WEBVTT

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Welcome to Spotlight. I'm Megan Nolette
and I'm Bruce gulland Spotlight uses a special

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English method of broadcasting. It is
easier for people to understand no matter where

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in the world they live. The
night breeze cools the shore of the ocean.

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Waves crash against the rocks. A
full moon is in the sky,

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its light shines off the water.
You notice a strange looking animal coming out

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of the water. From far away. It looks just like one of the

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rocks, but as it gets closer
you notice its long tail and nine eyes.

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This is a horseshoe crab. It
has come up from the water to

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bury its eggs in the sand.
Many people may never see this strange creature,

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but this horseshoe crab is one of
the most important animals in the world.

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Its strange blue blood may even save
your life. Today's Spotlight is on

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the amazing horseshoe crab. There are
only four days different kinds of horseshoe crab.

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Most live in waters around Asia.
One kind lives in the Atlantic Ocean.

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They spend most of their lives under
water, but they do come to

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the surface to mate and to place
their eggs on land. Horseshoe crabs are

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also a very old kind of animal. Scientists have found fossils of horseshoe crabs.

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Some scientists suggest these fossils maybe four
hundred and fifty million years old.

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They look quite a bit like today's
horseshoe crabs. The animals have not changed

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much over all that time. But
horseshoe crabs are not just interesting, they

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are also very important for the medical
industry. Every year, companies catch thousands

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of horseshoe crabs. They transport them
to laboratories. There, they collect the

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crab's blue blood in bottles. Then
the companies release them back into the sea.

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This may seem cruel, but it
may be necessary. For many years,

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horseshoe crab blood was the only way
to make medicine safe. This is

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because a horseshoe crab's blood contains a
special chemical called limitless ammobokite lyceate or LA

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l LAL, reacts in the presence
of dangerous bacteria called Gram negative bacteria.

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Gram negative bacteria are a very big
problem in medicine. To be safe,

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medicines need to be free of disease. Medicines and vaccines go through a long

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process to make sure every batch of
medication is safe. But Gram negative bacteria

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are very hard to get rid of. They do not die under high heat

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like other bacteria, they resist normal
cleaning methods, and they contain a poison

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that can harm people even after the
bacteria is destroyed. For a long time,

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scientists at medical companies did not have
a good way to test for gram

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negative bacteria. Instead, they would
test new medicines on rabbits. They would

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inject the rabbits with new medicines.
If the rabbits lived, the medicine was

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safe, but if these got sick, the scientists would need to try again.

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Medical companies needed to keep thousands of
rabbits for this process, and the

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test was not always correct. But
the discovery of la l in horseshoe crab

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blood changed this. Fred Bang and
Jack Levin were scientists from the United States.

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In nineteen sixty five, they created
the LAL test for new medicines.

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It used horseshoe crab blood to test
for gram negative bacteria. It was safer

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and much faster than other tests.
The test results were almost always correct.

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Soon the LAL test was used in
most countries for developing medicine, and every

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test used horseshoe crab blood. Barbara
Brummer leads the Nature Conservancy in New Jersey.

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She told National Geographic Magazine, all
medical companies around the world need these

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crabs. When you think about it, your mind is amazed by how much

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we depend on such an amiast creature. If you have ever had medical work

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or received a vaccine, horseshoe crabs
were involved. If their blood has not

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saved your life yet, it probably
will in the future. However, harvesting

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horseshoe crab blood may be more dangerous
to the survival of these crabs than scientists'

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first thought. Most medical companies do
not kill horseshoe crabs when they harvest them.

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They only take about a third of
the animal's blood. Then they release

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the crabs back into the ocean.
At first, scientists believe that this would

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keep the population healthy, but in
the nineteen nineties, horseshoe crabs began to

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disappear. When Watson is a scientist
at the University of New Hampshire. He

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believes that horseshoe crabs are dying out
because of blood harvesting. Horseshoe crabs are

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used to living in cool water,
but they can survive on land for several

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days. However, most people harvesting
them do not keep them in water.

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They do not keep them cool.
This laboratory treatment may cause permanent damage.

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Horseshoe crabs that return from harvesting do
not give birth to as many babies,

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and almost a third of them die
soon after their stay in the laboratory.

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Watson spoke to the magazine Popular Mechanics. Name me another sea creature who breathes

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under the water, who can survive
on land the way they can. You

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cannot do that with a fish.
You cannot do that with a lobster.

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Horseshoe crabs are very strong, but
I think they lose a lot because of

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it. Horseshoe crabs are also hurt
when the places they live are destroyed.

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People use them as bait to catch
fish, and in some countries people consider

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them a special food. But there
is hope for the horseshoe crab Ding Jeekling

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is a scientist at the National University
of Singapore. In the year two thousand,

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she created a new test. It
comes from horseshoe crab genes. It

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also identifies gram negative bacteria, but
it does not need horseshoe crab blood to

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make the new test is just as
safe as LAL. Today, many people

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use Jeekling's test. Lonza is a
medical company from Switzerland. In twenty twenty,

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they work together with Moderna to create
a vaccine against COVID nineteen. To

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test their vaccines, they used cheek
Ling's new method. Still people continue to

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harvest horseshoe crabs. Some do not
believe that jeek Ling's test is as good

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as the LAL test. Some make
a lot of money harvesting horseshoe crabs.

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They do not want to change,
but jeek Ling's tests are easier to make.

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They take less effort than fishing for
thousands of crabs. There may even

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come a day when harvesting horseshoe crabs
may no longer be necessary. They will

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be able to go back to their
lives on the bottom of the ocean,

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and they will live in peace,
just as they have for thousands of years.

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You can leave a comment on our
website or email us at Radio at

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Radio English dot net. You can
also comment on Facebook at Facebook dot com,

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Slash Spotlight Radio. The writer and
producer of this program was Dan Chrisman.

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The voices you heard were from the
United States and the United Kingdom.

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All quotes were adapted for this program
and voiced by Spotlight. You can listen

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to this program again and read it
on the internet at www dot Radio English.

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This program is called The Amazing Horseshoe
Crab. You can also get our

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programs delivered directly to your Android or
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app. We hope you can join
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