Random Insane Ways Scientists Are Genetically Modifying Animals (12 items)

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  (#5) Cows That Fart Less

  Methane is destroying the Earth. It's one of the key greenhouse gasses that're causing global warming. You can blame all the starving polar bears on cows, who just can't stop burping and farting (okay, it's a little bit your fault too!). Cows are responsible for over 25 percent of Britain's methane emissions, but maybe not for long. Researchers at the University of Alberta have been working on creating less gassy cows (green cows, if you will). In 2009, they discovered the bacterium that produces methane and created a designer line of cows that produces 25% less gas. It's almost like Prius of agriculture.
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  (#2) Ruppy, The Flourescent Puppy

  Bioluminescent GMO animals aren't something new for science. Scientists have across-the-board injected animals like rhesus monkeys, mice, pigs and naked mole rats with glowing jellyfish DNA in various experiments. Ruppy the Glowing Puppy is a little different – she's the world's first transgenic dog which means she produces "a fluorescent protein that glows red under ultraviolet light," whereas most bioluminescent animals glow a blue or green when with UV light. She and her four siblings were created to created the dogs by "cloning fibroblast cells that express a red fluorescent gene produced by sea anemones" in order to help scientists discover how disease-causing genes are passed down through generations, which could lead to major breakthroughs in treating cancer, blindness and narcolepsy. Scientists picked the red-glowing jellyfish DNA because it's way easier to see the results if their subject is literally a glowing like an exit sign.
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  (#8) Organ Donor Pigs

  One day, pigs may be able to help save human lives. George Church, a geneticist at Harvard University, hopes to create swine that could serve as donors for human organ transplants. But pigs have porcine endogen retroviruses (PERVs) in their embryos which are embedded in their very DNA and can't be treated but can cause diseases in humans. Thus, the fear in using pigs as human organ containers is that these diseases would be transferred to a human transplant recipient (especially when recipients are on immunosuppressants) but would be irreversible. Church led his team to inactivate 62 of the PERVs and also modified over 20 more genes from a separate set of pig embryos. One of the genes they modified encoded proteins that line the surface of pig cells. In humans, these proteins cause blood clotting and an immune response – deadly for those getting a transplant. If a pig is ever to be a successful donor, Church's modifications are abundantly necessary.
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  (#3) Mice That Make Baby Formula

  Not every mother can breastfeed, and while synthetic formula definitely does its job, it's lacking in certain proteins that can boost a baby's immune system. Lactoferrin is naturally occurring in human breast milk and helps babies gain resistance to bacteria and fungi. In an effort to improve baby formula, Russian scientists have been splicing mice with human genes in order to spawn rodents that produce milk with lactoferrin. Of course, you'd need a whole lot of mice to create enough milk for all the human babies in the world who need it, but this is just the beginning. Scientists hope this research will expand to animals like goats and cows that could produce milk on a much larger scale.
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  (#7) Low-Fat Pigs

  Bacon is one of life's finer pleasures, but it's pretty darn awful for you. Chinese scientists have been genetically modifying pigs in order to reduce the fat content of their meat (i.e. they're making low fat piglets).

  According to a report published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the scientists have managed to create 12 healthy pigs with 24% less body fat than their non-GMO brethren by modifying a gene that allows pigs to better regulate body temperature through burning fat.

  This revolutionary advancement isn't just a win for humans looking to consume low-fat BLTs. These pigs are less expensive to raise (it's estimated that farmers will save millions in feeding costs), and they suffer less in cold weather (a win for frozen piggies everywhere).
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  (#9) Slaughterhouse Cattle That Feel No Pain

  Pain and suffering of innocent farm animals is one of the most constant arguments people have against factory farming. Society's resigned itself to eating grass-fed cattle, thinking it has a better life, but the truth is, when it gets to the chopping block, it's still going to hurt. What if there was a way to have your beef without causing intense pain to another animal? Scientists are mulling it over.

  One day may see genetically modified cattle that has dulled (or no) pain receptors. A paper in Neuroethics outlines the argument, which states various instances of human children who had a gene mutation that left them unable to feel pain. This is terrible for a human, who uses pain to sense danger and illness, but would it matter for a cow that's on its way to the slaughter house? Would this even be humane? The FDA doesn't yet have a verdict, and it's far more likely that we'll see a rise in cruelty-free, lab-grown burgers before people start chopping up a cow's nerve cells.  

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