James' World 2

Click the link below the picture

.

Hopes were running high for cow 401, and cow 401 serenely bore the weight of expectations. She entered the cattle chute obligingly, and as the vet searched her uterus, making full use of the plastic glove that covered his arm up to his shoulder, she uttered nary a moo. A week ago, Cow 401 and four other members of her experimental herd at UC Davis were in the early stages of pregnancy. But now, following a string of disappointing checkups, it was all down to her. Alison Van Eenennaam, the animal geneticist in charge of the proceedings, kept watch from off to one side, galoshes firmly planted in the damp manure, eyes fixed on a portable ultrasound monitor. After a few moments, the vet delivered his fifth and final diagnosis. “She’s not pregnant,” he said. Van Eenennaam looked up. “Ah, shit,” she muttered.

Cow 401 and her herdmates were the product of two and a half years of research, Van Eenennaam’s attempt to create a strain of gene-edited cattle specially suited to the needs of the beef industry. Had everything gone as planned, all the calves in this experiment would have been born male—physiologically, at least. Like humans, cattle carry two sex chromosomes; those born XX are female, and those born XY are male. But it isn’t the Y that makes the man. It’s a single gene, called SRY, that briefly flickers to life as an embryo grows and instructs it to develop male traits. Using CRISPR, Van Eenennaam’s team added a copy of SRY to the X chromosome too. That way, even if a cow was born genetically female, she’d be expected to appear male all the same. Since beef ranchers generally prefer males to females (more meat for the money), Van Eenennaam believed there could someday be a market for these Crispr’d animals.

.

.

.

Click the link below for the article:

https://www.wired.com/story/crispr-gene-editing-humane-livestock/

.

__________________________________________

Click the link below the picture

.

My daughter recently started kindergarten, and for the first couple of weeks of school, I was an eager mom, waiting to pick her up at the end of the day and hear all about her new adventures. I’d step through the classroom door, stretch my arms open and say, “Hi, lady!” and then wait for her to run and embrace me like she often did when she was in preschool.

Instead, she’d glance up, slump over and drag her feet over to her backpack. On the drive home, things would only go downhill. “So …” I’d say, smiling at her in the rearview mirror. “How was your day?” She’d grunt. Then she would whine about something (usually how much she wants to watch a show on the iPad, and why, why, why won’t I let her?) and we’d start arguing. By the time we’d get to the house, she’d be a pouty mess and I’d be counting down the minutes until bedtime.

.

Photo: RapidEye (Getty Images)
.

.

Click the link below for the article:

https://offspring.lifehacker.com/plan-for-your-kids-after-school-meltdown-1829466293

.

__________________________________________