The Kickstarter to support three of the titles Shadowpaw Press is publishing this fal, two science fiction novels and one fantasy, funded at $1,805 of the $1,500 CDN goal. Thanks to everyone who kicked in! …
On May 7, I was in Calgary for the joint book launch of the first two titles of the Shadowpaw Press Spring/Summer list, The Downloaded by Robert J. Sawyer and The Traitor’s Son by the …
It takes money to publish books, and most of that money flows out the door before the book is released and sales begin, so my publishing company, Shadowpaw Press, turned to Crowdfundr to help ensure …
This year’s Kickstarter to fund Shapers of Worlds Volume V, the fifth in the series of anthologies featuring science fiction and fantasy by authors who were guests on my Aurora Award-winning podcast, The Worldshapers, succeeded, reaching …
Well, I did it again: led the Seven-Sentence Short Story workshop (created by science fiction and fantasy author James van Pelt) at a writing conference, this time, Wordbridge in Lethbridge, Alberta. Here’s the story I …
Shapers of Worlds Volume IV, the fourth anthology featuring authors who were guests on my podcast, The Worldshapers, is now available everywhere, including directly from Shadowpaw Press. Here’s a handy universal URL with links to …
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Genetic modification of large animals just got easier
Efforts to genetically modify large animals have been hindered by the fact that the two methods currently used to effect it, somatic cell nuclear transfer or pronuclear injection, are costly, inefficient, difficult, and carry a risk of producing abnormal offspring. Now researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine have successfully produced genetically modified mice and goats by transferring modified genetic information via a harmless virus to male reproductive cells, which then passed the modification on naturally to about 10 percent of the offspring. In other words, genetic modification via gene therapy.
Of course, using this technique on humans in combination with in-vitro fertilization and careful weeding of the resulting embryos in order to create a genetically modified super race with abilities surpassing normal humans’ would be completely illegal and unethical, and only a deranged science fiction writer such as myself whose next book features genetically modified humans would even think of it as a possibility.
So, no worries.
(Via PhysOrg.)
(Also posted to Futurismic.)
Permanent link to this article: https://edwardwillett.com/2007/09/genetic-modification-of-large-animals-just-got-easier/
