Why Animals Keep Evolving Into Crabs
Curiosity Weekly
Warner Bros. Discovery
4.6 • 964 Ratings
🗓️ 3 December 2020
⏱️ 12 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Learn about why animals keep evolving into crabs in a principle called “carcinization,” whether water is actually wet, and if there’s any truth behind the old adage "feed a cold, starve a fever."
Animals keep evolving into crabs by Grant Currin
- Delbert, C. (2020, October 19). Animals Keep Evolving Into Crabs, Which Is Somewhat Disturbing. Popular Mechanics; Popular Mechanics. https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a34389129/crab-evolution-carcinization/
- Crustaceans. (2015). Mesa.Edu.Au. http://www.mesa.edu.au/crustaceans/crustaceans05a.asp
- PBS Eons. (2020). Why Do Things Keep Evolving Into Crabs? [YouTube Video]. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvfR3XLXPvw
- Keiler, J., Wirkner, C. S., & Richter, S. (2017). One hundred years of carcinization – the evolution of the crab-like habitus in Anomura (Arthropoda: Crustacea). Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 121(1), 200–222. https://doi.org/10.1093/biolinnean/blw031
Is Water Wet? Listener question answered by Ashley Hamer and Cody Gough
- Original episode: https://www.curiositydaily.com/is-water-wet-neutron-star-weight-how-to-keep-exper/
Is There Any Truth Behind the Old Adage "Feed a Cold, Starve a Fever"? by Joanie Faletto
- Fischetti, M. (2014, January 3). Fact or Fiction?: Feed a Cold, Starve a Fever. Scientific American. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-feed-a-cold/
- Wang, A., Huen, S. C., Luan, H. H., Yu, S., Zhang, C., Gallezot, J.-D., Booth, C. J., & Medzhitov, R. (2016). Opposing Effects of Fasting Metabolism on Tissue Tolerance in Bacterial and Viral Inflammation. Cell, 166(6), 1512-1525.e12. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2016.07.026
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, you're about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from Curiosity.com. |
| 0:07.0 | I'm Ashley Hamer. |
| 0:08.0 | And I'm Natalia Reagan. |
| 0:10.0 | Today you learn why animals keep evolving into crabs, whether water is actually wet, and if there's |
| 0:15.5 | any truth behind the old adage, feed a cold, starve a fever. |
| 0:19.7 | Let's feed some curiosity. |
| 0:22.1 | If you follow science news sites you may have seen this |
| 0:26.0 | viral headline going around. Animals keep evolving into crabs which is |
| 0:31.1 | somewhat disturbing. |
| 0:33.0 | What the heck are they talking about? |
| 0:35.1 | Well, it's called carcinization, |
| 0:36.9 | and it's a fascinating example of a principle |
| 0:39.2 | called convergent evolution. |
| 0:41.8 | Crustations with ten legs have been crawling earth sea floors for about 365 million years. |
| 0:48.1 | These ancient crustaceans looked more like lobsters than crabs, but as the generations passed, some of their descendants |
| 0:54.7 | slowly evolved their way into a new crabier body shape. Their tails got way shorter |
| 1:01.3 | and the upper part of their body called the carapace got |
| 1:04.3 | wider. Presumably this new shape made it easier for them to pass on their genes. |
| 1:09.1 | That's natural selection and it's a driving force behind evolutionary change. |
| 1:14.0 | Anyway, this evolution into crab look-alikes continued for about a hundred million years until, |
| 1:20.0 | wait for it, the first true crabs emerged. Finally, the real deal. |
| 1:27.0 | All of those knockoffs. |
... |
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