OK, Time for Something Random: Lyme disease and its strange connection to lizards.
Lyme disease is a big deal. Especially, or at least historically, here on the east coast US. Did you know that some animals can actually cure infected tick carriers!? I didn’t either.
In parts of California, western fence lizards play a surprising role in controlling Lyme disease. When ticks feed on these lizards, a protein in their blood kills the bacteria (Borrelia burgdorferi) that causes Lyme disease. Some factor in the lizards blood is ingested and kills the bacteria present in the gut of the tick.
To conclude, nature is wild. Much of our innovation in biology/medicine, including CRISPR (see earlier related posts) and the majority of our antibiotics, aren’t so much inventions but are more accurately ‘discoveries.’
Relevant papers I happened upon: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9488334/
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