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Cows that have been modified with human genes are producing milk very similar to human milk. The researchers responsible hope to produce and market a this product as a substitute for human milk. Lead researcher Ning Li explained:
“The modified bovine milk is a possible substitute for human milk. It fulfilled the conception of humanising the bovine milk.”
Speaking to The Sunday Telegraph, he added the “human-like milk” would provide “much higher nutritional content”. He said they had managed to produce three generations of GM cows but for commercial production there would need to be large numbers of cows produced.He said: “Human milk contains the ‘just right’ proportions of protein, carbohydrates, fats, minerals, and vitamins for an infant’s optimal growth and development.
Link via DVICE | Photo (unrelated) by Flickr user Joost J. Bakker IJuiden used under Creative Commons license
You soon may able to help the environment by eating more bacon. On a low-key, bio-secure farm in Canada, scientists are breeding pigs that could be among the first genetically modified farm animal to be approved for human consumption. Each of these Enviropigs look and act like ordinary pigs but contain genes from mice and E.coli bacteria.
Those genes make a small but important difference to the way these pigs process their food.
Ordinarily, pigs cannot easily digest chemicals called phosphates. That means that the stuff that comes out of the back end can be toxic and damaging to the environment. The phosphates are easily washed into waterways, where they can produce a hugely fertile environment for plants. But the plants grow so rapidly that they choke the stream or river and cause huge damage to the ecosystem.
The genetic modification enables these pigs to digest phosphates, which means they are less polluting and cheaper to feed.
Jeremy Cooke of BBC News has more: Link |Photo by Flickr user thornypup used under Creative Commons license
A French-led research team has sequenced the DNA of Theobroma cacao, a tree used in making chocolate. Specifically, they ascertained the genetic code of one type that is used to make gourmet chocolate. This development may allow scientists to genetically engineer these chocolate-producing trees to resist diseases and parasites, thus increasing the availability of top quality chocolate:
Currently, most cacao farmers earn about $2 per day, but producers of fine cacao earn more. Increasing the productivity and ease of growing cacao can help to develop a sustainable cacao economy. The trees are now also seen as an environmentally beneficial crop because they grow best under forest shade, allowing for land rehabilitation and enriched biodiversity.
The team’s work identified a variety of gene families that may have future impact on improving cacao trees and fruit either by enhancing their attributes or providing protection from fungal diseases and insects that effect cacao trees.
Link via Fast Company | Photo via Flickr user Peter Pearson used under Creative Commons license
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Scientists at the University of Arizona have created mosquitoes that are completely safe from the parasite that causes malaria. It does so by reducing the lifespan of the engineered mosquitoes. Most mosquitoes live only two to three weeks, but the parasite needs twelve to sixteen days to develop inside a mosquito. Consequently, these mosquitoes don’t live long enough to become dangerous.
So with that problem solved, how can scientists use the new mosquitoes to destroy malaria? At Popular Science, Laurie J. Schmidt explains:
According to Riehle, completely eradicating the malaria parasite carried by mosquitoes requires three things: the ability to engineer the mosquito, finding genes or molecules that can kill the malaria parasite, and giving the modified mosquitoes a competitive advantage so they can replace the wild population. The first two components have been accomplished, but Riehle says the third represents a bigger hurdle. “A lot of research is being done now to give the mosquitoes fitness advantages so that they can replace the wild populations,” he said. “But it’s probably at least a decade away, and if this is ever used for malaria control it will take several years for population replacement to actually occur.”
Link | Photo by John Tann used under Creative Commons license | Malaria Vaccine Spread Through Mosquitoes Themselves
A team led by geneticist J. Craig Venter claims to have created a synthetic life form. This process involved building a genome from pre-existing fragments and then placing the resulting product inside a single-celled organism. The cell then accepted the genome and began replicating:
A few years ago, the researchers transplanted an entire natural genome — the genetic code — of one bacterium into another and watched it take over, turning a goat germ into a cattle germ.
