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Hypo-Allergenic Cats Now Available for Pre-Order
humuhumunukunukuapu' writes "Allerca Inc is now taking reservations for genetically engineered hypo-allergenic cats, which it calls 'lifestyle pets'... and apparently they are just the beginning... Read the press release here... and you can take delivery of a cuddy non-sinus bothering bundle of joy for just $3500. 'The hypoallergenic cats produced by ALLERCA will allow consumers to enjoy the love and companionship of a pet without the cost, inconvenience, risk, and limited effectiveness of current allergy treatments. Clients will take delivery of the first ALLERCA kittens in 2007. The hypoallergenic cat is the first of a planned series of lifestyle pets that ALLERCA will develop over the next few years.' Meow!"
Who would want to own a cat?
Sincerely,
A Dog Person
when owners start breeding from them and selling on the kittens??? Will there be a strict EULA that forbids the owner from breeding and that they must have them neutered at the first available opportunity???
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
video
We got a cat, it was free... we named it 1.
We did this for two reasons. First, if it has a number, we're less attached to it when the inevitable happens. Second, my wife was allergic to cats but we weren't sure how badly.
If we had spent $3500 on a cat, we're then somehow obligated to spend $4000 on feline coronary bypass surgery, $8000 on a feline tummy-tuck, and $3000 on feline counseling services.... Where does this end?
Trying to use sarcasm in text-based forums does not work.
Wait until one mistake that turns these cute little kittens into Hyper-Allergenic.
Don't worry, I hear as long as you don't feed them after midnight, everything will be fine.
Cornish Rex
...are all "hypo-allergenic" breeds (don't produce dander).
Devon Rex
Siberian
Sphynx
From the site:
Priced at $3,500, the cost of an ALLERCA kitten is similar or less than some of the more exotic cat breeds available today.
Ummhh.. yeah.. But, it's a bit more than the "free kittens" we all see signs for throughout our home towns.
corporations genetically engineering my favorite foods.
For $3500, kitty better have at least 20GB of storage in her butt.
From the first hit on Google searching for cat gestation:
"Cats generally have pregnancies lasting from 58 to 65 days".
So the fact that the first one won't "ship" until 2007 is a bad sign. Anybody sending these folks money now, *please* contact me for a great deal on a bridge.
"that's not encryption - it's a new perl script that I'm working on..." - from some Matrix parody
Totally useless.
How about a cat that doesn't shed, a cat that sleeps AT NIGHT instead of during the day, a cat that doesn't s**t behind the couch when you piss it off, a cat that is hairball resistant, a cat that doesn't care if the bowl isn't exactly full, a cat that can actually decide if it wants to be inside or outside (as opposed to wanting both simultaneously), a cat that views keyboards as natural preditors, a cat that will not release any "presents" in the house until said "gift" is completely DEAD, a cat that will actually kill said "gifts" that get into your house by other means, a cat that'll bring home USEFUL things instead of the typical birds, rabbits, mice, frogs... a new lawnmower would be nice once in awhile, or maybe some PC hardware - but no, it's always half-dead stuff.
THAT would be a cat worth a couple grand.
help me i've cloned myself and can't remember which one I am
Yeah, I'm not buying it. Digging back, we find that Allerca claims to be owned by Geneticas. If we check out the other "companies" under that umbrella, we'll find Genequus, who claim to do horse cell banking and cloning. Yes, that's right. They'll sell you a clone of your horse for $100k. Discounts for 10 or more.
Another one, LifeARK, claims to be doing cell banking for endangered animals. They want donations, and they accept them through PayPal. Don't think so. A large company that was doing such work wouldn't deal with PayPal's onerous agreement and high fees. Especially not if their other divisions were dealing with large sums of money already.
ForeverPet does cell banking for companion pets. But they can't yet clone them. But another division can clone horses? Yeah, right.
"The details of my life are quite inconsequential..."
The term 'hypoallergenic' is not meaningful in any scientific sense whatsoever.
The FDA states that "There are no federal standards or definitions that govern the use of the term 'hypoallergenic'." Back in 1973, they tried to establish definitions for the use of the term hypoallergenic, but the regulation was overturned in court.
A little bit of googling returns this
It's a nonsense marketing claim, with no scientific standard or basis. People can be allergic to anything... even themselves.
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the pen is mightier than the sword, the sword is mightier than the court, the court is mightier than the pen.
'Fraid not. Comparing the amount of the population in a city with relatively low pollution like, say, Stockholm (Sweden), with a relatively dirty one, say, Krakow (Poland), you'd expect the number of allergies to be far higher in the more polluted city. This turns out not true. Allergies are much more common in the modern "Western world" than in, for instance, the old "East block". And this even though there is a much higher percentage of coal used in heating homes, industry pollution levels are higher, and cars are generally older and typically generate worse exhaust. Just stating pollution as a factor doesn't make sense.
What is reasonably clear from a research perspective, however, is that growing up in a spotlessly clean environment makes you MORE susceptible to allergies. It seems better to be subjected to (a reasonable amount of) "filth" than to none at all. Unless, of course, you DO develop an allergy - in which case spotlessness is more or less your only option.
What I would personally like to see, is more research focused on this simple fact - what factors are different between the "richer" and the "poorer" societies - is it the chemicals we use to clean our homes? Or could there be some correlation with the kind of food we tend to consume?
I just think there's a lot we don't know here...