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Featherless Chickens
Everyone and their brother wrote in about the featherless chicken. Besides the humor value, interesting in that we're creating another species with qualities that suit humans but unsuitable for life on its own.
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When I saw this I immediately thought of that old internet "conspiracy" about Kentucky Fried Chicken. I think it was called Animal 54 or something like that.
Basically, KFC had genetically altered their chickens so much that the FDA told them to stop using the word "chicken", hence the name change to KFC from Kentucky Fried Chicken. The 'species' of the animal had been changed to Animal #54, since it was no longer a chicken - it couldn't fly and sat there getting fat until feeding time.
Anyone have a link? Sounds funny but apparently alot of people thought it was true - my mom being one of them.
1) The chicken is a hybrid of two types of chickens; it was not genetically engineered, as the article, or at least the photo caption say.
2) These chickens would not "catch cold" due to lack of feathers. You do not "catch a cold" from being cold. You (and your chicken friends) catch a cold from germs, not matter how hot or cold you may be.
but hey, wtf do I know.
Besides the humor value, interesting in that we're creating another species with qualities that suit humans but unsuitable for life on its own.
Well, if you had READ the article instead of just looking at the picture, you would have seen that these chickens actually have a HIGHER survival rate in tropical areas (where it is originally designed to be introduced) becuase the feathers would trap heat that would otherwise kill the bird.
Here so you don't have to strain your eyes actually reading that tiny 12 point font from the first few paragraphs:
"(Boiler chickens) consume a lot of energy in order to grow rapidly but in the process they generate a lot of heat and they have to get rid of it otherwise their internal body temperature will go too high and they will die."
"That's why the growth rate of boiler (chickens) is significantly reduced in hot seasons or hot countries and that is why the poultry meat is expensive in these countries."
By keeping the chickens feather-free, the birds would direct their energy to growing larger rather than keeping cool.
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
Don't mean to spoil everyone's fun but I completely fail to see what's funny about breeding an animal so it loses an important part of it's body.
Well that "important" body part actually kills it in hot areas, so by removing it you increase it's ability to survive. The funny part comes in because it's a living rubber chicken!
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
Old Urban Legend, debunked by Snopes.
Growing up, we usually had anywhere from 10 to 50 chickens. If one chicken lost a few of it's feathers and the skin became exposed, the other chickens would usually begin pecking the poor bird with the missing feathers. We had one chicken that had it's brain exposed from this pecking. (There's a product you can smear on the wound to keep the other chickens from doing this.)
Has this geneticist put any of these featherless chickens together?