Cloned meat.

[spartan]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/jan/15/agriculture

US farmers have been given the go-ahead to produce meat from cloned animals and introduce it to the food chain for human consumption!

Thoughts?

Personally i think that this could do wonders in terms of minimising the effects of food shortages around the world as you could easily produce an abundance of meat from animals cloned at a fast rate.

[Pawn Power]

The cloned animals wouldn't necessarily grow faster so i don't know what you mean by cloned at a "fast rate." I do not think it will have a tremendous affect on increasing meat out put contributing to the lack of food shortages.

What cloned animals do allow is to select for the highest quality meat.

[Jazzratt]

Excellent news.

Whenever I see things like this I always find it funny how the Daily Heil readers and environmentalist goons unite in panic.

PP: It may not happen at a faster rate, but if you can clone animals for meat you don't need to worry about the rate at which your livestock are breeding and can increase your "animal production" in that way. EDIT: This is of course assuming that you don't need to implant them into surrogate mothers.

Also, does anyone know if cloned animals are still more prone to diseases and early deaths or was that just tabloid science?

[An archist]

Personally i think that this could do wonders in terms of minimising the effects of food shortages around the world as you could easily produce an abundance of meat from animals cloned at a fast rate.

Not really, because, as was said, they're still normal animals who gorw normally, what could make a difference are genetically modified cows, but they would of course be unafordable for poor farmers, so that wouldn't do any good either.

[Pawn Power]

[/quote] PP: It may not happen at a faster rate, but if you can clone animals for meat you don't need to worry about the rate at which your livestock are breeding and can increase your "animal production" in that way.[/quote]

Perhaps, but I don't think that is a problem now anyways since the developments of artificial insemination. I really don't think they have breading stalls on large farms anymore.

[Jazzratt]

Perhaps, but I don't think that is a problem now anyways since the developments of artificial insemination. I really don't think they have breading stalls on large farms anymore.[/quote]

I take your point there.

[Jazzratt]

Perhaps, but I don't think that is a problem now anyways since the developments of artificial insemination. I really don't think they have breading stalls on large farms anymore.

I take your point there.

[LSD]

I doubt this is going to make a real difference in the immediate future, but long-term it's nice that the technology is going to be out there are and experimented with.

For the moment, cloned food is going to be a solely luxury product, but in a couple of decades I have no doubt that we'll be reaping the bennefits.


what could make a difference are genetically modified cows

Which is what we're talking about. No one is planing on merely cloning existing livestock, but rather to create a superior genetic model and then clone it.

From the original article:

Scientists stress that cloning will not be used to create herds of identical animals that are themselves destined for the dinner plate. Rather it will be used as a breeding tool to create high-value breeding animals with desirable traits such as disease resistance or a faster growth rate. It is these progeny of clones that could potentially reach dinner plates.

[blabla]

Cloned meat is bad news for the diet of the people. It might be carcinogenic and lead to birth defects. We need to support kosher meat.

[Jazzratt]

Cloned meat is bad news for the diet of the people. It might be carcinogenic and lead to birth defects. We need to support kosher meat.

What a load of utter bollocks. What evidence do you have that cloned meat is at all different from normal meat? Also, why do we need to support Kosher meat - we're not jewish and don't rely on the dietary advice offered by fairy tales.

A quick google (both web and scholar) search for any reliable pieces on these claims turned up nothing.

[LSD]

Cloned meat is bad news for the diet of the people. It might be carcinogenic and lead to birth defects.

Anything "might" be carcinogenic, but we have to go on the evidence and so far the evidence says that cloned meat is identical to the normal kind. As, indeed, it should be since even common sense would dicate that genetically identical animals would render identical meat.

And I don't know where you pulled "birth defects" from, but that's sounds like the kind of vague fear mongering that so-called "green" groups are so famous for.

Forget evidence, forget science, naked assertions of "potential" risks are enough for these whackos to get all hot and bothered. Meanwhile they couldn't give two shits for all the real abuses that are going on around them.

They condemn factory farms for their "exploitation" of chickens (!), but don't say a word about the human beings that are actually being exploited in some of the worst working conditions around.

And now that science has begun to scratch the surface of directly modifying our food source, suddenly they're so concerned for "cancer". Never mind that genetic modification offers us the chance to reduce toxicity, never mind that there's never been a single link even hinted at between cloning and cancer.

And the real irony is that these are the same people who have been protesting scientific research into things like cancer for 25 years. In case y'all forgot, things like chemotherapy only exist because scientists have defied the environmentalist and "animal rights" crowds (in some cases risking their lives).

Thanfully, even in an age of widespread "green" toleration, the vast majority of people are still sensible rational adults who aren't so terrified of progress that they'd give up the tools of their own elevation.

