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Hypoallergenic Cats
Lambticc writes "The BBC is running an article about how a US firm has successfully bred cats to reduce the production of the protein which causes an allergic reaction. Since the result was achieved through selective breeding, there should not be any complaints from the anti-GM lobby." From the article: "The cats will not cause the red eyes, sneezing and even asthma that some cat allergy sufferers experience, except in the most acute cases. Despite costing $3,950 (£2,104), there is already a waiting list to get one. Allerca first started taking orders for genetically engineered hypoallergenic cats back in 2004."
You already reported it in 2004.
But when will they finally breed the North American House Hippo!? Huh? That's what I want to know.
Repost Do the posters even read slashdot?
I hope they annoyingly patented what they did (though I don't get how to you specifically patent selective breeding), or the first two owners of frisky felines will put them out of business.
Maybe they'll sell one gender of cat?
The Right Reverend K. Reid Wightman,
Fish that don't need water to live in?
-jX
Don't you just love politics? It's like a comedy of errors.
Get yours now from petsovernight.com.
Thought this sounded familiar: http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/2 6/2139244
This still doesn't fix the biggest problem I have with cats. Cats kill native animals at night, drag home dead things and are perhaps the most disgusting of all domestic animals. Although perhaps most of those things are the fault of the owners, not the cats.
Since the result was achieved through selective breading
Funny, I figured they'd be available down at the local Chinese restaurant...
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Now I won't have to throw my cats into the washing machine anymore.
Mmmm, breaded cat meat.
Well... not really. Just evolution in action, with manmade selection vs. the 'natural' kind. I like cats, but hate the allergic reactions I get from them. Sign me up.
And since I expect most /. contributors are not likely to participate in breeding, selective or otherwise, I'm prepared to soften my anti-GM stance to get one!
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Hrm...selective breading of cats...wonder how that works. Extra crispy or regular? Corn flake or bread crumb or batter? How do they keep the cats from eating it?
("The BBC is running an article about how a US firm has successfully bred cats to reduce the production of the protein which causes an allergic reaction. Since the result was achieved through selective breading, there should not be any complaints from the anti-GM lobby." if they fix this one)
Let me know when they're breeding cats with frickin' lasers on their heads.
I know every time I've got some pussy, I've had terrible rashes and itchiness, although I've never had to pay as much as $4,000 dollars for them.
Breaded pussy? You might be on to something here. That's a million dollar product, as long as it's still warm when it gets delivered to the table.
Selective breeding? The perfect race... of cats?
I wonder what they did with the cats that tested positive for the glycoprotein Fel d1 (the one that causes the allergies)... I mean, it says the processed a "huge number" of cats looking for the "small fraction" that didnt have the protein. No mention of the fate of the ones that did have it. Poor cats T_T
It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/2 6/2139244
Does anyone know if this gene has a desired effect besides "make humans allergic to us"? It seems there could, possibly, be side effects from this - there aren't that many species that humans are commonly allergic to, so perhaps there's a reason for this gene to exist.
Breaking Into the Industry - A development log about starting a game studio.
As noted in a prior comment to Slashdot, I proposed this idea to Usenet in 1992 (link to Google archive of my original article included in my prior comment.) Of course, I'm tooting my horn, but Allerca actually did it. Good luck to Allerca.
The real question is, though, will they taste as good?
Good BYEEEEE karma
Life is rarely fair. Cherish the moments when there is a right answer.
But why would breading be any better than the traditional flour or Alka-Seltzer?
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
ACK! phftt!
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
I'll buy the damn cat if you'd just stop adversiting on slashdot every month!
...breed out the gene that attracts psycho women who think they're a witch, read their stars religously every day, and treat their cat as if it were their child? On second thoughts I like having a clear sign that a chick is nuts. Without this men would fall prey to the psycho chicks more often.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Wake me when I can get a hyper-allergenic cat. Ideally one that's so adorable that even though it causes excruciating allergy flare ups in its owners, they can't bring themselves to get rid of it. Yes... That would be the perfect gift for those pesky in-laws...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
No one "owns" a cat. What they really need to say is that there are 38 million households where the cat(s) tolerate the presence of humans. In most cases, the cats will have trained their humans to fulfill their every whim.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
Let me know when they create successfully breed kittens that don't rip the shit out of everything, wake you up with meowing at 3 in the morning, and try to trip you when you go down the stairs.
