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FDA Approves First CRISPR Cows for Beef

179 points by Ice_cream_suit 5y ago

tormock 5y ago
They will get more sun burns... at least I do when I shave my head. They are probably doing this because the hair are a nuisance when they process the skins?
- thebricksta 5y ago
  The optimist in me hopes this really is a quality of life improvement for the cattle. The pessimist in me fears this a way to begin patenting livestock.
  - x3c 5y ago
    Being out in the sun itself would be a huge step up in quality of life of cattle. Doubt free range cows represent a majority.
    - tormock 5y ago
      Either way, 1/2" long hair probably isn't a big overheating factor
AndyMcConachie 5y ago
0) Raise cattle 1) Earth gets warmer because we do shit like raise cattle 2) Cattle might die 3) Bio-engineer cattle that can live on warmer earth 4) ??? 5) Get fucked
- spicymaki 5y ago
  Perhaps we can bio-engineer humans to be humane. I would back that research.
riteme 5y ago
viswd 5y ago
More patented life and another food product I plan to avoid. I wonder if the average consumer will be as disgusted and turned off by the idea of eating genetically modfied meat as I am.
- jsnodlin 5y ago
  Not in the least. What’s so disgusting about it? Totally concerned about “patented life” however.
- ekianjo 5y ago
  > average consumer will be as disgusted and turned off by the idea of eating genetically modfied meat as I am. And yet people seem to be interested in lab-produced meat alternatives that use synthetic blood-like formula to make it taste like actual meat?
  - rtpg 5y ago
    Right because of the idea that you can look at lab produced meat and feel like there is basically no suffering involved.
  - ticviking 5y ago
    Most meat alternatives sit on the shelves around here even when we have people stocking up for severe weather and there's nothing else left.
- awb 5y ago
  Price tends to be a big persuader.
- kmlx 5y ago
  > I wonder if the average consumer will be as disgusted and turned off by the idea of eating genetically modfied meat as I am. quite the contrary. i think this should be celebrated as a great achievement and will happily eat it if it’s delicious :P
- diffeomorphism 5y ago
ksec 5y ago
From the 12+ Years on HN I know this is an unpopular opinion. I dont like GMO / Genome-edited cattle / food or crops. Even if it could theoretically occur through a natural breeding process. You can cross breed all you want. GMO is not cross breed as many on HN somehow believes last time we had this discussions. You can do Data Science and other controlled environment in providing better yield as in EUR ( Or specifically the Dutch ). And we may soon have Cattle labeled as GMO / Genome-Edit Free as selling point, as US likes to do with Antibiotic Free and Growth Hormones free labels. Part of the reason why EU has never been keen on US Beef import. To add some other context, US Beef export rank third in export volume and first or second in export revenue.
- ekianjo 5y ago
  > Even if it could theoretically occur through a natural breeding process. You can cross breed all you want. I'm no fan of GMO products either, but the whole point is that it gets you there faster , and in a more predictable way, than doing cross-breeding. Economics at work.
- Thorrez 5y ago
  >And we may soon have Cattle labeled as GMO / Genome-Edit Free as selling point A lot of food I buy has labels saying GMO-free on it. Although maybe that's just to distinguish from GMO plants currently.
  - klondike_ 5y ago
    There are actually very few GMO crops available commercially. Mostly corn and wheat. The "No GMO" label is meaningless for most products that don't use these ingredients
    - ksec 5y ago
      And potatoes.
    - ben_w 5y ago
      Most of the hard cheese I eat was processed with genetically modified bacterial rennet, and would otherwise not be vegetarian.
danielovichdk 5y ago
Address the real problem. We are too many people on the earth for the resources that we are naturally given. That's a fact.
- ekianjo 5y ago
  > We are too many people on the earth for the resources that we are naturally given. The same old rant that we hear for like 100 years now "when we reach 1 billion people everyone will starve", "peak oil is just around the corner (back in the 70s)", and all this kind of bullshit. Resources are plentiful as long as you are ingenious when it comes to harvesting them.
