Why do we harvest horseshoe crab blood? - Elizabeth Cox
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During the warmer months, especially at night during the full moon, horseshoe crabs emerge from the sea to spawn. Waiting for them are teams of lab workers, who capture the horseshoe crabs by the hundreds of thousands, take them to labs, harvest their cerulean blood, then return them to the sea. Why? Elizabeth Cox illuminates the incredible properties of horseshoe crab blood.
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Until Fred bang discovered LAL in 1956, the only test we had for bacterial endotoxin contamination was injecting thousands of rabbits. In spite of it’s negative impacts, the LAL test is a huge improvement over this method. You can learn more about Bang’s discovery here. Learn more about the Gram Stain, the most common test for bacteria contamination, here.
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Meet The Creators
- Educator Elizabeth Cox
- Director Anton Bogaty
- Animator Anton Bogaty
- Associate Producer Jessica Ruby
- Content Producer Gerta Xhelo
- Editorial Producer Alex Rosenthal
- Narrator Addison Anderson