Vorticity , 3 months ago

Does anyone know of a good /r/askscience-like community on Lemmy? I've got lots of questions about horseshoe crabs.

I've never read much about horseshoe crabs before. I knew they were interesting, but they're fascinating! Here's a good summary of some of what we know about them: https://www.earthdate.org/episodes/horseshoe-crabs-living-fossils

Interestingly, because their environment is replete with bacteria and their circulatory system makes them particularly prone to infection, they have developed a zero-tolerance immune system. It kills anything it finds that is abnormal.

I wonder how much impact their immune system has on their stagnant evolution. Does killing all intruders reduce the likelihood of mutations by disallowing viruses and the mutations that they bring? Does their immune system know what their DNA should look like and immediately kill any mutations that it finds?