Knock out Organisms Mice have had the gene that regulates weight gain and muscle mass removed Chickens are now being bred to be featherless

Some Frivolous Genetic Experiments: Plants & fungi have had the bioluminescence gene from fireflies added to help researchers watch the plant behaviors at night

Fish, cats, insects & many other animals are modified to glow in the dark to study nocturnal behaviors & body part development (fetal bone)

Enviropig - has been genetically altered to better digest it’s food In turn, it’s waste is better for the environment The Enviropig, or “Frankenswine,” as critics call it, is a pig that’s been genetically altered to better digest and process phosphorus. Pig manure is high in phytate, a form of phosphorus, so when farmers use the manure as fertilizer, the chemical enters the watershed and causes algae blooms that deplete oxygen in the water and kill marine life. So scientists added an E. Coli bacteria and mouse DNA to a pig embryo. This modification decreases a pig’s phosphorous output by as much as 70 percent — making the pig more environmentally friendly.

Pollution Fighting Plants - trees have been altered to better clean up toxic pollutants from the soil The plants then breakdown the toxins into harmless byproducts that are released into the air Scientists at the University of Washington are engineering poplar trees that can clean up contamination sites by absorbing groundwater pollutants through their roots. The plants then break the pollutants down into harmless byproducts that are incorporated into their roots, stems and leaves or released into the air. In laboratory tests, the transgenic plants are able to remove as much as 91 percent of trichloroethylene — the most common groundwater contaminant at U.S. Superfund sites — out of a liquid solution. Regular poplar plants removed just 3 percent of the contaminant.

Less Gassy Cows: cattle produce a lot of methane which contributes to global warming Cows produce significant amounts of methane as a result of their digestion process — it’s produced by a bacterium that’s a byproduct of cows’ high-cellulosic diets that include grass and hay. Methane is a major contributor — second only to carbon dioxide — to the greenhouse effect, so scientists have been working to genetically engineer a cow that produces less methane. Agriculture research scientists at the University of Alberta have identified the bacterium responsible for producing methane and designed a line of cattle that creates 25 percent less methane than the average cow.

Mosquitoes - in a very controversial experiment, mosquitoes were altered to deliver a gene to their offspring which would kill them Mosquitoes have also been subjects of biowarfare weapons designed to deliver an incapacitating illness to an enemy In a very controversial experiment, genetically engineered mosquitoes, which were bred to transmit a gene during the reproductive process that kills their offspring, have been used in three countries—the Cayman Islands, Malaysia and Brazil—to counteract the quickly spreading mosquito-borne viral infection dengue fever.

What do you think?

2. Cloning is a method by which an entire organism is created that is genetically identical to the original -Dolly the sheep was the first animal cloned in 1996 She suffered from premature aging & died at the age of 6 years (12 years is normal lifespan) Human cloning has been banned in most countries

In December 2001, scientists at created the first cloned cat, CC (CopyCat) Even though CC is an exact copy of his host, they have different personalities & different hair coat colors

First World cloned calf (Gene) was born on February 7, 1997 on American Breeders Service facilities in Deforest, Wisconsin. Later it was transferred and kept at the Minnesota Zoo Education Center. Since Gene, Cattle have been cloned 17 times all over world last one in 2010