Japan's Unique Cow/Whale Hybrid Experiments

RemyBR writes "Controversial scientific research happens all the time, but a review conducted by scientists in Japan uncovered a list of 'bizarre' trials - including one program designed to crossbreed cows with whales.'Scientists have analyzed 43 research papers produced by Japan over 18 years, finding most were useless or esoteric. The scientific research included injecting minke whale sperm into cows eggs, and attempts to produce test-tube whale babies.'"

Love It or Hate It?

[eldavojohn (898314)]

I really am torn on these experiments, I mean I could seriously question the motive and nature:

Of all the animals you had to pick from you went with cows and whales? Cows and wales? What's next? Sloths and sea sponges? You had the chance to go Island of Doctor Moreau and you tried to recreate a manatee (hello? already exists!) instead of ... oh I don't know ... hybridizing wolverines and great white sharks?

On the other hand, I could also defend it with other logic, just as solid:

I don't see anything wrong with it. It was all a matter of time before this happened naturally anyways. Interspecies mating happens all the time between donkeys and horses resulting in a mule or hinny. Occasionally squash and pumpkin plants cross fertilize. It's common. Really, it was only a matter of time before a heard of cattle near the ocean resulted in a particularly rowdy bull wandering into the Ross Sea or Pacific Ocean to jump the bones of a minke whale thus creating a hybrid. Who knows, maybe these would be as useful as mules are? I'm sure the poor of third world countries could use another pack animal--now for oceanic voyages!

Re:Love It or Hate It?

[MrNaz (730548)]

*Mumbles something about welcoming new cowhale overlords*
*Gets modded to the depths of hell*
*Swears*

Re:Love It or Hate It?

[TobyRush (957946)]

It was all a matter of time before this happened naturally anyways.

No kidding! In fact, when I read the headline my first thought is that these guys were experimenting with ways to put a stop to the rampant cow/whale breeding that has been taking place in cities like mine. It's really transformed my neighborhood in such a way that I'm no longer comfortable letting my kids play out front, at least not unsupervised.

Re:Love It or Hate It?

[The End Of Days (1243248)]

Dolphins aren't fish, they just taste the same.

Re:Love It or Hate It?

[greginnj (891863)]

Agreed, cows and whales sounds ridiculous. But my first reaction was - I'm sure "Japan" has published more than 43 research papers in 18 years; how did they pick these?? And a quick check of TFA reveals:

A review of the controversial scientific research conducted by Japan and its whalers has uncovered...

Aha! So it's not just the Ploxmire awards, it's a review of the specious "research" the whalers conduct in order to continue hunting whales. These crucial words were left out of the summary, and makes it seem even more ridiculous. Makes much more sense now, and explains why whales are involved, and they won't bother with sloths and sea sponges. It's sort of a more gruesome version of Canadian lottery quizzes.

why cows and whales

[sdedeo (683762)]

Actually, if you were going to pick some creature to go with whales, it would be the hippopotamus. In the evolutionary chain that you can establish with DNA, whales got back into the water rather late. But as someone noted below, this article is about papers that come out of "scientific" whaling -- which is really just a cover for the Japanese to hunt the endangered species for cash. So I guess they went with cows, because they are pretty cheap and it's probably easier to do whatever phony-science you want (e.g., because of agriculture, getting your cow DNA sequenced is probably somthing you can just mail in.)

Beware! My knowledge of evolution and cetaceans comes only from Richard Dawkins books which I last read like three years ago (I highly recommend The Ancestor's Tale, if you've already read the classics like Selfish Gene and Extended Phenotype.)

Re:Love It or Hate It?

[flyingsquid (813711)]

It's not quite as bizarre as it sounds, actually. Whales are ungulates like cows, actually part of the even-toed ungulate group (artiodactyls) that includes cows, goats, deer, etc. So whales are actually closer to cows than horses are. The paleontologists thought the molecular biologists were on crack when they published those results, but eventually they dug up early whales with ankle joints which are remarkably similar to those of cows and other ungulates, and the artiodactyl-whale hypothesis has now been embraced.

