This is a little scary. I’m thinking that science has gone just a little too far.
Human milk from a cow? Read for yourself after the jump.
GM cows give ‘human’ milk
Cows have been genetically modified to produce human milk, it has emerged.
Human genes were introduced to a herd of 300 cows by Chinese scientists to provide an alternative to human milk.
The researchers are confident the milk will be as safe to drink as milk from ordinary cows.
‘The milk tastes stronger than normal milk,’ said Prof Ning Li, director of the China Agricultural University. ‘Within ten years, people will be able to pick up these products at the supermarket.’
The researchers reportedly used cloning technology to introduce human genes into the DNA of Holstein dairy cows before the genetically modified embryos were implanted into surrogate cows.
The milk produced by the offspring contains a human protein called lysozyme, which helps to protect infants from bacterial infections during their early days of life.
Other cows produce another protein from human milk called lactoferrin, which helps to boost the number of immune cells in babies.
The GM milk offered ‘similar nutritional benefits as human milk’, Prof Ning said.
He added: ‘The modified bovine milk is a possible substitute for human milk.’
However, the development has dismayed those opposed to GM foods. A spokesman for the Royal Society for the Protection of Animals said it was ‘extremely concerned’ about how the GM cows had been produced.
And Helen Wallace, director of biotechnology watchdog GeneWatch UK, said: ‘There is a question about whether milk from these cows is going to be safe for humans.’
Genetically modified? As in ‘Mutant’?
If human genes were introduced into these cows, how long will it take before they start taking on human characteristics?
It seems the Minister of Defense has put up for auction.
One battleship! Bidding under way as of this writing. Hope my wife likes it!
An auction site run by the Ministry for Defense has listed several different vessels that they want to sell including the former flagship of The Royal Navy HMS Ark Royal which was declared as unnecessary and outlined for decommissioning in the defense budget review announced by the government last year.
During it’s 25 years in service the HMS Ark Royal had been involved in many operations and as part of the Iraq invasion conflict headed the UK’s naval force.
Anyone interested in buying the HMS Ark Royal will have up until 1000 BST on the 13th June to put forward their bids however the Ministry of Defense are insisting that any potential buyer will first have to submit an outlined brief of what “intentions regarding the vessel” they have planned. At present the Ark Royal is docked at her Portsmouth Naval Base home port where any potential buyers looking to make a bid may first view her subject to having first submitted their outlined plan.
The future of The Ark Royal is unknown as it could be sold just to be scrapped although other idea’s being proposed include turning it into a nightclub, a commercial heliport and even a security personnel base to be used while the London Olympics take place.
Other vessels that have been included on the auction site for sale include HMS Nottingham, HMS Southampton and HMS Exeter all of which are Type-42 destroyers.
Submit my intentions? I suppose ‘World Domination’ would disqualify my bid.
Seems as Southwest Airlines has had a couple of problems lately. I remember flying Southwest back in the day when they made flying fun, but this brings a whole new level to fun..
Southwest grounds about 80 planes after mishap.
Mishap?
A passenger aboard a Southwest Airlines flight shot this photo of the apparent hole torn in the cabin ceiling when the fuselage ruptured shortly after takeoff from Phoenix on Friday. The airline has grounded about 80 similar planes so that they can be inspected.
And the rest of the story?
PHOENIX | Flight attendants had just begun to take drink orders when the explosion rocked the cabin.
Aboard Southwest Flight 812, Shawna Malvini Redden covered her ears, then felt a brisk wind rush by. Oxygen masks fell, the cabin lost pressure, and Redden, suddenly lightheaded, fumbled to put the mask on.
Then she prayed. And instinctively, she reached out to the stranger seated next to her in Row 8 as the pilot of the damaged aircraft began a rapid descent from about 34,400 feet.
“I don’t know this dude, but I was like, ‘I’m going to just hold your ” Redden, an Arizona State University student, recalled Saturday, a day hand,’ after her Phoenix-to-Sacramento flight was forced into an emergency landing at a military base in Yuma, Ariz., with a hole a few feet long in the roof of the passenger cabin.
No serious injuries were reported among the 118 people aboard, said airline officials.
What caused part of the fuselage to rupture on the 15-year-old Boeing 737-300 was a mystery. The FBI said there was no reason to suspect terrorism.
