this post was submitted on 08 Nov 2023
672 points (94.0% liked)

Lemmy Shitpost

27164 readers
3168 users here now

Welcome to Lemmy Shitpost. Here you can shitpost to your hearts content.

Anything and everything goes. Memes, Jokes, Vents and Banter. Though we still have to comply with lemmy.world instance rules. So behave!


Rules:

1. Be Respectful


Refrain from using harmful language pertaining to a protected characteristic: e.g. race, gender, sexuality, disability or religion.

Refrain from being argumentative when responding or commenting to posts/replies. Personal attacks are not welcome here.

...


2. No Illegal Content


Content that violates the law. Any post/comment found to be in breach of common law will be removed and given to the authorities if required.

That means:

-No promoting violence/threats against any individuals

-No CSA content or Revenge Porn

-No sharing private/personal information (Doxxing)

...


3. No Spam


Posting the same post, no matter the intent is against the rules.

-If you have posted content, please refrain from re-posting said content within this community.

-Do not spam posts with intent to harass, annoy, bully, advertise, scam or harm this community.

-No posting Scams/Advertisements/Phishing Links/IP Grabbers

-No Bots, Bots will be banned from the community.

...


4. No Porn/ExplicitContent


-Do not post explicit content. Lemmy.World is not the instance for NSFW content.

-Do not post Gore or Shock Content.

...


5. No Enciting Harassment,Brigading, Doxxing or Witch Hunts


-Do not Brigade other Communities

-No calls to action against other communities/users within Lemmy or outside of Lemmy.

-No Witch Hunts against users/communities.

-No content that harasses members within or outside of the community.

...


6. NSFW should be behind NSFW tags.


-Content that is NSFW should be behind NSFW tags.

-Content that might be distressing should be kept behind NSFW tags.

...

If you see content that is a breach of the rules, please flag and report the comment and a moderator will take action where they can.


Also check out:

Partnered Communities:

1.Memes

2.Lemmy Review

3.Mildly Infuriating

4.Lemmy Be Wholesome

5.No Stupid Questions

6.You Should Know

7.Comedy Heaven

8.Credible Defense

9.Ten Forward

10.LinuxMemes (Linux themed memes)


Reach out to

All communities included on the sidebar are to be made in compliance with the instance rules. Striker

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] CluckN@lemmy.world 205 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It’s catch and release so they let them go afterwards where they found them. Horseshoe crab blood is an essential biomedical tool that’s saved countless lives.

[–] dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.de 80 points 1 year ago (4 children)

What are some example uses for the blood? I’m fascinated.

Thanks for the reply too.

[–] CluckN@lemmy.world 134 points 1 year ago (3 children)

It’s an anticoagulant and can detect the smallest traces of endotoxins in medicine. I’m sure I’m missing some details but there are some great medical journals that detail the process and help explain why it’s $60,000 a gallon.

[–] someguy3@lemmy.world 76 points 1 year ago (3 children)

$15.85 per ml, for a more at scale measurement.

[–] jasondj@ttrpg.network 56 points 1 year ago (2 children)

How close is this stuff to HP’s Cyan?

[–] gkd@lemmy.ml 14 points 1 year ago

With how much those things cost, I wouldn’t be surprised if some horseshoe crab blood was mixed in to really make the color pop.

[–] RestrictedAccount@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

I just snorted

[–] IWantToFuckSpez@kbin.social 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Is this why the royals are rich? Because they have blue blood.

[–] Aqarius@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

I, uh, I may have an economic recovery proposal.

[–] Mercival@lemm.ee 47 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It is not an anticoagulant, quite the opposite actually. The blood (limulus amoebocyte lysate) will coagulate at the slightest hint of gram-negative bacteria and their endotoxins.

It's most likely a defense mechanism against bacterial infections.

It's widely used in medicine to check for bacterial contamination of injectable pharmaceuticals.

[–] peopleproblems@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Woah. Are horseshoe crabs like other crustaceans in that they eat pretty much anything including/mostly detritus?

If thats the case, than how would it be beneficial to have blood that coagulates so easily?

Wouldn't every meal lead to a crab version of a stroke?

[–] Mercival@lemm.ee 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Horseshoe crabs are not crusteceans, they are early chelicerates.

They have an open circulatory system, where the blood (heamolymph) freely spills out of the arteries into surrounding tissues, so a small clot probably wouldn't cause issues. Think of it like a cyst, sometimes if an infection can't be removed by the immune system, your body will just enclose it in a capsule, so it can't spread.

[–] peopleproblems@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Ahhh that makes sense. That's a pretty cool defense system

[–] MeanEYE@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They are not crabs nor crustaceans.

[–] Kedly@lemm.ee -5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not a relevant time to be pedantic

[–] MeanEYE@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well, he asked if they are like other crustaceans, so the answer is they are not crustaceans so no, they are not like others.

[–] Kedly@lemm.ee 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Aww fuck you're right. I'm the one in the wrong here. I apologize, it wasnt a relevant time for me to be an ass

[–] dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It’s great that you owned up. Many wouldn’t.

[–] Kedly@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Yeah, I may be a bit combative in my comments, but in general I dont want to contribute to toxicity, so when I'm wrong I'll fess up and apologize for it

[–] dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I feel you and I don’t know your age but me personally I found that with age, I was more forthcoming with saying i was wrong and just trying to be nice to folk.

Have a great day dude!

[–] Kedly@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago

Age might play a part in it, I do think I've been more willing to fess up to wrongdoing than average throughout my life as well though as I function best in honest environments. You have a great day as well!

[–] Four_lights77@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

Probably so it can detect it as quickly as possible for elimination.

[–] Rubanski@lemm.ee 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Discoveries like this always makes me wonder, who had the idea to try it and why

[–] SpiderShoeCult@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 year ago

wait until you hear about protamines and their medical uses

[–] Zron@lemmy.world 36 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Where can someone find these horseshoe crabs?

And are they able to be bred in captivity?

Pls respond fast, I’m already driving to home depot to buy the largest above ground pool they have.

On horseshoes, sure why not, and buy two

[–] Restaldt@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

Most aquariums have a horseshoe crab petting exhibit. Hands on.

If you are a fast enough runner i bet you could take a couple

[–] EvilCartyen@feddit.dk 38 points 1 year ago

The blood contains a coagulent which clots in the presence of bacterial toxins. It is extracted and used to ensure that medical equipent and stuff such as vaccines are sterile and safe.

[–] prayer@lemmy.world 23 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The main use is to detect how much endotoxins (proteins that cause our immune system to react) are present in a sample. This is important because we often use bacteria/fungus/yeast to produce medicine and then remove the microorganism from that medicine. This checks for anything left behind in that process, far more sensitive than any other test or machine can do.

If it wasn't for horseshoe crab blood, creating medicine that is safe for injection would be a lot harder and potentially more dangerous.

[–] Rolder@reddthat.com 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Wonder why we can’t just make the coagulant ourselves. Or maybe we can but milking crabs is still cheaper.

[–] prayer@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

My guess without checking would be regulatory. The FDA doesn't want to approve an alternative to an already working method unless it can be shown to truly be an alternative. That testing is lengthy and expensive.

[–] wolfpack86@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

It's not a chemical compound, the active component is an amebocyte. Same reason we can't just make red blood cells and need other humans to donate them.

There have been other attempts at making synthetic coagulants without broad success. The thing that seems to be the most effective at minimizing the horseshoe crab burden is using machines to do the detection and cut down on the amount of LAL needed vs running the test visually.