  - pixiemaster 5y ago
    exactly. the Stone Age didn’t end because they ran out of stones.
  - fnord77 5y ago
    like nuclear fusion, peak oil is perpetually 10-15 years away
    - ben_w 5y ago
      American oil peaked and then declined almost exactly as expected, and only saw a second growth phase when a new category of resources became exploitable. IMO, given the scale of everything in the USA, it’s more luck than anything else that the world is getting sufficiently cheap renewables and batteries on the right schedule to avoid peak oil actually harming civilisation in general and the USA catastrophically — the principle is a valid one, and in a hypothetical alternative world where global reserves had been half what they were, American rural areas would have had a much harder time than European equivalents adapting to electric power and long distance transport in the 70s.
  - danielovichdk 5y ago
    Who is polluting the world ? Why are we breeding cattle which has modified genes for not sweating ? You say resources are plentiful but apploud (?) modified cattle so they don't sweat, so they don't pollute and so we all can keep eating meat. You really don't see a flaw in that ? Of course we are too many people. Denying that is really naive.
mgerdts 5y ago
I first thought “oh great more GMOs to maximize corporate profits while making animals miserable. Then my hopes rose with this: > They were bred with climate change in mind So they’ve found a way to have happy cows that burp less methane? No? Shorter hair so their methane burb greenhouse doesn’t feel so hot? Oh. This probably just boils down to profits after all.
- lonk 5y ago
  I wonder which one effectfull to climate change, people's total farts vs the total farts of cows in the world?
  - karmakurtisaani 5y ago
    Cows by a wide margin, probably. And it's mainly their burps, actually.
    - kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
      Everyone forgets the missing methane output from the nearly extirpated bison population. Cattle in north america are only slightly more numerous than the peak bison population.
      - ben_w 5y ago
        I wasn’t expecting to ask this when I woke up this morning but: how much methane did bison burp relative to the same biomass of modern cattle?
        imtringued 5y ago
        Probably less because we are feeding the cheapest source of feed to cows, not what they can digest the best. The food that your body fails to digest will be digested in the big intestine which can lead to bloating.
futuretom2055 5y ago
judging from the article right above this one, soon we will see "Lawmakers Eats CRISPR Beef to Celebrate Legality, Become Immediately Sick (2055) (modernfarmer.com)"
- Thorrez 5y ago
  Why 2055? Isn't it legal right now?
  - DocTomoe 5y ago
    It will take some time for the public to take notice and create a meaningful movement against that thing. For nuclear, it took about 35 years before we saw public protest that was more than just three potentially mentally unstable folks raving about the end of the world.
    - zaroth 5y ago
      The nuke protests just managed to line Russia’s pockets with German treasure and lead to more coal deaths, so perhaps it’s an apt comparison, but not the one you’re looking for.
dmix 5y ago
Horse breeding is a big business. That would probably be a good target for this sort of thing.
- kmlx 5y ago
  maybe falconry as well? big business in some parts of the world…
  - Eduard 5y ago
    Maybe naked mole-rats as well?
betwixthewires 5y ago
I want to know what exactly was changed to help them "endure climate change" because to me it sounds like bullshit designed to create a proprietary cow genome with a pretty story to sell it.
- dillondoyle 5y ago
  Also 'endure climate change' is so grossly ironic. Instead of factoring in the costs of our actions, engineer ways to lower price and feed more demand -> and thus creating more methane, forest destruction, emissions from feed, huge waste of water, and all the gas shipping it a continent away. If people won't reduce their beef consumption, maybe we can crispr out some methane (seems not possible just based on chemistry but who knows?). Or maybe just let the real price with externalities lower consumption.
