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Research Paper On Krill

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Krill, also known as “pink gold,” are tiny zooplankton that are found in the ocean. These small creatures have been living in the worlds oceans for many centuries. However, it is very difficult to answer when exactly the krill species was discovered because of the fact that krill have no fossil record. Instead, scientist compared the rDNA of krill to rDNA of krill ansestors. The estimated discovery of krill is about one hundred and thirty million years ago (Jarman par. 1). Krill are tiny shrimp like creatures that range from eight to sixty millimeters or two and a half inches. They have gills located on swimming legs and other legs that are used for feeding. Krill have huge black eyes and they are mostly transparent with a bright red shell. …show more content…

The eighty five species of krill are divided into two families. One family is known as the Euphaisiidae. This family contains Euphausia which is the largest genra of krill. The other family is the Bentheuphausia ampblyops. This family lives in the deep waters of the ocean. Well known species of krill are the Antarctic Krill (Euphausia superba), the Pacific krill (Euphausia pacifica), and the Northern krill (meganyciphanes norvegica) (Krill Facts par.4). The Antartic krill is the largest species of krill with about 500 million tons located in the Southern Ocean. Krill travel together and that is their way of confusing predators. Another way that krill avoid predators is by staying at the depths of the ocean during the day and then at night they move up to the surface. The krills predators include, fish, birds, and whales. The average lifespan of krill is about six to ten years. For the Antarctic krill mate from January to March and the females can lay up to ten thousand eggs at a time. Sometimes the females lay their eggs multiple times between January and March. The Krill mate at the top of the ocean waters and then they start to sink. After about ten days the krill will sink down to about 3000 meters and then they will hatch. The Antarctic Krill are herbivorous, which means they mostly feed on each other. In the winter the krill eat algae. However, krill can go up to 200 days without …show more content…

However, Barbara Swanson an attending physician in the Division of Infectious Disease of the John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County in Chicago, conducted a study that uses krill oil for HIV-related inflammation. Krill oil has anti-inflammatory omega-3 fatty acids that could possibly be used as an anti-inflammatory. The main reason behind Dr. Swanson’s research was to research krill oil and how it would reduce soluble inflammatory mediators in patients with an HIV infection (Swanson par. 4). One problem that Dr. Swanson encountered during her study was that of all the studies done on chronic inflammation, there has never been a study that included patients with HIV chronic inflammation. Dr. Swanson fixed this problem with changing her main purpose in the study. She has two main points of her study. The first point was to focus on the safety of the krill oil Dr. Swanson’s study included randomly selecting ten participants out of the fourty that were screened. The participants of the study were divided into two categories. One category, which had eight participants, took gel caps for 12 weeks. Four or the eight out gelcaps in the krill arm and the other four were given gelcaps in the placebo arm. The second group was composed of two participants and one participant got the gelcap in the krill arm and the other in the placebo arm. Four of the eight participants had

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