this post was submitted on 12 Nov 2023
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[–] DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I'm personally waiting for supermarkets to literally smarten up and start offering Extra-GMO food.

Just let the geneticists go wild on those animals, I want a turkey leg the size of my head served with a side of golden rice.

[–] jeffw@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

To be fair, they already kinda do that. The chickens are massive compared to normal ones we would’ve had decades ago, which can lead to some premature deaths (I think it’s heart issues?)

[–] Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 1 year ago

For some breeds if you let them live to full adulthood instead of slaughtering them at 6 weeks they can't really walk well. The extra muscle doesn't make them stronger, it just adds so much bulk they can't move it all. It's pretty sad.

[–] NegativeInf@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Gotta get those chickens doing some cardio.

[–] IHeartBadCode@kbin.social 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

to tweak a chicken gene that is responsible for producing the protein ANP32A

The authors identified two other related proteins, ANP32B and ANP32E, that they think would prevent virus replication

Yeah you cannot just keep taking out Phosphoprotein 32 from an animal. It's literally used widely by the body (human and chicken) to prevent tumors from growing.

For broiler chickens, which live only eight to 12 weeks before they are slaughtered, the health effects of gene editing may not have time to manifest

This is like that modern problems require modern solutions meme. Chickens developing cancer too quickly? Just kill them off faster. I mean, I guess that'll technically work, I leave the ethical discussion to the vegans out there. But yeah, hauling out ANP32's various families, you're going to get chickens that have a lot of knotty meat.

But laying chickens are kept commercially for two to three years

CHUCKLES Oh yeah, you absolutely could not do this for them. LOL. That would be an unspeakable horror.

This disease is so prevalent and so important that any strategies that we can bring together to help protect the health of the birds is, in my view, very good

And she's not wrong. Avian flu isn't some shit we need to be playing around with. It's something we should be taking an active role on. I'd vote perhaps better facilities for housing the chickens and better care compared to the conditions most chicken live in today, the vegans might indicate dropping chicken altogether, and these folks have a "creative" to say the least, way of tackling it. There might be some middle ground somewhere in there, but the more important thing is we really need to get on top of this avian flu bullshit and I, for one, am open to ideas that aim for that goal reasonably.

[–] m3t00@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

seems like environmental isolation could prevent rapid spreading of virii if covid taught us anything

[–] Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 year ago

But yeah, hauling out ANP32's various families, you're going to get chickens that have a lot of knotty meat.

Sounds like it will go great with the woody breast problem that already plagues modern broiler breeds. 😬

[–] NFord@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

Wow, science actually does something useful for a change. There's no way I'm giving up my 40 piece McNuggets over some stupid germs 😂 😂 😂

[–] SirToxicAvenger@lemm.ee -1 points 1 year ago

we've been using crispr to perform gene editing for 11 years now. "science" articles need to stop using analogies about it.

[–] queermunist@lemmy.ml -4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

We could just stop eating chickens. 🙄