Genetic technology holds the future of humanity, as does the myriad of other cutting edge scientific innovations being pusued as we speak; every one taking us one step further away from "nature".

And I, for one, can't wait for the day when we finally lose everything "natural" about us, everything "green" if you will. 'Cause it's the "natural" aspects, the unmapped and unknown ones, that still enslave us to the capricious whim of luck.

Transcending that will be the true revolutionary change, everything else is only a prelude to the real story of humanity.


We need to support kosher meat.

...right, 'cause three thousand year old mystical dietary laws are clearly superior to modern science.

Although I suppose it shouldn't come as that much of a shock that religious nonsense and environmentalist hysteria go hand in hand. One apocalyptic fairy tale's as good as another I suppose...

[FireFry]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/jan/15/agriculture
Personally i think that this could do wonders in terms of minimising the effects of food shortages around the world as you could easily produce an abundance of meat from animals cloned at a fast rate.

silly naeve youngster, doesn't understand capitalism yet.

Food goes to rot all the time on the branches of trees. Why? Because there isn't enough people who have money that can buy them. Sure, the food is there, but
it just goes to rot every while thanks to greed.

Just another reason communism or a worker's socialism is better. Things won't go to waste.

Read the Grapes of Wrath, that covers most the tragedy of food shortages, not in just America, but all around the world. Co-operative solutions are always better than individualistic ones.

[spartan]

silly naeve youngster, doesn't understand capitalism yet.

Food goes to rot all the time on the branches of trees. Why? Because there isn't enough people who have money that can buy them. Sure, the food is there, but
it just goes to rot every while thanks to greed.

Just another reason communism or a worker's socialism is better. Things won't go to waste.

Read the Grapes of Wrath, that covers most the tragedy of food shortages, not in just America, but all around the world. Co-operative solutions are always better than individualistic ones.

The reason i said that was because i think that we can now use this new method of producing food as a way to pressure the politicians to use it to alleviate food shortages (Seeing how politicians always like to talk about how much they are helping under developed areas of the world with international aid).

Lets force the politicians to put their money where their mouth is on this issue.

And of course if they refuse to then they will be shown up to the world as the hypocritical bastards that everyone knows them to truely be.

[Entrails Konfetti]

I'm bummed, I was hoping that scientists finally figured out how to lab-create meat on wide-scale.

I hope they clone that two-headed goat, I wants to eat me one of those.

[apathy maybe]

Why are people supporting this? This is cloned meat for human consumption right now!

That is, not after a decent amount of testing, or anything of the sort.

This is the same sort of shit as feeding bits of cows to other cows, which we all know ended up with mad cow disease. The same thing with all the growth hormones in cows, that cause problems in young children.


OK, personally I have no moral problem with cloning. What I do have a problem with is the current system, which is letting untested food into the food chain. Not for the reasons stated earlier in the thread, but for profit. Remember, we are still in a capitalist system, they don't care about you, they just care about the money.

Fuck that shit.


(Slashdot discussed this too, here are some comments that I thought were interesting:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=419582&cid=22060718
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=419582&cid=22061410
"These clones are not genetically identical to uncloned animals. The newborn clone has the same depleted count of telomeres [wikipedia.org] that the fully-grown animal had when the clone's original tissue was taken from the original animal. But not the amount that a natural animal has when it's born. The adult clone will also have fewer telomeres in every cell than a natural adult."
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=419582&cid=22061370 )

[Vanguard1917]

OK, personally I have no moral problem with cloning. What I do have a problem with is the current system, which is letting untested food into the food chain. Not for the reasons stated earlier in the thread, but for profit. Remember, we are still in a capitalist system, they don't care about you, they just care about the money.

Fuck that shit.


According to this logic, we would have to oppose all technological and scientific progress under capitalism - since no such progress happens under capitalism unless it brings about a profit. The point is to free progress from the fetters imposed upon it by the market system - not to oppose progress itself.

[MarxSchmarx]

Also, does anyone know if cloned animals are still more prone to diseases and early deaths or was that just tabloid science?

There is some evidence that the immune systems of cloned animals aren't as robust:

http://www.livescience.com/animals/041104_cloned_pigs.html

The argument is similar to the (well-known) agronomic dictum that thou shalt not inbreed. Hybrid vigor is a well-documented phenomenon of many sexually reproducing organisms, and cloning directly contradicts this. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterosis

This being said, cloning is probably safe for human consumption. But there are bigger concerns, like whether or not agro-industry will readily expose itself to such vulnerabilities as the extreme inbreeding depression implied by cloning. My guess is that cloning will not be economically competitive in a market system for a long time, until we are uber-competent at genetic engineering.