How butterflies self-medicate

Title:
How butterflies self-medicate
Speaker:
Jaap De Roode
Description:

Just like us, the monarch butterfly sometimes gets sick thanks to a nasty parasite. But biologist Jaap de Roode noticed something interesting about the butterflies he was studying — infected female butterflies would choose to lay their eggs on a specific kind of plant that helped their offspring avoid getting sick. How do they know to choose this plant? Think of it as “the other butterfly effect” — which could teach us to find new medicines for the treatment of human disease.

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Video Language:
English
Team:
closed TED
Project:
TEDTalks
Duration:
06:15
Format: HTML5
Primary
Original