So it's not completely bizarre, just... mostly bizarre. Yes, whales are artiodactyls, but they're pretty damn highly modified ones: no hindlimbs, nostrils that open on top of the skull, lots of extra finger bones. Even if you got a sperm to successfully fertilize an egg, I can't imagine that the cowhale/whalecow embryo would survive for long when the developmental patterns of the parents are so different. And what would that tell you? Whale/cow love ain't likely to work out? Shit, I could've told you THAT without an experiment. I gotta agree with the critics: this doesn't strike me as serious scientific research. I have a very hard time believing that you could write up a grant proposal for this experiment and get a favorable review.

Re:Love It or Hate It?

[nadaou (535365)]

probably what has been lost in translation here is that a female whale is called a "cow". While I haven't RTFA, I expect this has nothing to do with bovines and a lot to do with OMG journalism.

Having said that Japan must stop whaling; the rest of the world's govenments must step in and stop the insult to "science" this loophole exploits; stop the IWC 3rd world country votes-for-cash bribery; and the rest of the world's people should boycot her until she does. It's complete and udder bullshit that this $1M industry is allowed to continue (yes, that's "1 Million" with an "M", it hardly even covers the fuel costs to get the whaling fleet into the southern ocean whale sanctuary hunting grounds (yes, that's "sanctuary" with an "i" for illegal breach)).

It's in my cultural heritige to throw rocks at the heads of Englishmen. Well, times change, and we must move on.

Re:Love It or Hate It?

[Remus Shepherd (32833)]

Seems natural to me, from a japanese perspective. Japanese like eating whales. Cows are easy to breed and keep. It would be a terrific thing for Japan if they could make cows that tasted like whales. (It wouldn't be a bad thing from the whales' perspective, either.)

Re:Love It or Hate It?

[The Fun Guy (21791)]

Of all the animals you had to pick from you went with cows and whales?

Actually, cows [wikipedia.org] (Bos taurus) are members of the Aritodactyla [wikipedia.org] order:

Cetaceans

One group of artiodactyls (which molecular biology suggests were most closely related to Hippopotamidae) returned to the sea to become whales. Thus Artiodactyla without Cetacea is a paraphyletic group. For this reason, the term Cetartiodactyla was coined to refer to the group containing both artiodactyls and whales.[3]

Commingling of sperm and egg will let you know how closely related the molecular recognition is between these related species. Count the number of divisions in the zygote until it fails due to genetic incompatibility, and you have more information on cross-species recognition. Since you already know how closely cows and whales are (by molecular fingerprinting), that will let you calibrate this information.

It's value can be seen in modern cross-breeding of more closely related animals, and how to suppress incompatibilities to allow for valuable traits to be incorporated into livestock from wild cousins.

Re:Love It or Hate It?

[ArcherB (796902)]

I think it's going to be a pig-elephant.

Maybe, but that really wouldn't take the work of Japanese scientists. All you need is a pot-bellied pig, an elephant, lots of alcohol, and some Isaac Hayes music.

However, it will probably end up that a closeted gay, balding school teacher did all the "real" work. Even then, what good will it be if only has one ass?

Re:Love It or Hate It?

[VorpalRodent (964940)]

Unfortunately, early attempts to mate lasers with sharks have proven unsuccessful. All the sharks either died or were rendered infertile as a result of the acts.

Attempts to directly fertilize a shark egg with a laser resulted in the immediate destruction of the ovum.

Perhaps someday science will answer this question, but for today, we must still dream.

Small problem

[SmallFurryCreature (593017)]

Nobody EATS IT! The whole things has become a matter of pride, they japanese can't shift the meat without subsidies. It just ain't popular. Now beef. Good beef? That will cost you a fortune.

The reason whale meat was on the diet (when it hasn't been for ages in the rest of the world) was because post-WW2 japan had a food shortage and whale meat was easily available. For all kinds of reasons Japan just ain't a beef country. But that doesn't mean the meat was popular. Before commercial whaling was banned the consumption was already plumetting.

Japanese politics are EXTREMELY controlled by special intrest groups. Far more so then even the US. Would New York keep valuable land for growing grain just a few miles outside the city center? Hell no. Drive out of tokyo were land-prices are insane and you will land right smack in the rice paddies, rice that is so expensive to grow in Japan it makes no economical sense.