Next, the researchers built from scratch another, smaller bacterium’s genome, using off-the-shelf laboratory-made DNA fragments.
Friday’s report combines those two achievements to test a big question: Could synthetic DNA really take over and drive a living cell? Somehow, it did.
“This is transforming life totally from one species into another by changing the software,” said Venter, using a computer analogy to explain the DNA’s role.[...]
That fixed, the transplant worked. The recipient cell started out with synthetic DNA and its original cytoplasm, but the new genome “booted up” that cell to start producing only proteins that normally would be found in the copied goat germ. The researchers had tagged the synthetic DNA to be able to tell it apart, and checked as the modified cell reproduced to confirm that new cells really looked and behaved like M. mycoides.
Link via DVICE | Photo: University of Florida
Wired takes a look at new technologies for delivering nutrients to our bodies, from meat grown in laboratories instead of farms to ocean-grown crops. And there’s a possibility we won’t even need food in the future! Scientist Robert Freitas imagines humans ingesting nanorobots that could supply each cell with energy as it is needed.
This would only replace food’s caloric aspect, so we’d still need to take vitamin and nutritional supplements in order to provide the body with new matter as cells die off, according to Patrick Tucker, director of communications for the World Future Society. Still, there’s a certain cold comfort in knowing that if worse comes to worst, nanotechnology might give us a food pill that, taken every 10 years or so, would power our bodies if the planet loses the ability to do so — or if we’re forced to leave the planet, as Stephen Hawking suggests.
(image credit: Flickr user GE Healthcare)
Okay, I made up the last bit. But these fish have been altered to grow far more muscular than normal trout:
The bodybuilder stature of the trout comes from turning off myostatin, a protein that normally slows muscle growth. Researchers had known of a natural myostatin mutation that allowed for 20 to 25 percent more muscle growth in Belgian blue cattle, but did not know if the same would apply to the different mechanism of muscle growth in fish.
Terry Bradley, a fisheries and aquaculture expert at the University of Rhode Island, worked with a group of grad students for 500 hours to inject 20,000 rainbow trout eggs with different DNA snippets designed to block myostatin.
About 300 eggs ended up carrying the gene for more muscle growth, and eventually produced fish that mostly have the six-pack ab appearance — even though the fish don’t have standard abdominal muscles. A big dorsal hump adds the appearance of muscular shoulders.
Photos at the link.
That’s the question that Jeremy Hsu asks, given innovations in genetic engineering:
In 2006, researchers found six Pakistani children who felt no pain due to an inactivated gene, and who constantly had bruises and cuts. One fell into the habit of putting knives through his hand and walking barefoot on coals, before his untimely death.
Still, scientists already know that humans can intellectually dissociate the sensation of pain from how much it bothers them. Lab experiments with mice have also suggested a way to disconnect that pain sensation without totally leaving animals vulnerable to a world of hurt.
Due the concern among some meat-eaters that the animals that provide their food suffer physical pain while being raised and slaughtered, Hsu wonders if geneticists may be able to create animals that cannot feel pain. Would it be ethical to do so? What do you think?
Image: Mitch Romanowski Design
Meredeith Patterson is a computer programmer by day and biohacker at night. She is among a new breed of DIYers who are trying to do genetic engineering at the comfort of their own homes:
Using homemade lab equipment and the wealth of scientific knowledge available online, these hobbyists are trying to create new life forms through genetic engineering — a field long dominated by Ph.D.s toiling in university and corporate laboratories.
In her San Francisco dining room lab, for example, 31-year-old computer programmer Meredith L. Patterson is trying to develop genetically altered yogurt bacteria that will glow green to signal the presence of melamine, the chemical that turned Chinese-made baby formula and pet food deadly.
"People can really work on projects for the good of humanity while learning about something they want to learn about in the process," she said. [...]
But critics of the movement worry that these amateurs could one day unleash an environmental or medical disaster. Defenders say the future Bill Gates of biotech could be developing a cure for cancer in the garage.
Link (Photo: Noah Berger/AP)
