Baby Blue Blood Drive

Radiolab

WNYC Studios

Natural Sciences, History, Documentary, Science, Society & Culture

4.6 • 44.5K Ratings

🗓️ 24 July 2020

⏱️ 67 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Horseshoe crabs are not much to look at. But beneath their unassuming catcher’s-mitt shell, they harbor a half-billion-year-old secret: a superpower that helped them outlive the dinosaurs and survive all the Earth’s mass extinctions. And what is that secret superpower? Their blood. Their baby blue blood. And it’s so miraculous that for decades, it hasn’t just been saving their butts, it’s been saving ours too. But that all might be about to change. Follow us as we follow these ancient critters - from a raunchy beach orgy to a marine blood drive to the most secluded waterslide - and learn a thing or two from them about how much we depend on nature and how much it depends on us. This episode was reported by Latif Nasser with help from Damiano Marchetti and Lulu Miller, and was produced by Annie McEwen and Matt Kielty with help from Liza Yeager. Special thanks to Arlene Shaner at the NY Academy of Medicine, Tim Wisniewski at the Alan Mason Cheney Medical Archives at Johns Hopkins University, Jennifer Walton at the library of the Marine Biological Lab, and Glenn Gauvry at the Ecological Research and Development Group. Support Radiolab today at Radiolab.org/donate.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, this is Jad Radio Lab.
0:01.8	I'm going to replay an episode that we made back in 2018 because it's a good one, first and foremost.
0:09.0	And also, we got some pretty surprising coronavirus-related updates to it, which we're going to share near the end of the episode.
0:15.7	So first, here's the original, and then we'll come back and talk a little bit.
0:19.3	Wait, you're listening.
0:20.4	Okay.
0:21.7	All right. Okay. All right.
0:22.9	Okay.
0:24.3	All right.
0:25.8	You're listening to Radio Lab.
0:28.7	Radio Lab.
0:29.2	From W.N. Y.
0:31.2	C.
0:32.1	See?
0:32.4	Yeah.
0:36.3	Hey, I'm Chad.
0:37.3	I'm Rod. I'm Robert Krollwich. Oh, Whitney Beach or? No, no, you're Chad Ibum Rod.
0:37.7	I'm Robert Kulwich. Oh, Brittany Beach or? No, no, you're going to go to... Pickering Beach. Yeah. Go down 13. You're going to see this, you're going to see the store on the right hand. You'll see a liquor store on the right hand side. You're going to make a left. That's Bauer's. Actually, it's Bauer's Beach. And this? Oh, it's called Bauer speech
0:54.6	Is reporter Latif Nasser
0:56.0	Okay, okay
0:56.4	You don't want to go to you don't want to go further.
0:58.1	Okay you're going to make it left. That's Bauer's. Actually, it's Bauer's Beach. And this? Oh, it's called Bauer's Beach? Is reporter Latif Nasser. Okay, okay, okay. You don't want to go further. Okay, so three years ago? That's the only period. Three or four years ago? I taken the bus down to Delaware and I stayed in this crappy hotel and then woke up super early, like 5 a.m., still dark out,
	...

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