Future Ben

I am heavy on animal themes lately so here is the ultimate future animal page. The Future is Wild is an animated Animal Planet show. The show creators got Stephan Palumbi from Stanford and a number of other scientists and illustrators to come up with animals that might exist 5 100 and 200 million years in the future. I love this kind of speculative stuff. But one must remember that it is hard enough to figure out what the climate will be like in 5 years, let alone 5 million. Still it revives my childlike wonder at the mutability of nature.

Genetic Savings and Clone offers to clone your prized cats for $32,000. Instead of transfering the nucleus from the donor to an egg this company tranfers over the packaged DNA. The idea behind Chromatin Transfer, I presume, is that the epigenetic milleu of the egg nucleus properly regulates the donor DNA to develop properly.

What is interesting about this company isn’t so much the technology, or even if its a good idea to clone a cat when there are so many up for adoption. What interests me is that its a biotech company that deals in a luxury item. At what point will geneticly modified animals become affordable?(If you call $32,000 affordable.) The initial overhead would be much higher, but once a new line was developed it could be bred normaly. Yeah, right. The company that did that would be legislated right out of existence.

This if from the associated press: “Cy, short for Cyclopes, a kitten born with only one eye and no nose, is shown in this photo provided by its owner in Redmond, Oregon, on Wednesday, Dec. 28, 2005. The kitten, a ragdoll breed, which died after living for one day, was one of two in the litter. Its sibling was born normal and healthy.” It looks too strange to be real right? For all I know it’s photoshopped, but the mutation is possible. The oddly named gene Sonic hedgehog or Shh is resposible for a crest of cells to come down, separate your eyes and form your nose. Mutations in the gene cause these sorts of birth defects all the time, just not so drastic. They manifest as cleft lips. In animals these mutations are fatal because the babies can’t nurse.

It’s likely that this kitten was a sport who happened to have non functioning Shh, but the most common occurence of cyclopism comes from Jevine poisoning. This chemical comes a plant veratrum californicum. It affects mainly sheep who might eat the plant, but the plant is also used as an herb to treat vomiting and cramps under the name Hellebore. Best to just ride out that morning sickness lest your child end up like this.