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Alligator Blood May Be Source of New Antibiotics
esocid writes "Biochemists from McNeese State University have described how proteins in gator blood may provide a source of powerful new antibiotics to help fight infections associated with diabetic ulcers and severe burns. This new class of drug could also crack so-called 'superbugs' that are resistant to conventional medication. Previous studies have showed alligators have an unusually strong immune system; unlike humans, alligator immune systems can defend against microorganisms such as fungi, viruses, and bacteria without having prior exposure to them. Scientists believe that this is an evolutionary adaptation to promote quick wound healing, as alligators are often injured during fierce territorial battles."
My work here is dung.
The ability to heal quickly and fight off almost any infection would be a huge adaptation for any animal even without the territory battles. The fact that alligators are one of the few (only?) animals to evolve this adaptation indicates that it comes with a hefty price.
The question is, can we leverage this adaptation for ourselves without incurring the price? If the price is energy expended to produce the ultra efficient immune system, that's fine; but if the price is directly tied to the effects themselves this may prove worthless.
Good for what ails ya.
'nuff said.
Gators/Crocs are famous for having not changed much since the time of the dinosaurs.
I wonder if since they have a very strong immune system that kills viruses etc so well, if they have not denied themselves the opportunity to incorporate useful viral dna and bacterial plasmids into their own dna. It would be interesting to see if they have a different amount of viral origin genes in their genomes than other animals.
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Alligator blood? Man, that's cold.
-Rob
Biblical fiscal responsibility
Possibly somewhat, but not as much as if the protesters hadn't been there all along to make sure the species did not become extinct, or too rare to study.
You're probably too young to remember this, but alligator skin used to be quite stylish for handbags, shoes, wallets and the like. Wild populations can provide a sustainable source of goods like this so long as people don't take so many animals that the equilibrium breaks down and the population crashes. However, that's pretty much the inevitable course of events ever since society reached a sufficient technological level to respond to market opportunities with tools that make resource extraction orders of magnitude faster (and thus more profitable).
You, as an alligator hunter, may be smart enough to know you'll make more in the long run by sustainable harvesting, but if your competition is sufficiently inbred, this sounds like hifalutin nonsense to them. When the idiots are making more money than the smart people, the near-idiots emulate the idiots, and pretty soon the people acting intelligently are the only ones who aren't in on the bonanza. At that point the intelligent choice is to act stupidly, because you maximize your long term return by grabbing a share of the breeding stock before even that is liquidated.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Crocodile's Immune System Kills HIV - story from 2005
wot no sig
There was very recent research that was quite extensive that showed this cost of complexity in evolution is a myth. I don't know why you think it has to come at a cost, it just so happens that alligators needed it to live in their conditions and with their temperaments.
You can sit here all day and question why we don't have some of the obvious advantage traits that any other animal has and the answer is simple: we didn't require it. If humans needed it and didn't have it, we wouldn't be around.
Explain your logic on why this must come at a price? The random evolution happened in alligators and may be present in other animals (or extinct relatives).
My work here is dung.
check out the horseshoe crab. They were going to be completely destroyed until the medical industry offered to pay more for keeping them alive than the fishermen were paying to use them as bait. The species will actually continue only because of their medical uses. Maybe this will help.
There are already decent protections for legal hunting gator, and this may increase the pressure against poaching.
I am a Muslim, and I can say that in Islam, there is a blanket overruling of all prohibited substances in the course of saving a life, such as eating pork in starvation situations or deriving medicine from alcoholic sources. Deriving medication from pigs would be allowed, and so too would medicine from alligator blood.
Most opiate analgesics and anaesthetics are, for example, prohibited under the intoxication rule (the one that prohibits alcohol), but are allowed in medical situations. Same for alcohol used in field treatment of hypothermia and other emergency situations.
I'm not sure about the Kosher rules in Judaism, but in Islam, any substance of medicinal value is permitted if necessary for the health of the patient.
This rule is conscience based I guess, for all of you thinking of that Simpsons episode where the blind guy was smoking weed for "medicinal purposes".
I hate printers.
Crocodiles are relatives of alligators, but are not the same animal. I know it's confusing because they're very scary animals.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
Their legs can be treated like Buffalo Wings, very tasty.
The tail is the most popular part, as thats used much like chicken tenders. Most people enjoy fried gator tail. You can go back further up on its back, for the tenderloin, but not as good.
Last part I've tried is the ribs. Very similar to baby back ribs, its a white meat, no question about it when eating the ribs. Yes, the amount of meat to bone isn't all that good, but its good enough to enjoy a slow smoking.
Alligator really is the other other white meat, and one of my favourites.
As far as I understand, the same is true in Judaism. The "laws of kashrut" are overruled when one's life or health is at stake.
It may be helpful to add that Orthadox Jews traditionally keep kosher on a voluntary, not compulsory, basis. That is, the rules are followed in order to honor god, not because there is some terrible consequence or threat involved if they do not do so. It is not a "keep kosher or go to hell" kind of thing. It is more like "God asks that we keep kosher. We love and honor god, so we will therefore, as a practice of worship and respect, keep kosher as god requests."
I made the initial discovery with saltwater crocodiles back in 1999, and my colleague Dr Gill Diamond named the peptide "crocodillin". So this is really a decade old now!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/680840.stm
Adam Britton