Creating Prion-Free Cows 340
Science Daily is reporting that the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service (ARS) is reporting positive results from a recent study designed to create genetically engineered prion-free cattle. From the article: "ARS studied eight Holstein males that were developed by Hematech Inc., a pharmaceutical research company based in Sioux Falls, S.D. The evaluation of the prion-free cattle was led by veterinary medical officer Juergen Richt of ARS' National Animal Disease Center (NADC) in Ames, Iowa. The evaluation revealed no apparent developmental abnormalities in the prion-free cattle."
Dead sheeps (Score:5, Insightful)
That is one solution... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Dead sheeps (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:That is one solution... (Score:5, Insightful)
Doesn't seem that hard, really, but people are pretty stupid.
Re:That is one solution... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:New cows? (Score:3, Insightful)
Let the patent outburst begin! (Score:2, Insightful)
Two reactions - 1 cynical, 1 wistful (Score:3, Insightful)
My other disappointment is that so much time & resourcefulness was spent on this rather than a way to prevent prion diease from taking it's toll on the untold people who have eaten infected 'industrial-beef' through fast food & other sources but won't show symptoms for many years.
Re:New study! (Score:2, Insightful)
Hmm... Removing natural things... Nope, doesn't sound like a good idea to me.
If you believe natural==good, I'd suggest a nice big bowl of anthrax this morning. It's 100% natural, so it must be in some way good for you, right? You could also eat some nice castor beans, which contain one of the most toxic poisons known as ricin. The feces in cows is also 100% natural, so you'll probbably get some disease from not eating that, right?
If you think that "messing with nature" is a bad thing, you should probbably stop eating entirely. We've been using selective breeding techniques on basically our entire food supply for thousands of years.
Re:New study! (Score:3, Insightful)
I simply stated that they'd be fools to mess with things they don't know anything about yet.
See, the thing is we actually DO know a lot about nutrition and proteins. At the very least we know that prions provides us nothing we need in our diet. It sounds like you're the one that knows nothing about it. In the future I'd suggest not talking about things you know nothing about.
Re:Dead sheeps (Score:4, Insightful)
No. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Oh, I don't know about that... (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, I wouldn't be so sure. While I agree that our western diet (I'm in the UK, so not so very far west compared to probably most of the
I'd say that my meat is probably safer by far than most shop-bought vegetables. The problem that most people run into is they want to eat as cheaply as possible, and this is fundamentally incompatible with having good-quality food. Most people put more attention into the kind of oil and petrol they use in their car than the fuel and lubricants they use in their body. You can't cut out fat, your joints will fail. You need to get the right kind of fats. You don't get these from a Big Mac and Fries. It costs roughly three times as much for an organic free-range chicken than an el-cheapo battery hen. Is it worth it? Well, yes - the hen has had a better life, a better diet, and has probably been slaughtered and prepared a bit more carefully. Once you've had *real* meat instead of factory-farmed crap, you'll never ever go back. Spend the money, eat a little less of something better, and the environment, your wallet and your waistline will thank you.
Re:Oh, I don't know about that... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:"no apparent developmental abnormalities" (Score:3, Insightful)
A scientist doesn't have a strong interest in not finding things, finding things is what makes a scientist's career successful.
Business sponsored research isn't science. Business sponsored research usually employs people called scientists who then don't use (or misrepresent) the scientific procedure, producing results which were probably dictated before the experiment was started.
A popular misconception is that if a scientist says it, it's science. Science is about the procedure, not the person. If a scientist says he can save 15 minutes to picking up his dry cleaning, it's not science. But if an experiment is performed which accurately measures dry cleaning pickup times, and by changing how dry cleaning is picked up the times decrease by 15 minutes, then that's science.
Remember, appeal to authority only works in authoritarian systems. In law, (authoritarian system) the judge is an authoratative figure, what he says and does has a real impact on the case. In science, a scientist isn't an authoritarian figure. Sure, a scientist may become famous, but that's celebrity. A famous scientist can still be wrong, but the procedure eventually aligns the "model of how things work" with the "world in which things happen".
So trust your science, but don't get it from Newsweek, FOX, CNN, etc. Any findings without a description of the procedure and the control is a fluff piece that might totally misrepresent the discovered facts, the observations, the deductions based from the observations, and the findings of the experiment. The reason U.S. Citizens have such a cynical view of scientists is partially due to sloppy "BIG HEADLINES" reporting that takes the least consequential detail out of context for the biggest impact.
Protein Free, not Prion Free (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Not quite the same disease (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm more interested in where this heads beyond the BSE scare, since it'll be a lot harder to genetically scrub out CJD and CWD, but at least the possibility is opening up. I'm really interested to see if this manipulation ends up with no side-effects since it means that genetic cruft is seriously dangerous. With the genome mapped, will there be mumbles about getting the non-functional buffer sections tailored and zeroed out to ward off other mysterious and rare afflictions?
Re:A better idea (Score:3, Insightful)
>
> Perhaps it is you who are "ignorant" of the fact that the human body is built around an omnivorous diet.
*Sigh* Where to begin?
Humans are omnivorous largely by choice (just because we like the taste of meat) or necessity (because there aren't always enough veggies around to keep us from starving). Nature, however, gives us clues as to what our optimal diet should be.
Go to a mirror and study your teeth. Notice how most of your teeth have flat edges or large crushing surfaces? Those are the teeth of a herbivore: the teeth up front and center are suited for biting off plant matter, while the teeth in back are excellent for grinding the stuff down. The few pointed teeth we have are woefully inadequate for killing and devouring prey -- if you don't believe me, go out into the wilderness and try to take down and eat an animal with nothing but your teeth.
Next, get a reference book on human anatomy and look at the diagrams of the digestive system. Notice the extremely long and twisty intestines? That's the mark of a herbivore -- true meat-eaters have short digestive tracts in order to process food as quickly as possible. They also produce a specific acid to rapidly break down meat once it is ingested, yet humans lack that digestive acid.
Now look up 'dietary fiber' and its value for the digestive system. Nutritionists are in agreement that dietary fiber is not only beneficial, it is essential for good health. That means a diet that is rich in fruits, vegetables, breads and cereals -- all of which contain dietary fiber. By contrast, meat has absolutely *no* fiber.
"But you can't get adequate/complete protein nutrition on a vegetarian diet!" Not so: the average adult human requires only 40 to 50 grams of protein per day, and can get complete protein nutrition by eating certain foods such as
- peanuts and wheat (i.e.: peanut butter sandwich on wheat bread)
- beans and rice (the staple of Mexican food)
- chickpeas and sesame seeds (hummus, anyone?)
- soybeans
Sure, humans can sustain themselves on an omnivorous diet. However, just because we can do something doesn't mean we have to -- or that we ought to. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to finish my bowl of vegetarian chili. Mmmm... meatless chili, mmmm...