Cloned meat approved
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un-Touch'd krew
Joined: May 2001
Posts: 51,774
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From: My own level of hell
Jokey remarks aside, what I get from actually reading the article they're not actually cloning specific cows for purposes of homogenizing the gene pool (i.e. all our food supplies are from the same 5 cow "copies").
Basically it's a technique for isolating specific traits found in certain individuals for breeding with a wider selection of other individuals to come up with more variations. So instead of say one cow has some particular trait and only being able to reproduce a few times, they clone that one cow 10 times and breed the clones with 10 different bulls, see which offspring exhibit the desired traits, breed those with some other combos, and on down the line. It's just that they're using cloning to do the selective breeding more efficiently.
I'll skip out from trying to explain the ethical/moral issues. That stuff is thorny.
h:
Basically it's a technique for isolating specific traits found in certain individuals for breeding with a wider selection of other individuals to come up with more variations. So instead of say one cow has some particular trait and only being able to reproduce a few times, they clone that one cow 10 times and breed the clones with 10 different bulls, see which offspring exhibit the desired traits, breed those with some other combos, and on down the line. It's just that they're using cloning to do the selective breeding more efficiently.
I'll skip out from trying to explain the ethical/moral issues. That stuff is thorny.
h:This is exactly why cloning is scary business because it is easy to delve into genetic engineering which is a whole other bag of tricks and troubles.
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Wannabe yuppie
Joined: Dec 2000
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From: Madison, WI
Genetic engineering is taking DNA and messing around with it. Flipping genes on and off, splicing shit together, making phosphorescent cats that can breath underwater and stuff like that.