...a Chinese fast food near you.
Hmm, these selectively bred cats are soooo cheap at only almost $US7,000 to many overseas countries. $7,000? I am starting to get an idea that the extremist group, Earth First, may have the right idea in that abusing creatures just to make money sucks big time - cats for cuteness, horses for speed, dogs that cannot breathe properly or have open skulls. This isn't even a matter of food for survival. Stewardship?
Enough geeks on the issue, let's see what the average joe really thinks: http://www.theonion.com/content/node/50604
Now I won't have to keep sneezing because of my fashionable homemade bag.
And now, a PSA from David Lynch.
Why pay that much for a cat when theres plenty of dogs out there that are already hypoallergenic.
Take the Basenji for example. It's hypoallergenic, doesn't bark, grooms itself like a cat, and dislikes water like most cats.
And while they don't bark, they do make a yodeling type of noise.
And, you can usually get one for quite a lot less than $4000.
Thousands of healthy cats are killed daily in the USA (and probably around the world). Just take claritin and adopt one of these beautiful creatures instead of creating new life that we don't need.
I'm allergic to cats and taking claritin twice a day works for me.
(also get your cat fixed please!)
IMHO, selective breeding is just one way of genetic modification. It does alter the DNA as well, and the difference is a matter of degree. People have practiced it for millennia, and for some weird reason it's only in recent years that we've had anti-GM activity.
I imagine it's possible to get the same results with modern, direct GM, as these guys did with SB. In that case this is equally evil and unnatural as any GM ;)
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
...before I can get my cat with a fricking laser on it's head?
Wanted: A better sig than this one. I have neither the wit nor motivation...
As Norm MacDonald once said:
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
I know a guy who is allergic to cats, so they got a couple of sphynx cats. Hairless, so no dander problems. Look a bit like Yoda. In fact, kind of repulsive. And I'm a cat lover.
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
they should help avoid getting VDs when you get some pussy. not that i'd personally know of course, its what i've heard.
When are they gonna breed people who are not stupid? I suppose such would ruin the Darwin Awards however.
Table-ized A.I.
Interestingly, it's a marketting term - it has no legal meaning per the FDA, which is why cosmetic companies feel free to use it; they are not saying you won't be allergic to this or that any FDA approved testing has been done. Yet people think it means something so they buy hypoallergenic products.
As one marketeer put it during a presentation - "My job is great - I sell a product that is 90% air and people pay a premium for it!!"
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Sure, that's just good business sense for them - but it also helps reduce the number of strays on the streets, and gets people used to sterilizing their pets.
That said, allergies have a large psychological component. I know from being, uh, "light and airy" on, uh, "mild mood enhancers" that my allergies are not as bad. Perhaps your friend has a mostly psychological reaction and little physiological reaction.
Boycott Sony
this would certainly get ME to buy as diesel car as I'm allergic to cats !
A torrent of anecdotal evidence claims that this breed, a more normal looking one, doesn't make allergic people wheeze and break out. On the other hand neither my allergist nor our late cat's vet has seen anything to confirm that in the professional literature.
They're also very expensive.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberian_(cat)
I can select breed, size, sex, temperment AND It comes with a Mammalian Cellular Regeneration gene
- "Computer, calculate pi to the last digit" -Spock, Wolf in the Fold
So how long till I can go buy my "foreven kitten" that says cute and totally adorable ?
.. if you're alergic to the beasts then you should stay away from them. Do we have a complete DNA workup for the domestic cat yet? Who knows how selectively breeding this strain of cat will affect the gene pool. What happens after several generations more of selective in-breeding (and it would have to be as its unlikely that the bit of DNA that makes it allergy free is dominant) will do.