The entire whaling debate is just a product of old elite japanese wanting to say NO to the world. No normal japanese person wants to eat it. It is like those people who claim they hunt seals for historic reasons while wearing synthetic clothing and dining on pizza.

Re:Small problem

[grassy_knoll (412409)]

Ahem.

Nobody EATS IT!

I did when I lived in Japan.

Some was for sale at my local supermarket. As sashimi it wasn't very good, but boiled it tasted rather like very tender beef ( with an odd rainbow hue from the fats ). Delicious. My neighbors liked it as well.

While it may not be a staple food, and perhaps the reason for the continued whale hunting is mostly cultural, people in Japan do ( or at least did ) eat whale meat.

Re:Love It or Hate It?

[Dogtanian (588974)]

What if, they could grow whale meat on land?

There wouldn't be any point. As this story explains [bbc.co.uk], it's not like the Japanese really like whale meat anyway- the driving forces behind it are political and related to fishing and Japanese sovereignty.

That's why their government is pursuing whaling, trying to get people to eat the stuff and exaggerating the extent to which whaling and whale-meat consumption is a traditional part of Japanese culture.

Personally, the whole thing disgusts me, as does the intelligence-insulting excuse that this has anything to do with science. That includes these bullshit "experiments", which are laughable but (under the circumstances) not particularly funny.

Where's the beef?

[binaryspiral (784263)]

Wow, imagine the size of a T-bone from a whale sized cow...

Isn't this how Cloverfield started?

[xmuskrat (613243)]

It looked like a cow whale to me.

They got that right

[A nonymous Coward (7548)]

TFA says Australia is going to try to end the "scientific research" loophole. These idiotic "experiments" smell of bureaucrats hiring incompetent and/or lazy "scientists" to do useless thumb twiddling just so they can say they need to keep killing whales.

Whether or not there should be a ban on killing whales is another matter altogether. Wasting time and resources in this manner to circumvent public opinion is another. I'd be pretty pissed if I were a Japanese consumer / taxpayer (depending on who pays for these useless "experiments").

Pff.

[FlyingSquidStudios (1031284)]

God, schmod. I want my whalecow.

Half bear Half pig

[Grokmoo (1180039)]

I am ok with them pursuing this line of research, as long as they don't try something truly dangerous, like a half bear, half pig. Or worse, a half man, half bear, half pig. Now that would be trouble.

related research

[circletimessquare (444983)]

-quantifying the mouthfeel of whale flesh on a scale of carnivorous appeal
-how to use less fossil fuels in the preparation of whale meat to abide by the kyoto protocol
-classifying whale meat's umami taste factor
-topological descriptions of various folding models in the preparation of whale meat sushi

most of the scientific papers associated with this vastly important field of scientific research have concluded some amazing scientific findings, samples of the papers' conclusions:

"om nom nom nom nom nom..."

"BURP"

"pass the sapporo, onegai shimasu"

The summary should probably mention

[TimeZone (658837)]

that these experiments were solely intended to allow Japan to continue it's whaling operations (under the guise of said "research") and that everyone involved probably knew the experiments were ridiculous and a scam.
So it's not like this is some mad scientist thing or anything. Just business. As usual.

TZ

Japan's response...

[AutopsyReport (856852)]

Don't have a cow, man!

Big Book O' Mad Science Experiments

[smellsofbikes (890263)]

Anyone who reads this summary (without realizing that this is just a way to keep whaling under the guise of research) and thinks "dude, that's messed-up: I wonder what other shenanigans scientsts get up to?" should go read Elephants On Acid (and other bizarre experiments) [amazon.com]. It's a seriously strange book just chock-full of "they did WHAT? Dear Lord, *WHY*?" experiments. I thought it was interesting as a book because some of the experiments, I was like "cool, I've always wondered about that" when other people (my girlfriend, brother, best friend) were all "they did WHAT??!?" and likewise, they found meaning in other experiments that I thought were completely delusional. (Yeah, I'm saying the validity of experiments is relative.) There are some really truly gruesome experiments discussed in here, though, truly Frankenstein nightmare experiments done in the USSR, so it's not for the weak of stomach. But it's a great read.

Re:This sounds like a twisted subplot to an anime.

[Surt (22457)]

Seriously. YUCK! What gets IN to these people?

I'm thinking it's the whale sperm.