Altered animals: Creatures with bonus features

Altered animals: Creatures with bonus features

www.newscientist.com

modified plants are rapidly taking over the planet's farms, the same cannot be said for GM animals. There's the occasional flurry of reports about glowing rabbits or marmosets, but no one is yet eating beef from bioengineered bullocks.

The main reason is that the genetic engineering of animals - with the exception of mice - has been a slow, tedious process needing a lot of money and not a little luck. Behind the scenes, though, a quiet revolution has been taking place. Thanks to a set of new tr

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Related AboveTopSecret.com Discussion Threads:
Super cows and glow in the dark pigs...interesting.

First attempts at genetically modifying animals were rarely successful.

The first transgenic animals were produced by injecting DNA into eggs, implanting the eggs in animals and then waiting weeks or months to see if any offspring had incorporated the extra DNA. Often fewer than 1 in 100 had, making this a long, expensive process.

However a new technique has been developed.

. One promising new tool is the zinc finger nuclease: a DNA-cutting enzyme attached to a "zinc finger" that can be customised to bind to specific DNA sequences. Zinc finger nucleases allow engineers to cut a cell's DNA at a preselected spot. When the cell attempts to mend the cut, it often leaves out a few DNA letters or incorporates a few extra ones, so this method can be used to destroy, or knock out, specific genes.

So revolutionary genetic changes in animals is possible with this new technique.

"This will revolutionise genetic engineering of animals," says Bruce Whitelaw, a geneticist at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, UK. "You can design your zinc finger to cut at a specific site in the genome, and it doesn't matter what that genome is. It could be pig, sheep, dog, rat - it doesn't matter."

The ability to easily and precisely modify animals will undoubtedly lead to huge pay-offs in research and medicine.

www.newscientist.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 15/7/10 by plumranch]

Yup, and it also gives us nice new animals such as the Chucapabra?

speculation here but its the first thing on my mind when I read about some weird animal being found. With the billions of people on earth today its quite odd for such large mammal species to be discovered in our time... the most logical explanation to me is that these animals were engineered and somehow escaped or were released.... it would be interesting to scientists to see how their creations fare in the real world...

reply to post by faceoff85

Yup, and it also gives us nice new animals such as the Chucapabra?

He he! Yes, theoretically but at this point this genetic technique is probably used to enhance food producing qualities of domestic species such as chickens, turkeys, etc.

It might be a bit of a problem getting funding for a chupacabra project!

reply to post by plumranch


The genetic engineering of plants or animals is
counterproductive,it causes sterility in both.
The plants don't produce seeds that can grow
into new plants.That is why people have been
buying heirloom seeds for SHTF.

Explanation: S&F!

And here is how TPTB will use such technology...

[url=http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread431528/pg2#pid5720221]How To Stage, Or Stop A Coup, In Order To Survive (OmegaLogos's post to

reply to post by mamabeth

The genetic engineering of plants or animals is counterproductive,it causes sterility in both. The plants don't produce seeds that can grow into new plants.

I have done some research and have found nothing to support that statement.

Here's an example:

If a cow was genetically modified to produce more milk would it necessarily make her sterile?


Building sterility into genetics destroys the purpose of production in the first place.

Genetic modification goes hand in hand with human progress.

If you want to plant heirloom seeds and raise traditional breeds of chickens, great. Just don't legislate that onto the rest of society.

reply to post by plumranch


GM crops have been proven to cause sterility, diabetes, cancer and a whole list of problems in mice. And they say it's OK for people cus it won't affect us, right? Last time I checked diabetes and cancer are becoming the #1 killers in the US.

Maybe we should just accept that mice are equal amongst other mammals that inhabit the earth.

Why on earth do we test on them ?

Edit: Double post.

[edit on 15-7-2010 by Sherlock Holmes]

reply to post by xkiax

Last time I checked diabetes and cancer are becoming the #1 killers in the US.

Everyone agrees that more research is needed, no question there. But why associate diabetes and cancer with GM rather than common causes such as overeating, bad diet, common carcinogens and lack of exercise?

GM continues to get blamed for everything imaginable.

Originally posted by Sherlock Holmes
Maybe we should just accept that mice are equal amongst other mammals that inhabit the earth.

Why on earth do we test on them ?

because
they're
small
cheap
and
easy
to
deal
with
practicality always wins

Originally posted by plumranch
reply to post by faceoff85

 

Yup, and it also gives us nice new animals such as the Chucapabra?

He he! Yes, theoretically but at this point this genetic technique is probably used to enhance food producing qualities of domestic species such as chickens, turkeys, etc.

It might be a bit of a problem getting funding for a chupacabra project!

Well the problem lies in the fact that if TPTB were to actually perform such experiments, we'd be the very last to hear about them... isn't it something like the military being about 30 years ahead of the Mainstream science?

reply to post by faceoff85

Well the problem lies in the fact that if TPTB were to actually perform such experiments, we'd be the very last to hear about them... isn't it something like the military being about 30 years ahead of the Mainstream science?