Bah
--- This meme is memory intensive
- ever happy
- forever young
- hipoallergic
cats. More options available later.It is, really. Think about this for a moment. How far have we come as a species that we feel the need to fart-arse around with another animal's physiology to fit in with our increasingly isolated from nature lifestyles? What problems will these cats have as a result of their breeding? Is this justifiable? How is it justifiable?
I am asthmatic. I have three cats. I have always lived in a house with cats. I really don't know if my feline friends are a trigger, and I don't really care. I deal with it. I suggest that others do too, and stop tampering with nature.
just wait till they breed Kitten Kong
So what's to stop me buying several of these kittens and just making some more, and reselling them? Or is selective breeding now an IP related area? Makes me think - do we now need Open Source hypoallergenic cats?
Well I have been told that those funny Mexican Hairless cats are less prone to causing allergies, because they have less fur and (possibly?) less dander, but to me they don't look like cats.
So I guess that this new development should really be called: "People who want a hypoallergenic cat that actually looks like a cat and not like a shaved poodle."
* I just did some research and it would appear that Mexican Hairless Cats are an extinct breed, and that the dominant breeds of hairless cat are the Canadian Hairless and Sphynx.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
"A cure for allergies that affects millions including asthma and hayfever will be available within the next few years" so we don't need hyperallogenic cats. Let's make them glow instead.
Reduce, reuse, cycle
When I read this article this morning (before reading Slashdot) the last paragraph in the first section read something along the lines of:
"Allerca first started taking orders for their *genetically modified* cats back in 2004."
I complained along the lines that GM != breeding, and now I read the article again and it says:
"Allerca first started taking orders for *hypoallergenic* cats back in 2004."
So plus points to the BBC News.
Well, this is obviously good news anyway for people who don't want a Siberian.
1. Have you seen a Siberian? The Siberian isn't just another body shape or fur pattern, it's something as big as your arm. It's a _huge_ cat. It's bigger than some dog breeds. (And legends have it that some are also actually able to function as a dog, because at that size it feels a lot less threatened by someone human sized. So it _can_ defend its territory from a human, if needed. I wouldn't know if it's myth or not, though.)
Now I'm all for large cats myself, but I can also see why someone would want a standard 5 pound lap cat instead.
2. The Siberian isn't anywhere near allergen-free. In fact, no natural cat breed is, from moggie to lions and tigers. The Siberian does produce a lot less allergen, but for some people it's still too much. So producing cats with even less, would still be welcome news for a lot of people.
3. The Siberian only has less of the cat-speciffic protein. I.e., it won't help anyone whose allergy is to something else. E.g., someone with a generic allergy to fur, will still be just as allergic to the Siberian as to any other cat breed. Basically, if holding a rabbit or petting a dog also gives you an allergy, getting a Siberian won't help at all.
I don't know if this new breed addresses this third point, but it IS one area where improvement is possible.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Wish I had Mod points. I learned this a few years ago, can't believe it's not common knowledge. Guess it shows how well some companies can brainwash the consumer and media.
1. Make up word that means nothing, i.e. LactoSuperiffic.
2. Create products, essentially same as others on market, but ours are "LactoSuperiffic(tm)". Sell for a premium price.
3. Profit!
Monty
They've got this the wrong way round. They should have been breeding humans that can tolerate having a cat in the environment :)
After all it's a human with the intolerance problem (who probably didn't get to play around in the dirt/with "wild" animals enough as a child so didn't receive the trigger stimulus for the necessary bits of the immune system to develop)
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
I'm sure these are copy-protected cats. I can't wait until someone pirates one! Cheap hypoallergenic cats with eye patches for everyone!
Through selective inbreeding, these cats will probably end up with a terrible set of genes, prone to decease and allergies (to humans perhaps?). But its owner has paid thousands of dollars for it, so expectations are very high. The poor creature who doesn't like to be bothered by spoiled mean little rich kids, thus doesn't live up to its price tag, will end up in asylum or worse.
Selective breeding can be just as bad as genetic modification, and isn't regulated at all.
assignment != equality != identity
Just breed me a cat that is irresitably attractive to, yet also fatal to, fleas.
...
