Venomous Or Poisonous, Crayfish Clones, Immune System Cancer Injection. Feb 9, 2018, Part 2

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🗓️ 9 February 2018

⏱️ 47 minutes

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Summary

Do you know the difference between a poisonous creature and a venomous one? One distinction is that poisons are often ingested or absorbed by the skin, while venoms have to be injected through a wound. Mandë Holford tells us more about her research studying these dangerous creatures. 25 years ago, all-female crayfish species originated from a hobbyist tank in Germany. In the wild, the crustacean developed a mutation that allowed it to pick up a third set of chromosomes and reproduce clonally. Since then, the cloning crayfish have proliferated—invading waters all around the world. What do the neurons of this clonal creature tell us about its ability to adapt to different environments? It's known that the immune system can fight cancer—and there have been heavy investments in the search for a drug that will boost our own body’s ability to combat cancer. Now, researchers at Stanford University may have discovered a treatment that’s not only quick, but also doesn’t send the body’s immune system into overdrive.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Science Friday. I am Ira Flato. A little later in the hour, the story of mutant cloned crayfish and a game of poison or venom. Can you tell the difference? Great stuff coming up. But first, next week, February 14th, chocolate season, right? Kicks into high gear. and you know chocolate is big business, annual sales
0:22.4	worldwide on the order of $100 billion. That is a lot of bonbons. In an effort to make you
0:28.9	savor that cacao flavor, just a little bit more, we wanted to revisit one of our favorite
0:34.6	subjects, the unsung heroes of the chocolate industry, the insects,
0:39.8	the insects that make it all possible. Joining us to Tell That Tale, our Stacey Philpott,
0:45.4	Professor and Heller Chair in Agroecology, UC Santa Cruz. Welcome to Science Friday.
0:51.8	It's great to be here. Nice to have you. Samantha J. Forbes, Ph.D. candidate in Agriculture and Environment at James Cook University in Cairns, Australia.
1:00.7	Did I say that right, Samantha?
1:02.4	Yeah, you did say that right.
1:04.2	My Australian accent, forget it.
1:07.9	And give our listeners a chance to call in our number 844-724-8255. You can also
1:13.9	tweet us at SciFri. And Samantha, let me begin with you. You spend a lot of time, I understand,
1:20.4	staring at cacao flowers. Is that right? Yeah, I do. So Australia has a very small
1:27.2	cacao industry. and my research involves a lot of hours out in the field, looking at these tiny cacao flowers, and there's so many of them.
1:37.6	How many are there? It ranges. It definitely depends on the environment and whatever, but it said that a cacao's tree in a season can produce more than 124,000 flowers.
1:51.5	And you're out there. Walk us through then, the populace, the pollination process. Describe the flies we're talking about and how they get the job done and why they're so necessary.
2:02.6	Okay, well, the flies that I research are in a family of flies called the Ceradipagonid midges,
2:11.3	and these are known as your biting midges.
2:13.0	So in there is also the annoying sandflies that often bite people.
2:18.3	But closely related to them is this genre of midges called the Forcipa Maya.
2:24.3	And they're a small fly that feed on floral resources and not on people.
2:30.3	And you can find them in the cocoa plantations and just general sort of foresty
	...

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