Something Fishy About GM Salmon

English: Illustration of various salmon (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If you’ve been dreaming of eating fresh, GM certified salmon, your wish may soon come true?  Bred in tanks and substantially meatier, genetically engineered salmon could be the next culinary fad.   One fish to feed a family of six or ten.  Don’t like the taste of salmon, or the spelling of the word, no problem, scientists can engineer out the salmon flavor and the l and make it taste like catfish.  Made to order.  “I’ll have the samon fish sticks please”.

The thing is, as safe as scientists say this grand experiment is, they do admit the potential for ecological problems.  First, GM bred salmon can breed with brown trout and produce a hybrid that carries the genetically modified genes.  So what, you may ask?  Here’s the deal, those offspring  grow quickly and out-compete other fish for limited resources.  Carry this out to the extreme and we’re talking an eventual battle between jumping carp, jelly fish and GM salmon for complete aquatic domination.  Now if scientists could figure out a way to create a jelly bean flavored jelly fish that can be frozen and made into raspberry jello or gelato…

Related articles

• Salmon hybrid offspring out compete brown trout (sherrconsultingblog.com)
• GM ‘hybrid’ salmon can breed with wild fish and harm ecosystem, warns study (independent.co.uk)

Mutant Genes on Casual Friday

You are probably walking around with some mutated jeans and don’t even know it. No, I am not talking about casual Friday, or the latest fashion. It’s genes I mean. Humans are brimming with genetic mutations, or to put it more mildly, flawed genes, even the healthy among us. The gene pool is corrupt. Some of the mutations spell disaster in the form of disease – heart disease, cancer and the like. The interesting point of all of this is that if you wanted to have your DNA analyzed, you could meet your genetic mutations, all 400 of them, which is the average number most of us have. But I’m not sure I want to get to know my bad genes. I don’t need any negativity in my life. I don’t want to deal with any trouble makers. But surely there’s something we can do to get rid of the mutations, no? I drink diet soda and eat cheese dip with Rotel. I’m thinking the jalapenos in the Rotel might take out at least a few of the rogue genes and come on, how many of them can survive in a pool of carbonated artificial sweeteners?

I suppose one day science will find a way to engineer out all the bad genes so that humans can live for a whole lot longer than we do. That of course would put a big strain on the solvency of social security, unless we raised the retirement age to something like 130. And I imagine doctors could design a baby to the specifications of the parent. Wouldn’t that be a sight?  Or a fright!

Related articles

• New study shows healthy adults have hundreds of gene mutations (cinewsnow.com)
• Gene network illuminates stress, mutation and adaptation responses (sciencedaily.com)