I see what you mean.. Military/ Black opps... always years ahead! I was thinking private sector funding.

reply to post by plumranch
G'day plumranch,
The veggies down here in OZ where I shop at(a well known chain) are sterile, de-sexed, neutered. The last 2months I've been drying out tomatoes and chillies to start a veggie garden not one seedling sprang, I tried manually and naturally. Than I noticed seeding packets that were always hanging around in stores are no-longer I always used to think why buy these packets when it's so easy to plant your scraps and they blossom. Please try this for your self(drying out your local produce seeds) it's One Certain way to see what your really eating.

As for 'GM animals', everyone should really wonder why? to feed the world? that's BS. We "Homo sapiens" Breed our stock to our needs, about fifteen years ago some farmers in the Hunter Vally(N.S.W) started a mini cow beef herd, half the height with the same amount of Beef(and I thought this was wrong) and ate less-maybe half than normal beef stock.

These were Breed Stock, you know Breed more, make more$
Now all this GM crap/products are Dangerous to the World Populace. The Control of these markets with GM produces is and should worry every body.
Forget business, what happens with crop failure; bad sessions more frightening is uncontrolled failures. People could be breaking into the 'Seed Bank' sooner than later.
Dexter cattle

We use AI crossing our long legged cows with a short legged bull straw, and visa versa. Due to a potentially fatal gene, short legs are never crossed with short legs, otherwise a bull dog calf may result, something the Dexter cattle society are trying to eradicate.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/2b827a63afc2.jpg[/atsimg]


Bye the way, my Mum started her own seed bank 25-30yrs ago, so I have seeds but their three and a half days drive away not going through the posts x-rays, probes etc... I'll find some packets in the mean time.

If GM is so good why wouldn't they Create 'Mofredite Plants' than


Zelong.

reply to post by plumranch


My reply was already given by the other members.
GM+plants+animals=frankenfood.

reply to post by Zelong

The veggies down here in OZ where I shop at(a well known chain) are sterile, de-sexed, neutered. The last 2months I've been drying out tomatoes and chillies to start a veggie garden not one seedling sprang, I tried manually and naturally

I've done gardening for eons. I never plant seeds from vegies that I buy because they don't germinate well. It's always been that way, even before GM. Probably because of pollination or cross pollination issues I've always thought.

Now I go to the garden or greenhouse place and buy the best seed available.

This GM technique using the zinc splicing device is very new. My guess is it has only been used in limited lab mouse tests. The point being that it shows promise for future projects.

reply to post by mamabeth

GM+plants+animals=frankenfood.

FYO, 70% of the soybeans raised worldwide are GM.

What do you suppose would happen today if we suddenly did not have the benefit of GM soybeans, for instance?

In other words, how many people would starve?

reply to post by plumranch


Yup, they build these systems quite foolproof... when they started this it would have been in their best interest to make the human populace dependant on this concept... I read about some american food-organization making it illegal to grow your own crops.... Dont you find it weird that the goal these organizations are working toward is that EVERYBODY is gonna have to eat GM food? they are effectively preventing people who choose for NATURAL food to grow their own crops... natural food is slowly but surely dissapearing from the shelves... If their intentions were purely for the benefit of man, then what would be the use to make it illegal for men to grow natural foods in their own backyard? heck just look how hard it is nowadays to get your hands on seeds that are NOT GM... These FACTS are in my opinion the smoke of a BIG fire burning somewhere....

When it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck.... it probably is a duck...

Originally posted by plumranch
reply to post by xkiax

 

Last time I checked diabetes and cancer are becoming the #1 killers in the US.

Everyone agrees that more research is needed, no question there. But why associate diabetes and cancer with GM rather than common causes such as overeating, bad diet, common carcinogens and lack of exercise?

GM continues to get blamed for everything imaginable.

High fructose corn sugar made from GM corn is one cause of diabetes.
the diabetes rates jumped right after HFCS went on the market.
this could not have been a coincidence.
Corn (maize) had 25% more protein then it does now.(GM Corn)
They modified corn to increase the sugar out put and decrees the protein.
Try to find a whole grain product that is not filled with bleached white flour.
Whole grain breads without white flour are slow carbs and good for you. bleaching of flour changes the carbs to fast carbs that raise the blood sugar levels rapidly. any diabetic that knows how carbs work will tell you about fast and slow carbs.
but the are expensive to make.
So companies cut there product with bleached white flour to cut cost.

Then you have the federal commodity foods that the government gives out to the poor.
These federal commodities foods will cause diabetes .
digitalcommons.unl.edu...
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nativeunity.blogspot.com...

How much carcinogens are we being feed in meat or sprayed on crops
Just so companies can make the almighty buck.