How Vampire Bats Evolved To Live On Blood Alone

New research has discovered some of the genetic changes that allowed vampire bats to live on a diet of pure blood. One of the bats' most important evolutionary traits is the ability to manipulate an anticoagulant protein in their blood and saliva. In humans similar proteins protect against heart attack by breaking up blood clots and clearing vessels.

Comments

Re:What it should be.

[reverseengineer]

The NY Times had an interesting story last week about creatures that dine on blood.

Apparently, most obligate hematophages tend to be very small- insects and such, because blood is not an ideal source of nutrition. In particular, blood has almost no dietary fat, so a large hematophage like a vampire bat, "must consume the equivalent of half their one-ounce body weight in blood every night or risk starving to death."

Also, apparently blood is about 95% water, and so to keep from gaining too much water weight, vampire bats "urinate freely as they feed." That's a detail that seems to be missing from most vampire movies.

Re:Let's do some REAL science.

[Facegarden]

You forgot:

Be a Billionare.

But its okay, thats the easy part...
-Taylor

BATS? Yawn.

[whitehatlurker]

Bats are old hat - vampire moths are the next wave.

(Oblig. Wikipedia reference.)

Granted, a moth costume is more difficult to make for Halloween.

There is a nature-nurture argument

[unassimilatible]

As a lawyer, I can say that there is dispute on whether law school attracts assholes, or produces them. I'd say it's a combination of both.

All kidding aside, unlike other grad schools which encourage teamwork, law school pits students against each other in many ways. This isn't necessarily a bad thing for advocates, but it does help explain why lawyers tend to be such dicks.