  - s1artibartfast 5y ago
    The methane isn't from the cows, it is from the bacteria in their gut. It can be greatly reduced with supplemental feeding that changes the microbiome
    - Eduard 5y ago
      The methane isn't from the bacteria, it is from their food. If the inefficient cow/bacteria processing step is skipped, the whole production pipeline is greatly more climate-friendly.
      - s1artibartfast 5y ago
        More specifically, it is a waste product from bacteria digesting the food. The food doesn't turn to methane without the bacteria. https://jasbsci.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40104-017-0145-9 https://jasbsci.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40104-01...
        matthewdgreen 5y ago
0des 5y ago
This might be an unpopular opinion here but if this puts more beef on the table or at a lesser price, bring it on. I love beef. I want more people to have access to good quality beef at a competitive price. The pandemic for me saw meat in general double in price on average. I can't in good faith consume corn, tomatoes, tobacco, or even broccoli while saying I don't support GMO. It is not the same but it also is not an entirely unrelated concept. As an engineer we are taught to analyze and overcome and to me this is nothing different.
- bigDinosaur 5y ago
  if you have literally no concern about the suffering of animals, then it's a good thing. If you think that the suffering of animals outweighs people's preferences (not needs, you can thrive on a vegetarian diet) then this is absolutely not good. I'm happy to see high prices for beef, and would be happy if everyone was priced out of eating it. As second best, I'd be happy if people at least considered the suffering that went into their food production and chose to reduce that consumption even if they feel they cannot eliminate it.
  - triyambakam 5y ago
    I felt sad seeing the cows in the featured article :( Friends not food.
  - throwaway73838 5y ago
    I agree. I think eating meat is abhorrent, and genetically mutilating animals even more so. Selective breeding is one thing, but this opens the doors to all kinds of ‘design gene’ questions that I don’t think the world is ready for, or ever should be.
    - furstenheim 5y ago
      How is selective breeding good? There are dog breeds that have respiratory problems all their lives. CRISPR should open the door to genetic improvements without genetic diversity loss
kotxig 5y ago
It's good for climate change because it will gross enough of us out to stop eating meat all together.
lonk 5y ago
If meat is designed and/or produced at lab, it is not meat. It is cancer. Do not eat cancer.
- ls15 5y ago
  Are cancerous cells unhealthy to eat?
  - ben_w 5y ago
    I don’t know, but I do know some tumours are transmissible (even interspecies) so I wouldn’t want to rule it out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clonally_transmissible_cancer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clonally_transmissible_cancer I expect thorough cooking to prevent this sort of thing, but some people do eat raw flesh deliberately.
- ben_w 5y ago
  The first two sentences are so badly wrong I don’t even know which thread to pull on to unravel your thought processes. (I can’t speak for the third). Do you believe that “natural” is tautologically equivalent to “good”?
verisimi 5y ago
This is great news, and overdue! Of course there are issues with mere humans editing creatures, and true, coarse-grained crispr editing could result in unintended consequences. But our ethics committees see nothing wrong with this. And as my morality depends on what ethics are commonly said to be ethical, this is a decision I am delighted to accept. And think of all the invalid children this will help! Sure, I'm not clear on what has been edited here. Nor do I understand the legal implications of the editing, where a corporation is now considered to be a patent holder in a living cereus. And I'm not sure what the future holds for people, even though I have read talk that dna was changed by vaccines (not just rna). Surely, corporations wouldn't argue that they have a legal interest in people, and that their interests need to be accounted for? No, this is great news. Onwards and upwards into the brave new world! And special thanks to the FDA who have bravely represented the best interests of humanity, refusing to kowtow to corporate interests. I only sleep as well as I do thanks to my wonderful government and its 3-letter agencies! Good job.
microjim 5y ago
Would count this categorically as one of the ways we do not want to be using technology in the context of climate change, as it’s bypassing the negative feedback loop that already wasn’t strong enough to prevent us getting to this point in the first place.
- mrfusion 5y ago
  We need to be punished for our sins against the environment.
