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New government marine wildlife code to help reduce dolphin disturbance

The launch today by UK Government of new guidance on how to act responsibly around...

UK government to extend ivory ban to stop the sale of orca teeth

Following the UK ban on the import, export and dealing of elephant ivory in 2022,...

Dead whale beauty products to be sold in Japanese vending machine stores

Antarctic minke whale alongside Japanese whaling ship. Photo © Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert Japanese whale hunting company,...

Arrests made following illegal whale meat smuggling from Japan to South Korea

Customs authorities in Busan, South Korea, have arrested six people for allegedly smuggling at least...

Whales could help solve synthetic human blood mystery

A study recently published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, details how whales could provide the answer to the chronic lack of spare human blood stored in banks across the world.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), over 100 million blood donations are made each year but that is still not enough. One solution would be to create synthetic blood, but this option has remained a distant one. However, thanks to new research on deep-diving whales, scientists think they may be a step nearer to making lab-made haemoglobin – the protein molecule in red blood cells that carries oxygen to other parts of the body.

I seems that the deep diving abilities of whales, and the fact that they are capable of storing far more oxygen than humans, could eventually point the way to the creation of synthetic blood for human use.

Whales hold secret to creation of synthetic human blood