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Genetically Engineering Sheep for Larger, Stronger Hindquarters

Posted by chrisd on from the baaby-got-baack dept.

baldingbobo writes "Duke and Agriculture department scientists are reporting that they have discovered an elusive, mutated gene that causes certain sheep to have unusually big and muscular bottoms. The discovery is especially exciting, said the researchers, because the unusual gene has evaded all the traditional means of detection for nearly a decade. They've been searching for this advance for nearly a decade.There are photos available as well."

2 of 71 comments (clear)

  1. Ahh, science by smoondog · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This is the first story ever where the trolling is virtually indistinguishable from the plethora of +1 Funny kharma whores. 10 points to whomever can come up with a post worthy of +1 Insightful.

    -Sean

  2. missing genes by benh57 · · Score: 3, Insightful
    The most interesting part of the article, IMO was down towards the bottom:

    "This is the first time in animals where a mutation has been found that leads to the identification of a new gene, rather than analyzing a known gene to find its mutation," said Jirtle. "As scientists, we are missing many genes and their mutations by using the traditional approach of linkage analysis to locate and analyze candidate genes."

    This new technique could lead to lots of new discoveries, it seems...