Are featherless chickens really GMO/genetically-engineered?
Genetic modification or just conventional breeding?
Pictures of these creepy new chickens are going around the web, claiming these are genetically modified organisms (GMO), however, it is reported that these chickens were created through conventional breeding by an Israeli scientist. They were bred using a bare-neck breed of chicken (likely what’s called the “turken“) that’s been around for decades, that was also conventionally bred. In other words, barring any newer mutations, these naked chickens theoretically could have been bred 3000 years ago with an intensive breeding program with no modern technologies.
Sure they look creepy, but so do naked mole rats and manatees, yet they are totally natural, and in the wild, not bred by humans at all.
The scientist does have some good points – this could be a good hot weather chicken and could do a little bit to impact the environment less.
Story on New Scientist: Featherless chicken creates a flap
| Tagged: Tags: Front Page News | CommentsJellyfish and shrimp-like animal found under antarctic ice
Scientific researchers have discovered a kind of jellyfish and a shrimp-like animal 600 feet under an ice shelf in Antarctica, where no sunlight reaches. The discovery sheds light on just what types of lifeforms can survive where, for researchers.
However, in my estimation, just because life can survive 600 feet under an ice shelf on earth or deep underground on earth, doesn’t mean it would exist in equivalent spots on other planets and moons elsewhere in the universe. I think it would take somewhat robust success of life on a given planet or moon in more productive ecosystems to produce lifeforms that could thrive in such energy and heat starved environments. However, if a planet was more hostile, but had much, much more time for life to evolve or was even more overall stable than our planet has been, then complex life might arise in those challenging environments.
Shrimp found 600 feet below Antarctic ice
| Tagged: Tags: Antarctica | Comments