just don’t know to what extent other aspects of their biology are as conserved. Therefore, it is just unscientific to say that horseshoe crabs are ‘living fossils’ or that they didn’t evolve for millions of years. They may have, they may not have

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          2 days ago

          I would have to assume there’s some ecological pressure they’re either experiencing or shielded from. If they’re under environmental pressure, they are either exceptionally developed to endure environmental changes or they’re adapting to the environment in ways that don’t reflect in their physiology. If they’ve just found a niche biome where the ecological conditions are fairly static, and they’re well suited to the environment, what changes would you see other than some generic genetic drift?

        • kbal@fedia.io
          7·
          3 days ago

          It makes sense. I just wasn’t sure how likely it would be for species to evolve in significant ways over a long time without obvious changes to the shape of their fossils. Difficult to spot evolution happens a lot, apparently:

          Cryptic, or sibling, species are discrete species that are difficult, or sometimes impossible, to distinguish morphologically and thus have been incorrectly classified as a single taxon. Cryptic species are found from the poles to the Equator and in all major terrestrial and aquatic taxonomic groups [2, 3]. For example, a recent meta-analysis yielded 2,207 articles reporting cryptic species in all metazoan phyla and classes, including 996 new species in insects, 267 in mammals, 151 in fishes and 94 in birds [2].

        • chonglibloodsport@lemmy.worldEnglish
          4·
          3 days ago

          Yeah exactly. I’m not a biologist but I am aware that horseshoe crabs are harvested for their blood and its unique properties. How much evolution (in the last 450MY) have they undergone in terms of their immune system and other microbiological processes? We may never know but I think it’s quite a stretch to assume “none!”

  • RebekahWSD@lemmy.worldEnglish
    14·
    3 days 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.

  • sqw@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    21·
    3 days ago

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

    • idiomaddict@lemmy.worldEnglish
      632·
      3 days ago

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

      • Ignotum@lemmy.worldEnglish
        194·
        3 days 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.orgEnglish
        820·
        3 days 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_🦀 🏅@monyet.ccEnglish
          10·
          3 days ago

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