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Jaap de Roode: How butterflies self-medicate
About this film
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.
Directors & creators
TED.com
Subjects
Tedtalks;TED;Talks;biology;insects;science;TEDYouth 2014;2014
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