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This doesn’t have much to do with anything. In fact “random!” may a word that shouts out in your head. Actually that’s a bit of a stretch. I could link to the steady progress of technological innovation, draw parallels with evolution then leave you with dreamy predictions about “where will we be in one hundred years let alone 1 million…” Meh!
Watching a little program on television the other day (yes, it happens!) and this guy is banging on about different animals and their tres cool (as the French would say) adaptations. Now I don’t usually get too excited about biology but we’re talking a beetle that has this little chamber in its body where it mixes two chemicals together causing a highly exothermic (lots of heat) reaction. This raises the pressure in the chamber very quickly so the chemicals then shoot out the only hole in the chamber at great velocity. Squirt! The hole is usually pointed at a predator or something else the beetle has taken a disliking to.
The best for me though was the horseshoe crab. I did not know that its blood contains copper (unlike humans which has iron) and is hence blue. The crab not being a mammal lacks an immune system so instead its blue blood coagulates very quickly on contact with bacteria (anything that’s non-sterile) of which the ocean is choc-a-block. This is extremely useful for humans as it provides a very simple way of testing solutions for sterility. The “Limulus Amebocyte Lysate (LAL) test” is used by hospitals and pharmaceuticals world wide.
Evolution beats technology hands down.
If you’re interested in finding out more about the horseshoe crab…
PBS Nature episode
The Ecological Research & Development Group (ERDG)

Filed under: learning | Tagged: crab, evolution, horseshoe, technology