Everything Matters | Vanadium | Sea Squirts

Vanadium, a transition metal prized for tough steel alloys, is present in the human body in minute amounts; its compounds are considered toxic. The few species known to accumulate vanadium include varieties of marine algae, red-capped fly agaric (amanita muscaria) mushrooms, and sea squirts. Our closest invertebrate relatives, sea squirts are masters of molecular recognition and chemical concentration.

Join Professor Sarah Cohen of San Francisco State University to explore sea squirts’ unique use of vanadium and discover what these squishy relations can teach us about ourselves.

Sarah Cohen is an evolutionary ecologist, marine biologist, and environmental geneticist. She teaches and carries out research with her lab members at San Francisco State University and at their marine field station, taking advantage of the remarkable natural and less-than-natural sites surrounding us on the outer coast and in the San Francisco Bay.

[PinkProgram]

Oh this combines two things I have applications for... Vanadium can be used for powerful synthetic muscles and salp chains can be effective life support systems for hybrotic neural networks. If salps can concentrate vanadium then an organism could be used to produce vanadium dioxide fibers efficiently... preferably in a heat resistant sheathe to protect adjacent tissues from the contraction of the augmented muscle.

[Jay_Flippen]

9:16 She should have probably said "which other eukaryote" and not "which other animal" here. It resultantly took me a good 15 to 20 seconds for me to think of the answer as I paused the video.

9:24 3M makes cellulose. Human animals at a 3M plant make cellulose.