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Music lines and stores subject to availability ends 14th of February. It's Wednesday, March 30th, 2020. I'm Jackson Bird today. Could alpaca antibodies one day provide

treatment for COVID-19? Plus, the Hubble telescope has spotted the oldest star

ever seen by humans by a long shot. The European Union is cracking down on fast fashion,

and the scammers trying to turn prayers into NFTs. Here's some cool stuff for your ride home.

So this is a bit of a follow-up to a segment. We did all the way back in May of 2020

on the coronavirus morning report about alpacas and their potential role in treating COVID-19.

So two years ago, I mentioned a study from Belgian researchers in collaboration with the University of Texas that began before the coronavirus

pandemic, using llama antibodies to neutralize different types of coronavirus, at the time meaning

SARS and MERS. They injected a llama called Winter with spike proteins from

those viruses that each separately fought against the two diseases. And the reason it worked

is due to an interesting quirk of camelids, the family of mammals that llamas and alpacas belong to.

Quoting the New York Times piece on this study two years ago,

humans produce only one kind of antibody made of two types of protein chains, heavy and light,

that together form a Y shape. Heavy chain proteins span the entire Y, while light chain proteins

touch only the Y's arms. Llamas, on the other hand, produce two types of antibodies.

...