Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

GM Fish. How to.

Posted by michael on from the whopper-of-a-tale dept.

sykesm sent us this tale about genetically engineered fish. All I can say is, as soon as the first three-eyed fish comes out genetic engineering is going to have a crisis on its hands.

2 of 6 comments (clear)

  1. I have no problem with GM foods. by Heidi+Wall · · Score: 2
    It seems to be the most wasteful and wealthy of nations where people have problems with GM foods. But the amazing thing about GM foods are that the peoples who have most to gain are the poor of the third world. I find it very worrying that we in the west seem to be turning against it.

    Ant GM foods activists will often use emotional arguments, and talk about the environment and genetic pollution a lot, and corporations and their evils (despite the fact that the GM companies are often very small. Monsanto, that hated company, is relatively tiny. A pygmie, about 1/20 the size of Walmart, say).

    The problem is that the people who argue with these people tend to be scientists, and are not given to emotional argument, preferring to stick to the facts (this mirrors the Creationists V the Evolutionists). Is it any wonder the public has been scared from GM foods?

    I would suggest that we must fight fire with fire on this issue. We must point out that the anti GM foods protestors are for blindness in the third world, they are for starvation due to lack of arable land. All of these problems can be greatly relieved by the use of GM crops.

    I think it is time to pull no punches, and be angry and emotional about this issue.
    --
    Clarity does not require the absence of impurities,

    --
    /* And you'll never guess what the dog had */
    /* in its mouth... */
    --Larry Wall in stab.c from perl
  2. three-eyed fish by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3

    "three-eyed fish"?!

    Hrrm. In fact, ALL bony fish are "three-eyed fish", and that includes all tetrapods (four-legged vertebrates).

    The third eye is probably better known under its name "pineal organ" but it is well known that it has several light receptors of the same fashion as the lateral eyes.

    Some fifteen years ago I did a small study on the pineal organ in the "blind" Mexican cave fish (Astyanax mexicanus [previously known as "Anoptichthys jordani]). That fish which has degenerate eyes (whereby "eye-less would be better than "blind"), but still intact optic nerves which retain the light sensory mechanism, and, as my study showed a fully light receptive pineal organ. The reason these cave retain light receptors is that they need to _avoid_ light; predators lurk out there.

    The odd lizard "tuatara" has even developed a primitive lens located between and behind the regular eyes.

    So, in the light of this there is nothing new under the sun.

    Cheers