I'd pay at least $1000
And that is? I would have assumed they sold them as regular cats.
...there is a new hypoallergenic cat in town!!
Small cats belong in North Africa, maybe China, and areas generally around there. They do not belong in the New World or on any island.
Yeah, there are other predators. Owls are dying because cats eat all the easy prey!
Humans cause mass extinction, sure... by supporting cats. This is especially bad near beaches, because that is where people like to live. Rare beach mice are going extinct. Without them, the beach grass dies and then the beach erodes.
Bengal cats are regular cats which have been crossed with wild asiatic leopard cats (not leopards) Due to the wild genes, these cats are also, basically hypoallergenic. I can't believe nobody on /. has heard of these before.
I don't know why people aren't allergic to wild cats(Maybe they are, but who wants to test it !)
but it works for me. I'm not allergic to my Bengal, but I'm quite allergic to other cats.
The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat." Lily Tomlin
We have been "genetically modifying" animals through selective breeding for millenia.
It is not neccessary to introduce bits of cells (the narrow understanding of "GM") from other things to modify genes.
If agriculture was invented today, it would've been banned...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
P0WN3D!
It possibly a scam... SD Union has questioned the background of the company.6 08-9999-1b8cat.html
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/business/20060
she's only 8 pounds, not huge. her parents were a bit bigger, though.
i have some pretty sensitive (not severe, just very easily activated) cat allergies, but I haven't have any symptoms with our cat. before we got her, as a test, we went to the breeder's house and i stayed in the 'cat room', with five aduts and ten kittens, for an hour - just to make sure i was symptom-free. no problem at all.
i'm also taking Zyrtek, but that's not supposed to be all that great against pet allergies.
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof which this margin is too small to contain.
Sorry, my wallet gave me an ultimatum: I you bring this into our house I'm leaving you for good.
I value my wallet. I love my wallet. I can't see living without my wallet.
No kitty for me.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
The typical Siberian weighs between 10 and 15 pounds for the females, and between 15 and 20 for the males. They also tend to keep growing until they're 5 years old, which when they reach the weights above.
So, yes, I'm not that surprised if yours is a female (you say, "she") and I'll guess something like only 1-2 years old, since you say her parents were bigger. Well, that's just the thing: these cats keep growing. Yours will very likely get bigger too.
It's not intended as an insult or anything, but basically just a gentle reminder: you can't assume that all breeds act the same, or that what you know from normal moggies applies to Siberians too. The average moggie stops growing, so you don't really expect it to get bigger than she was at 1 year old. The Siberian keeps growing for another 4 years.
Still, OK, females are "only" 2-3 times the weight of a normal lap cat even when fully grown up.
But, if you want to dispute my calling them huge, try a fully grown up male sometimes. I don't know what you'd call a 20 pound cat, but in my book that's one huge cat. By house cat standards, anyway. Mind you, I'm not saying it's as big as a tiger or jaguar, or anything similarly silly, but... well, put one of those next to an average moggie and you tell me if it's not huge.
As for your allergies, another gentle reminder: there's more than one kind of allergy out there, and there are degrees of allergy. I personally know someone who's allergic to _anything_ with fur, including dogs and rabbits, for example. Those don't have the Fel D1 protein anyway, since it's a felide-only protein. Also, on the other axis, there are allergies and allergies, ranging from mild irritation, to extreme cases where even tiny allergen doses cause extreme reactions.
Heck, as an example of how much human reactions can vary, some people's allergy to "cats" can be as deviant from the norm as being really an allergy to pollen. The cat goes outside, comes back with pollen in the fur, the owner cuddles and strokes the cat, you can guess what happens next.
Basically you can't extrapolate your experience to _everyone_. Most people will basically have an experience similar to yours, yes, but not everyone. I'm glad that your allergy isn't tripped by a Siberian, and I wish you all the happiness in the world with your new cat. But other people's mileage may vary. Some will be tripped by a different allergen, and some do react even to the tiny Fel D1 quantities that a Siberian produces.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
... yow????
