Horseshoe crab blood

Approximately 50000 Horseshoe crabs die annually in blood harvesting. Their blue colour blood has a price tag of 15000$ a quart. The blue colour in blood is caused by copper present in blood as Hemocyanin which carries oxygen throughout the crabs body (analogues to hemoglobin in our bodies). But that is not what makes the blood this expensive. Amebocytes in horseshoe blood quickly clots in the presence of exdotoxins which provides a perfect natural test to examine purity. Therefore in medicine horseshoe crabs blood is used to ensure vaccines and implants are not contaminated.

In 2018 nearly 500,000 crabs have been used to harvest blood and after draining 1/3 of the blood, they were released into their original habitats. However more than 50,000 crabs die in this process. Not only it threatens the horseshoe crab population but also it has become a threat to the survival of  migratory birds such as threatened red knot who depends on horseshoe crab eggs.

Comments

Good books for students studying for GCE A/L examination...

As we all know A/Ls is a very tough exam and you will not be able to finish it successfully by just studying.It needs practice,timing and all.So the best way to do it is do exercises and improve knowledge,i did A/Ls in physical science stream and in sinhala medium,so based on my experience i will recommend anyone to use following books.There may be books better than following list,but books below were used by me. Chemistry almost every book by hemachandra basnayaka Akabanika rasayanaya by Aruna Bandara (there are two books for inorganic chemistry,these books will help you in for the doubts you will have in doing mcqs) Akabanika rasayana pilibanda gunathmaka ha pramanathmaka wishleshanaya by Ranga gunarathna(this also will help you in mcqs) Organic chemistry by jayathilaka(this book is very good and it will help you to understand concepts in organic chemistry better) Physics Prof D.D.N balo dayas' books yanthra vidyawa by lakshaman dissanayaka(questionsin this book are

How to survive A/Ls in 3 months...

Today is the first of May and there are exactly three months until GCE A/L exams begin. I intend to help people who has realized this and started panicking and feeling lost, but not only A/L students but also any student with any upcoming exam can use these tips to ace your exam. I will first explain why most of us usually wait until the day before deadline to do stuff. It's explained by Parkinson's law which states that " Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion". What it means is, if we are given a week to finish a task we will finish it within the week and if we are given an year to finish the same task we will spend the whole year doing it. Well that's how usually us, lazy humans work. Now that you know what happened there is no time to regret about how we procrastinated on unnecessary things etc. Now it's time to damage control. I will not gurantee you will get 3As by following these. (It's possible depending on

How to get 90+ for GCE A/L Chemistry paper..

Well for most of the people doing A/Ls in science stream, chemistry is a nightmare, especially for physical science students. So today I'm going to tell you how to write to a chemistry paper in a much different way than you always do. Well it worked for me,and you should test this way with a model paper or in a term test before you go to exam.This saves time and also you can easily score 90+.

Search This Blog