No, this is not the plot to a new sci-fi horror flick! This is real scientific research as reported on by New Scientist magazine. Scientists have apparently isolated a gene that could be used to turn humans into vampires. While studying vampire bats they located a gene that evolved to help the tiny blood-suckers turn hemoglobin into lunch! Read more below from “How vampires evolved to live on blood alone” by Ewen Callaway…


Any mad scientists planning to genetically engineer Dracula this Halloween should look to the vampire bat for inspiration. New research pinpoints some of the genetic changes that allowed them to evolve to subsist on a diet of pure blood.


Key among those is a knack for keeping their meals from coagulating. They do so with the help of a gene found in other animals – plasminogen activator. In humans the gene protects against heart attack by producing proteins that bust up blood clots and clear vessels. Previous research had shown that vampire bats activate the gene in their saliva, too.


However, the small, winged mammals, which live in the tropics of North and South America and gorge on blood from birds and livestock, have made other modifications to plasminogen activator (PA) since they split off from fruit and insect eating bats, says David Liberles, a geneticist at the University of Wyoming in Laramie.


His team studied three species, each with its own take on vampirism. Hairy-legged vampire bats victimise only birds, while its cousin, white-winged vampire bats, prey on birds and mammals. Just one species, the common vampire bat, feeds exclusively on mammals. It prefers to bleed cattle and other livestock, but humans- especially who sleep outside – also fall victim to its bite… Click here to read the full article on the New Scientist website!


The article is rather extensive and leaves one to ponder just what might happen if scientists purse this line of research on humans? Then, we definitely have the plot to a new horror film…or hasn’t that one already been done?

Tags: blood, evolution, experiment, New Scientist Magazine, research, science, vampire bats, vampires

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