Well, here's an idea for you: if you're going to selectively breed cats lacking Fel D1, then you can test them _before_ you buy them. It would be pretty stupid to buy a million cats and kill those with lots of the allergen, when you can buy just those without it in the first place.
The Fel D1 protein will be all over the cat's fur and in her saliva, so you only need a little hair or saliva to determine how much of it does it produce. Since the fur will be the most problem for people with allergies (due to shedding and sheer surface), you can just clip a few hairs from the candidate kitty and test them. If it makes the grade, buy it to breed hypoallergenic kittens, if not, best of luck to him/her getting sold the old fashioned way.
Ditto for the kittens produced in the intermediate steps of the breeding programme. You can still sell/donate the kittens who don't make the grade to people without allergies.
Plus, it seems to me that such a programme can actually mean saving cats as opposed to some kitten genocide. There are millions of abandoned cats being killed every year. Someone could just go to some shelters and rescue the cats which test better in that aspect. Can't see anything inherently inhuman or cruel with that.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
>But, if you want to dispute my calling them huge
i don't, didn't and don't know why you think i would.
my cat is not huge, and she hasn't grown any in 6 months. i'm sure there are truly huge Siberians, as they are known for their size. but there are also many smaller individuals who are not huge, and painting the whole breed as some kind of dog-like mini-tiger is a bit unfair - they're not all like that.
>Basically you can't extrapolate your experience to _everyone_
well then it's a damned good thing i didn't try to !
gentle reminder - when you read something that doesn't include the words "you", or "every", or the phrase "as is typical", and where every sentence contains the word "i" and/or "my", you can be pretty sure it's a statement of personal experience and not an attempt to extrapolate the writer's experience to everyone.
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof which this margin is too small to contain.
See, the dog just sees you as the alpha dog of the pack. Not as "god", not as "owner", but like a bigger and more powerful dog, and usually therefore the pack leader. Since wolves hunt in packs, they're programmed to follow the leader. That's all the "love" you're getting there. No more, no less.
Note that you're not even automatically always the pack leader there. I really mean it that to the dog you're just another dog. Sure, you're the bigger and more dangerous one, and thus a natural choice for the alpha... until it looks like they could challenge you to a fight for the leadership. Especially in males around the age of 2 you can see basically starting to disobey and even show their aggressive side, as part of establishing who's the alpha.
Especially being a very bad pack leader, from the dog's point of view, can precipitate a very real fight for leadership. E.g., my brother got a hole through his palm like Jesus from such a fight gone badly. A dog's tooth can perforate through flesh unsurprisingly easily. (If it makes any difference, though, I still think the dog would have made a better pack leader there;)
But other people have ended up with a relationship where basically the dog is the alpha without involving an actual fight. If the dog can get to do what he wants by sheer virtue that you're not going to assert your power to stop him, congrats, the dog is now the alpha anyway.
I don't know what your relationship with God is, but I don't think it involves "you know, maybe I could challenge God to a fight to determine who's the boss and who's the follower. I could be the next God myself if I win." Try talking about such plans with your local priest, and you'll get some very funny looks.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
irritating that zonk quotes the article as reading "Allerca first started taking orders for genetically engineered hypoallergenic cats back in 2004." when the article says instead "Allerca first started taking orders for hypoallergenic cats back in 2004."
Breeding and genetically engineering are totally different approaches to "improving" life forms, which the article doesn't fail to point out.
People and their wimpy hypoallergenic cats. Me, I have giant (12-17 lb) hair and dander machines. Give them a good brushing and you've got enough hair to knit another big cat.
These 2 are super frendly and leave you covered with a thick layer of hair after a few minutes of petting. If you are allergic these pictures could make you sneeze.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/webweasel/6022722/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/webweasel/127260496/
The obscure we see eventually. The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer. - Edward R. Murrow
We love dogs because they could kill us, but won't.
We love cats because they want to kill us, but can't.
Although for dogs that excludes pampered rat-beasts for the first part and poorly trained psychotic attack dogs for the second. The second statement though is good for all cats at all times.
You can also get a hypoalergenic cat here
The most dangerous strategy is to jump a chasm in two leaps. - Benjamin Disraeli