  - datavirtue 5y ago
    I think we should go a step further and self-flagulate, honestly. Seriously though, this quote made me laugh: "the gene-edited cattle are the same—as far as a consumer is concerned." They should peek in on the anti-vaccine crowd for a glimpse at consumer reality. I'm sure more than a few normies are going to want to see this on the label as well.
    - 34679 5y ago
      "the gene-edited cattle are the same—as far as a consumer is concerned." For me, that statement invokes thoughts of "counterfeit cattle". By that logic, there's no harm to the consumer when someone sells a knock-off purse or watch, as long as it functions the same as the original. Taken a step further, there's no harm in stealing from someone if the victim doesn't know they've been robbed. I'm not against using advances in technology to feed more people. I believe the suffering of a hungry human outweighs the suffering of that human's potential next meal. I don't think it's wrong or immoral for a lion to eat an antelope. But I do believe honesty and openness are important. I want consumers to be able to make educated decisions on what they consume. It should be easy for someone who can afford an all-organic diet to purchase products that are in fact organic.
- atemerev 5y ago
  But if the loop is eventually not strong enough to have negative effects, why should we reinforce it? I am quite optimistic that the climate change crisis will be eventually resolved by the combination of engineering to restore the environment and adapting our existing technologies to damage it less (like it’s already happening). Humans are very adaptive.
koonsolo 5y ago
In Belgium we have cows specifically breaded for meat, which are called "dikbil" =(fatbutt). It's extremely unnatural, so I'm very afraid what kind of monstrosity the industry can come up with when using gene manipulation. https://www.google.com/search?q=dikbil https://www.google.com/search?q=dikbil
- stefantalpalaru 5y ago
  > In Belgium we have cows specifically breaded for meat, which are called "dikbil" =(fatbutt). It's extremely unnatural It's muscular hyperplasia obtained from inbreeding: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_Blue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_Blue They did the same thing in Piedmont, Italy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piedmontese_cattle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piedmontese_cattle
- kawsper 5y ago
  Denmark have been breeding pigs to have a higher amount of piglets, but it makes the death rate higher, about 25.000 piglets die a day, and the pre-wean mortality rate is ~21%. We're also exporting the technology and knowledge of breeding pigs. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/30/danish-bacon-what-happens-when-you-push-pigs-to-the-absolute-limit https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/30/danish-b...
- sdflhasjd 5y ago
  "Breaded" means coated in breadcrumbs. I assume they weren't bred like that.
  - cik2e 5y ago
    I pictured a whole live cow covered in breadcrumbs instead of fur when I read that. The southern US would be a huge importer.
    - bombcar 5y ago
      If it was a chocolate cow you’d have chicken fried steak and a milkshake all in one. A marvel of engineering.
newman555 5y ago
“help endure climate change”, while beef and eating meat is one of the major contributors to climate change … This is wrong on so many levels.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
d23 5y ago
Dystopian beyond belief
amelius 5y ago
Why is this for the FDA to decide, not the electorate? We've had discussions about abortion for ages, yet here the FDA okays a human intervention just like that?
- rocqua 5y ago
  This is about suitability of meat as food. That falls squarely within the purview of the FDA. Whether this is allowed to do to animals is not determined by the FDA. I am not sure what law does cover this.
bannedbybros 5y ago
softwaredoug 5y ago
I don’t want to argue you should be vegetarian, but I hope at least people might consider eating _much less_ meat. I’m trying to save it for special occasions. It’s not always possible, but I try and do my best. https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/in-depth/meatless-meals/art-20048193 https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-h... https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/eating-less-red-meat-is-something-individuals-can-do-to-help-the-climate-crisis/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/eating-less-red-m...
- colordrops 5y ago
  I do want to argue that you should be vegan. The meat industry is very cruel to animals, and it is nearly impossible to source truly "cruelty free" meat despite marketing saying otherwise. Dairy is far worse, with cows kept in small cages, constantly impregnated to keep producing milk, their calves pulled away from them and slaughtered for veal. Eggs are also horrible, with egg chickens living miserable lives, even "free range" ones, and the male chicks being culled by being thrown into a grinder. Furthermore, water usage, water table pollution, and greenhouses gasses from animal husbandry are a significant chunk of the pie when it comes to climate change.
