Todays educational reading...Horseshoe crabs are the topic

[pmclaine]

The Atlantic sucks, and of course the article has its Kumbaya parts, but the use of horseshoe crab blood in the bio tech field, its absolute importance to our health and medical industry intrigues me....

These lowly dinosaurs have saved a lot of lives......

The Last Days of the Blue-Blood Harvest

Every year, more than 400,000 crabs are bled for the miraculous medical substance that flows through their bodies—now pharmaceutical companies are finally committing to an alternative that doesn't harm animals.

getpocket.com

 

[Mike Casselton]

Interesting read and it quietly points to the bureaucracy of bringing important products to market while allowing near destruction of other resources.

We have tons of horseshoe crabs here in Tampa Bay.

In fact, on the east shore of the bay is an place called Cockroach Bay.
It was named that by the Spanish Explorers who thought the horseshoe crabs were a water going cousin to the cockroach.

 

[pmclaine]

Cape Cod is full of them.

At one point in time people were making fortunes selling horseshoe blood.

They had to control the cull as the dinosaurs were disappearing.

 

[Blue Sky Country]

Awesome read... One's got to wonder just how much whales had been harvested for lamp oil and machine lubricant before the advent of the full industrial revolution. Kerosene, or paraffin, had been distilled from crude petroleum as early as the late Western Roman Empire, but the preindustrial distilling process was tedious and yield was too low for mass societal consumption. Kerosene and naphtha, thus, were only designated for military use, in the payloads of incendiary arrows or trebuchet launched firebombs.. It would not be until 1860 that commercial distilling processes would be completely established and another twenty years would pass before distilling plants produced enough that home/industrial heating and lighting needs can be met. Before then, whale oil was used for all urban heating, lighting, and industrial lube applications...

 

[acudaowner]

while not about a horseshoe crab it's still educational