from the Dr.-Moreau-just-needed-a-good-PR-team dept.
These gene-edited fish, pigs, and other animals could soon be on the menu:
The CRISPR gene-editing tool has been making headlines for the last 10 years, since scientists showed it could be used to easily alter the genome of a living organism.
[...] So perhaps it's no surprise that scientists have started experimenting with CRISPR in farm animals. One popular target is a gene called myostatin, which codes for a protein that controls muscle growth. Interfering with this gene can lead to muscle overgrowth. In other words, you end up with big, muscly animals. And, eventually, more meat.
[...] Research in fish is also well underway. Using CRISPR to target the myostatin gene, scientists in Japan have generated red sea bream that are bigger and heavier, with 17% more muscle than their unmodified counterparts, despite being fed the same amount of food.
And similar approaches have been used to beef up carp, tilapia, catfish, and other aquatic animals, including oysters. Other researchers are experimenting with different ways of using CRISPR to boost disease resistance or create salmon that make more omega-3.
You won't find CRISPR animals as products on supermarket shelves just yet. But some are remarkably close. In 2021, Japan approved the sale of two CRISPR-edited fish. One of them is the beefed-up red sea bream. The other is a tiger puffer fish that's also designed to be heavier.
The researchers behind the transgenic catfish are hoping they'll get it approved for commercial production in the US. But that could take a while. Only one gene-edited fish has so far been approved for sale in the US—and it took decades to get to that point.
[...] It's difficult to predict how quickly CRISPR animals will progress through the US approval process. But they are on their way.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Barenflimski on Wednesday January 25 2023, @04:15AM (3 children)
I hope they CRISPR up some rainbow guppies so I don't have to keep buying those salt water fish for cool colors.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 25 2023, @06:56AM
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Freeman on Wednesday January 25 2023, @03:03PM (1 child)
Rainbow guppies for your pleasure, CRISPR free. Guppies can be very colorful. It's just that most of the females don't have much color. The males can have some very pretty colors. Kind of like a Male Cardinal vs a Female Cardinal.
https://azgardens.com/product/blue-moscow-guppy-male/ [azgardens.com]
https://azgardens.com/product/guppy-premium-male-assorted-guppy-freshwater-aquarium-fish/ [azgardens.com]
https://azgardens.com/product/blue-variegated-delta-guppy-pairs/ [azgardens.com]
https://azgardens.com/product/endlers-livebearer-fancy-guppy-male/ [azgardens.com]
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Barenflimski on Wednesday January 25 2023, @04:17PM
lol
(Score: 5, Funny) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Wednesday January 25 2023, @04:39AM (1 child)
Just make sure never to name any of the CRISPR pigs Napoleon.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday January 25 2023, @04:51AM
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 25 2023, @05:52AM (2 children)
Mmmmmmmmmn...
CRISPR fried chicken!
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Wednesday January 25 2023, @09:02AM (1 child)
CFC? Chlorofluorocarbons? I wouldn't risk the confusion!
(Score: 2) by DECbot on Wednesday January 25 2023, @11:36PM
Connecticut Fried Carbons
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Opportunist on Wednesday January 25 2023, @02:26PM (7 children)
But will it have the same effects we had with tomatoes? Where they got bigger and redder and generally taste like water now instead of tomatoes?
What about the taste?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Wednesday January 25 2023, @03:16PM (3 children)
Artificial flavors can be injected just before the fruits fully mature.
Artificially flavored genetically engineered tomatoes!
The people who rely on government handouts and refuse to work should be kicked out of congress.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday January 25 2023, @04:47PM
I thought artificially flavored meat was just called marinating?
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Wednesday January 25 2023, @05:13PM (1 child)
Where I come from we call that ketchup.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday January 25 2023, @07:44PM
Maybe the taste of genetically modified tomatoes will ketchup to the taste of natural tomatoes.
The people who rely on government handouts and refuse to work should be kicked out of congress.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday January 25 2023, @03:17PM (1 child)
Don't worry, all meat will taste like chicken now.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Funny) by Opportunist on Wednesday January 25 2023, @05:15PM
Did ChatGPT already win the fight, take over control of the earth and still didn't figure out what chicken tastes like?
Damn, look what happens just when I go to sleep. I should stop doing that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 25 2023, @07:37PM
The flavor problem with tomatoes is that they are picked early and artificially ripened with vespene gas. Oops, ethylene gas.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday January 25 2023, @03:22PM
Stop screwing around with seafood and give me some genetically modified beef already.
It will go amazingly well with all of the heavily engineered flavors present in a Big Mac.
(That is a Mac upgraded from 128 KB memory to 512 KB.)
With all the seafood talk they'll next be telling us they can feed the whole world with plankton and issue an annual oceanographic report on this.
The people who rely on government handouts and refuse to work should be kicked out of congress.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 25 2023, @07:03PM
A billion years from now, cockroach geneticists will look at the DNA record and see an anomalous surge in evolution which they will attribute to a rare meteorite strike that left behind a thin layer of microplastics. According to their theories, giant stupid hominids walked the earth but died in their own filth because they lacked the sophisticated societal traits of ants, termites and other higher species.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday January 26 2023, @02:20AM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-muscled_cattle [wikipedia.org]
Also occasionally in dogs (mostly whippets) and occasionally other animals. More rarely in humans.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myostatin#Effects_in_animals [wikipedia.org]
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa040933 [nejm.org]
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17373055/worlds-strongest-dog-wendy-twice-as-big/ [thesun.co.uk]
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.