Give Blood

by | Jul 5, 2011 | Invertebrates, Science | 2 comments


A cool bunch of images from Wired magazine detailing the process in which horseshoe crab blood is extracted and processed for use in medical grade testing reagents.  While viewing this gallery, you have to convince yourself that you’re looking at an amazing miracle of science and not some twisted steampunk nightmare. LINK

  • Josh Saul

    Josh Saul is a technology consultant for large global banks. He has been involved in the aquarium hobby for 20 years and has been SCUBA diving for more than 30.

2 Comments

  1. Christine Williams

    Yes! Elements of horseshoe crab blood are used every day to make sure that any injectable drugs you use don’t have bacterial endotoxins-ompounds made by pathogenic bacteria which cause very strong immune system responses. We should be grateful for the lowly horseshoe crab 🙂

    Reply
  2. Shawn Wilson

    I saw a show on the company that holds the licensing to collect and sometimes even return the crabs after “donating”. It looks like a scene from a B movie, right down to the blue blood.

    Reply

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