How did Chinese scientists bring down the price of abalone? | BoLan Daily

How did Chinese scientists bring down the price of abalone?

If you pay attention to the changes over the past decade or so, you will find that we can eat abalone on more and more occasions, and its price is no longer that expensive.

Behind this is the large-scale development of the global abalone farming industry, represented by China, in the past 20 years. In this, we Chinese have played a very important role.

Previously, the only two "indigenous" abalone species in China were small in size, and the largest could only be raised to 100 grams. After researchers spent a lot of time building a technical system for distant hybridization, abalone now weighs 1 kilogram, and some farmers even spent 5 years raising one to weigh 2 kilograms. This has completely surpassed all farmed abalone in the world, and even reached a size comparable to wild abalone.

Thanks to the efforts of scientific researchers, the abalone production in Fujian Province has soared since the 1990s. Today, the abalone production in Fujian accounts for 70% of the world's total. This place, which originally had no abalone industry, has become the center of abalone farming in the world.

What would happen if humans hibernate like bears?

For bears, a year is mainly divided into three seasons: the enjoyment season from spring to autumn; the eating season from autumn to winter; and the sleeping season from winter to spring. Because it lasts for the entire winter, this period of time is also called "hibernation."

During hibernation, bears do not defecate or urinate. Urine and feces can excrete nitrogen compounds. Because nitrogen compounds cannot be excreted normally, the non-protein nitrogen content in the bear's blood rises sharply. But strangely, this does not damage the bear's kidneys or liver. But it does not work for humans, which can lead to kidney failure.

In addition, bears will eat a lot before hibernation and become fat. If humans gain a lot of weight, the sensitivity of fat, liver and muscle tissue cells to insulin will decrease, and insulin levels will increase. This will lead to metabolic syndrome, gout and type 2 diabetes.

Bears don't have any health problems from hibernation. Although they may feel a little groggy when they first wake up, they are generally healthy. In short, they are fat in the early and middle stages of hibernation, but they are healthy fat. It's really annoying!

At this stage, it is still very difficult to perfectly control the metabolism of human cells and maintain a relatively healthy level. So it is better to get up early and move bricks in the cold winter.

Grizzly bear before hibernation

Image credit: National Park Service, via Reuters

Four stars in one arrow!

Tianmu-1 meteorological constellation satellite successfully launched

At 09:00 on December 25, 2023, Beijing time, my country successfully launched the 11th to 14th satellites of the Tianmu-1 meteorological constellation into space using the Kuaizhou-1A carrier rocket at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. The satellites entered the predetermined orbit smoothly and the launch mission was a complete success. The satellite is mainly used to provide commercial meteorological data services.

The content is compiled from China Science Popularization Expo Weibo, Gezhi Lundao Forum, and People's Daily

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