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Scientists Clone Sheep With 'Good' Fat
redletterdave writes "Chinese scientists have cloned a genetically modified sheep containing a 'good' type of fat found naturally in nuts, seeds, fish and leafy greens that helps reduce the risk of heart attacks and cardiovascular disease. The gene, which is linked to the production of polyunsaturated fatty acids, was inserted into a donor cell taken from the ear of a Chinese Merino sheep. The cell was then inserted into an unfertilized egg and implanted into the womb of a surrogate sheep. With any luck, this process could be replicated in the future to clone more animals for safe and healthy consumption."
Healthy bacon. Mmmm.
...gets a bit of "good fat" occasionally
HeaIthy bacon, Mrnrnrn,
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
GMO plants is one thing, but animals? I can't quite put my finger on why, but someting about this seems... troubling.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
The fact they got the fat gene from a round worm gave me this mental image of a 100lb round worm covered in sheep's wool. I doubt counting those wouldn't help me get to sleep and would likely give you nightmares.
If you're breeding for food purposes, I don't think longevity matters that much. Dolly lived for much longer than the usual term for lamb that are bred for meat.
Except that breeding the old fashioned way is probably a lot cheaper than cloning and genetic modification. I would think that ideally, you'd want to clone/modify a few and then breed them.
Worth mentioning that humans evolved to eat animals with standard fat percentages, not margarine or mealworm-sheep. There is no significant evidence for concluding that dietary saturated fat is associated with an increased risk of CHD or CVD, and there are healthy populations that traditionally go 6-9 months with no fats except animals fats.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
Or cashews.
Could be a growth market - flavored cows. Spinach cows, cashew cows, trout cows, kale cows.....
Dunno.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
I don't want to seem old or old fashioned but this seems like a really bad idea in numerous ways. Maybe they should feed the clone brains from another sheep to add another dubious aspect to this process.
Not eating cloned anything or anything that's been screwed around with. I know it's unpopular here, but I eat everything organic...everything. As far as meat, if it didn't eat what it was supposed to eat; pasture raised and organic at that, I avoid it. Chickens eat bugs and grass, not feed. They like to scratch around in dirt, not hang out idly in cages all day. Same with Beef, less the bugs. We're likely evolved to eat a paleolithic era type diet. Going to stick as close to that as possible. You aren't just what you eat, you're also what your food ate. Why would I support something like 800 million pounds of pesticide being dumped on the land every year? Now it's some pesticide killing the bees. I remember when my Father's doctor had him eating trans-fat for his heart trouble. What will researchers discover ten years after this cloned junk's been foisted on the public?
I think you may be wrong. Nuts and avocados are the most common plants to contain fats, but others do as well. Like olives.
Unless you think you're frying your chicken on olive carbs, rather than olive oil?
I'm a little segfault, short and stout.
There is absolutely no information in the article. "Healthy fat found in seeds"?
What it sounds like they're doing is they've figured out how to genetically modify animals to produce omega 3 and similar types of fats instead of the fats commonly found in grain fed or industrially raised meats. That's actually fairly big (good) news, I think.
On the other hand, 'healthy' fat can be found in animals which are 'free range'. It's less environmentally intensive. The unhealthy fat found in animal meat is only unhealthy because of the way they're raised.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Well obviously the fats came from animals. Olive trees are notorious for eating squirrels and other rodents.
Worth mentioning that humans evolved to eat animals with standard fat percentages, not margarine or mealworm-sheep.
Worth mentioning that humans evolved with recurved spines that cause back pain. Evolved eating, breathing and speaking out of the same hole. Evolved all kinds of stupid, non-optimized features, of which our fat intake/heart disease relationship may be another. "The Panda's Thumb," by Stephen Gould, is a good read. In one of the many essays, he argues that the panda's screwy thumb isn't some highly optimized limb for stripping bamboo, it's just what evolution has managed to give the panda to date, with the poorly-suited wristbone it had to work with.
Ewe!
any particular reason one can't do this? A much more direct approach, healthier, more environmentally friendly, and doesn't have that extra-added danger of eating the product of extreme genetic modification...
Food doesn't contain "good" or "bad" cholesterol. It's always good old (10R,13R)-10,13-dimethyl-17-(6-methylheptan-2-yl)-2,3,4,7,8,9,11,12,14,15,16,17-dodecahydro-1H-cyclopenta[a]phenanthren-3-ol (or C27H46O for short).
Those terms refer to the way it is tested in the blood. Cholesterol travels around the body in little bubbles named after the proteins they're carried in. The low-density ones tend to be worse, because they deliver cholesterol to the tissues. If you just look at the total cholesterol in the blood, then you don't know if it's good or bad - nowadays labs will usually test which lipoproteins are carrying the cholesterol.
Agreed, I'm still hoping it's a joke.
Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. -- Susan Ertz