There
is a lot of debate regarding genetically modified crops being
accepted into the food chain, and a tremendous amount of
misinformation on both sides of the debate, so it is probably not
that big a surprise that the research being carried out on animals is
being kept well away from the media, to the extent that any potential
leak of information is immediately quashed with extreme prejudice.
The revolution that was cloning was a perfect test bed for public
attitudes to genetic engineering, and after the reaction to the
semi-successful cloning of Dolly the sheep was less than rapturous
there has been a decision that the public are not ready to know what
is going on, but some information is beginning to come to light, and
some it it makes quite terrifying reading. Lets start with a project
that came into being because it was discovered that demand for silk
was increasing at a rate faster than traditional production methods.
Now, what would happen if you could take the genes that allow
caterpillars to produce silk and put then into the genes of another
animal? Say one that produces milk, so that the silk proteins could
be passed out of the animal in the milk and then harvested? Sounds
completely crazy, right? Wrong, it has already been done, and goats
are the chosen recipients of caterpillar and Spider genetic material
and the experiment has already been a success.
Now
how about something ever more odd? How about a cow that can safely
produce four calves with each gestation? Again, sounds something of a
challenge but by combining the egg production and ovulation
controlling genes of dogs with those of a cow this is not only
possible but has already been achieved. So, you begin to get the idea
that the genetic modification of animals has been going on for a
while and is at quite an advanced level. Certainly these experiments
have been going on in the UK since 1965 and they go far further than
modifying farm animals. Two key centres are in the Scottish Highlands
based out of a DEFRA agricultural research station ostensibly
carrying out crop testing but in reality researching the combination
of human and animal DNA to create hybrid organisms, and the Porton
Down test facility where experiments hybridising simian and canine
genetic material to create new variants for military purposes. Taking
the first of these, the Highland facility is primarily focused on
creating enhanced military personnel by combining the best human
specimens with highly aggressive traits in predatory species,
particularly wolves and leopards. This is in part the reason that the
reintroduction of wolves and big cats to the Scottish Highlands is
such a hot topic. Such an introduction would allow greater freedom
for wider scale experimentation since any sightings by the public
could be passed off as merely wild animal sightings.
The
Porton Down centre is rather different as here the purpose is to
enhance the intellectual capacity of non-human military combatants,
particularly dogs and monkeys for the purpose of delivering
explosives and guidance beacons to hard to reach targets. The
principle behind this is that certain situations are unsuitable for
drone vehicles and too dangerous for human combatants but traditional
military animals are not intelligent enough for complex tasks. The
hybrid animals or chimera being produced have the appearance of large
dogs but the intellectual of chimpanzee in terms of learning complex
commands and sequences of instructions. Together these projects form
just one phase of a UK and US collaborative research programme that
has been responsible for the increasing number of crypto-zoological
sightings in remote wilderness areas, particularly around
agricultural and medical research bases in these areas. These are
also the cause of many of the cattle mutilations and the black
helicopter sightings as these creations are trailed using infra red
technology. Further advances are being made all the time and it won't
be long before these new technologies are released into the
mainstream media.
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