National Transportation Safety Board member Robert Sumwalt said investigators would cut a piece out of the fuselage and study it for fracture patterns. Data from the plane’s flight recorders and black boxes also would be examined, he said.
Southwest, meanwhile, grounded about 80 similar planes so that they could be inspected, and canceled some 300 flights Saturday because of the reduced fleet.
Southwest operates about 170 Boeing 737-300s in its fleet of about 540 planes, but it replaced the aluminum skin on many of the 300s in recent years, airline spokeswoman Linda Rutherford said. The planes that were grounded Saturday had not had their skin replaced, she said.
A total of 288 Boeing 737-300s currently operate in the U.S. fleet, and 931 operate worldwide, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
Ok.. Southwest has had an impeccable record for a long time. It’s really a shame to hear about this. I hope they get things back on track with their fleets soon.
Tanker Overturns, Spilling Whiskey On Ky. Road Unclear How Much 7,000-Gallon Cargo Spilled
GEORGETOWN, Ky. — It was a “bottoms up” of a different variety. Authorities in Scott County said a tanker truck carrying Canadian Club whiskey overturned Wednesday on U.S. 460 as it was being driven to the Jim Beam distillery in Frankfort.
No other vehicles were involved and Scott County Emergency Management Agency director Jack Donovan told the Lexington Herald-Leader the truck driver wasn’t hurt.
The road was closed while the flammable load was retrieved and the truck uprighted. Donovan said the tanker was leaking in two places, but it wasn’t clear how much of the 7,000-gallon cargo spilled.
Please, please don’t let a beer truck fall off a bridge or something…..
There’s a lot of media coverage on this, but I just have to tackle it. Here’s my new rule of thumb: “If your day takes a horrible turn for the worst, blame the pelican.”
From La Marque, Tx. comes this news blurb.
According to the Galveston County Daily News, a Lufkin man rocketed his $1.3 million-dollar Bugatti Veyron into two feet of water. The man was driving through the area to look at real estate, when a low-flying pelican distracted him. Or that’s his story and he’s sticking to it.
Obama had his most irreverent answer yet on the question of whether some of the vitriolic reaction to his health care plan is driven at least partly by racism. “First of all, I think it’s important to realize that I was actually black before the election,” Obama said to huge laughs from Letterman and the audience. Responded Letterman: “How long have you been a black man?”
He’s black? I thought he just had a really good tan!
Anyway, watch the clip.
I think that President Obama is probably one of the most seen and heard Presidents of the last several presidents (at least the ones I can remember). And that is probably a good thing for this country.
I suppose that depends on what your ‘Dream Pet’ is, but lets say for a dog. A specially bred dog. $1,000? $5,000?
Maybe $582,000 for a Tibetan Mastiff?
Well according to this article at The London Times (Online), that is exactly what one woman paid for her pet. Now I must admit, that kind of money for a pet seems rather extreme, but I assume there was very good reason for the cost. Don’t get me wrong, I love my dogs and would provide them with anything they needed. But I don’t think I would pay that much for a pet. But then again, I don’t have that kind of disposable income.
This to me is a little scary. I ran across this article on that is called iCub. It’s a robot, that they are working on developing artificial intelligence, to the point that it can think and do on it’s own. Seems that the androids in Star Trek may be coming to reality. I originally read the article on Science Daily and started searching Google for more information. The article states (in part);
Researchers want to learn more about how humans use cognition to interact with their world. They believe iCub’s human-like body will help them to understand how this is done.
Human like body? The picture in the article really doesn’t do the iCub justice, at least looking at it now… One of the other points in the article is this:
“We are really interested in making robots more empathetic to our needs. Imagine owning a robot like iCub who could be intelligent enough to understand that you are struggling to lift a heavy box and it helps you to carry it or imagine getting it to help you put up a shelf or do the housework because it recognises that you are ill. The work that we are doing could one day make this a reality.”
I wonder if I could get it to mow the yard?
Seriously, there are a few videos out there on the iCub. Go take a look and be amazed.
Stupidity rules. The following is an excerpt from Fox News.
While thousands have fled, two people who tried to ride out the firestorm in a backyard hot tub were burned. The pair in Big Tujunga Canyon, on the southwestern edge of the fire, “completely underestimated the fire” and the hot tub provided “no protection whatsoever,” Sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore said Sunday.
