microrobert
04-29-2013, 06:47 PM
Hornless ‘Frankencow’: Genetic engineers aim to create super-bovine
UK and US scientists are seeking to alter the genes of dairy cows in order to make them hornless. The modification is meant to make the ler to deal with, and spare them the ainful de-horning practice currently used by farmers.
Scientists have managed to single out DNA that suppresses horn growth in other breeds of cattle, which they now intend to implant into the genome of the Holstein cows – the world's highest-production dairy breed.
“This would be a major advance in animal welfare,” Geoff Simm, a scholar and chair of the UK government’s Farm Animal Genetic Resources Committee said, according to the Sunday Times. The idea – the brainchild of scientists at Edinburgh's Roslin Institute – will now be brought to life by their partners from the University of Minnesota, who were already conducting similar research.
http://rt.com/news/genetically-modified-hornless-cow-533/
UK and US scientists are seeking to alter the genes of dairy cows in order to make them hornless. The modification is meant to make the ler to deal with, and spare them the ainful de-horning practice currently used by farmers.
Scientists have managed to single out DNA that suppresses horn growth in other breeds of cattle, which they now intend to implant into the genome of the Holstein cows – the world's highest-production dairy breed.
“This would be a major advance in animal welfare,” Geoff Simm, a scholar and chair of the UK government’s Farm Animal Genetic Resources Committee said, according to the Sunday Times. The idea – the brainchild of scientists at Edinburgh's Roslin Institute – will now be brought to life by their partners from the University of Minnesota, who were already conducting similar research.
http://rt.com/news/genetically-modified-hornless-cow-533/