This blog may help people explore some of the 'hidden' issues involved in certain media treatments of environmental and scientific issues. Using personal digital images, it's also intended to emphasise seasonal (and other) changes in natural history of the Swansea (South Wales) area. The material should help participants in field-based modules and people generally interested in the natural world. The views are wholly those of the author.
Thursday 12 November 2020
Unsung Heroes of the Search for a Covid-19 Vaccine
Pretty obviously, a lot of human ingenuity goes into the development of vaccines to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic. The production of a safe vaccine is, however, remarkably dependent on a marine/ brackish-water, blue-blooded, arthropod that has been on the planet for 450 million years (https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/science-and-technology/2020/07/horseshoe-crab-blood-is-key-to-making-a-covid-19-vaccine-but-the). The Horseshoe crab (Limulus sp) is not really a crab (it's not even a crustacean) but it is the only source of limulus amoebocyte lysate (lal) used to detect contaminant endotoxins from bacteria at doses of one part per trillion. Without this test, no batch of vaccines is allowed to be used on humans (the endotoxins could harm or even kill). In the USA, half a million Atlantic horseshoe crabs are rounded up each year, bled to harvest their lal and returned to the sea. Some people are now becoming concerned that environmental challenges might threaten the future availability of lal.
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A Chilling Suggestion From BORIS
'BORIS' is the acronym for the Swedish Childhood Obesity Treatment Register. Academics, from Stockholm's Karolinska Institute...
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The UK government continue their quest to turn England's rivers back into sewers. They first facilitated the privatised water companies...
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North Yorkshire's Drax electricity-generating station was an enormous coal-fired plant, later converted to burn 'biomass'. In ...
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