07 Jun 2006
New chicken gene-transfer system holds promise for research and industry

Oh, boy! Pimp My Bird! Just what the world needs...

For the life of me I cannot understand what is so wrong with real chickens that we feel the need to engineer "super-chickens". I mean, breeding for specific traits is one thing, this takes it to a whole new level, where we can (and undoubtedly will) attempt to mitigate through further engineering any negative consequences of our first efforts. Once that wheel starts turning, where will it stop? Will we reach a point where livestock are complete symbionts with humans, unable to exist without us?

This new system for producing genetically customized chickens uses primordial germ cells (PGCs)-- the very earliest cells that normally mature into sperm and eggs in the chicken embryo. The researchers demonstrate for the first time that these cells can be isolated, genetically modified and grown indefinitely in the laboratory as reproductive cells. Once inserted into a recipient chicken embryo, the cells will passing on introduced traits to the next generation of chickens.

(link) [EurekAlert!]

21:23 /Agriculture | 1 comment | permanent link

Dakota farmers serve steak, martinis to Beltway insiders

Interesting effort at both lobbying and actually making a bit of money. But the real payoff will come from reconnecting some of these imbecile lawmakers to real farming: we'll have to see if this enterprise ever reaches that lofty goal.

When several North Dakota farmers asked a consulting firm to help them figure out how to make more money on their products, they got a simple answer: Open an upscale restaurant.

(link) [CNN]

14:19 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link

Study shows our ancestors survived 'Snowball Earth'

Climate change, anyone?

New research shows organisms called eukaryotes, ancestors of the animal and plant species present today, existed 50 million to 100 million years before an ice age that created 'Snowball Earth' some 2.3 billion years ago.

(link) [EurekAlert!]

10:04 /Technology | 0 comments | permanent link