  - softwaredoug 5y ago
    That’s a valid position. However the reality many people I’ve found will be more open to eating less meat than going full vegan. If in the end you reduce meat consumption, it’s a win
  - wincy 5y ago
    The happiest times in my life and the healthiest I’ve ever been are always when I eat mostly meat and very little of anything else. I don’t care about the emotions of animals at all, and never will. I purposely show my daughter videos of how to slaughter farm animals to try to make sure she has a full understanding of what’s happening so she doesn’t one day realize what “pork” or “beef” means and becomes vegan. Her favorite food by far is steak. I’m all for others reducing their consumption as hopefully that’ll drop prices so I can eat more meat and feed my children more meat. Which is the only actual end result people who advocate cutting meat consumption will ever achieve.
imtringued 5y ago
I sure hope that these cows can reproduce without the authorization of a mega corporation. Everyone loves talking about how their genetic engineering technique is the best and that at worst it is only as bad as selective breeding yet they completely dismiss the fact that you cannot apply selective breeding on a lot of these GMOs.
- gruez 5y ago
  > I sure hope that these cows can reproduce without the authorization of a mega corporation. What's the concern here? That violating the reproductive rights of livestock is bad?
kickout 5y ago
My opinion continues to be tools like CRISPR and genome editing techniques are just that--tools. Can be used for good or bad purposes depending on your context and bias. Most people associate these genome modification tools as inherently bad because the first generation of them were tied to herbicide and pesticide resistance. Whether you agree with those applications or not, its clear those tools worked and were extremely powerful. I would personally argue they work too well and the 2nd and 3rd order effects are doing the most damage. But these tools exist in regulatory frameworks that are archaic and rigid and when billions of dollars are on the line companies figure out ways to play in between the lines. An optimistic person might want these tools to be used to increase taste profiles, shelf-life, nutritional content, range of adaptation, etc. A pessimist probably sees this as a faster way to add more herbicide or pesticide traits to enable those chemicals to be applied. I'm very bullish on genome editing tech. Lots of these comments are applying 1990s thinking to a 2030 and beyond tech. Akin to 1950s 'futuristic' predictions showing flying cars.
- sjmm1989 5y ago
  Anyone who has ever eaten bread or a banana, has already been technically in some fashion or another, eating GMO's. Norman Borlaug helped rid us of Wheat rust, which took a more 'natural' approach to gene editing. The banana has been a mutant for decades now.
  - qqtt 5y ago
    Also lemons, broccoli, and pretty much any modern vegetable or fruit - humans have been selectively growing plants since humans have had the knowledge of how to grow things period.
    - tsimionescu 5y ago
      What does that have to do with GMOs?
      - qqtt 5y ago
        That by selective growing of plants over thousands of years, we have altered the genetic make up of the foods we consume. While "GMO" is a "new technique", reductively this isn't exactly another dimension compared to over many years isolating and growing things like broccoli and lemons. Yes, GMO is a new technique to modify food sources away from "naturally occurring processes" - but again things like lemons and broccoli are also not naturally occurring in nature.
jdrc 5y ago
'Not' disappointed by the amount of content-free opinion in these threads. Gell-mann amnesia starts to fade
UltimateFloofy 5y ago
okja
mgraczyk 5y ago
Surprised by the negative sentiment here. This is exciting for the obvious reasons of helping make meat production more sustainable and making meat more affordable. It's also incredible that we have this technology and we're putting to uses with obviously prosocial benefits. I'm worried that we will reject climate change mitigations because of tradition or religious views. I hope we can change culturally to make it possible to survive for the next century.
orsenthil 5y ago
How do we review FDA's analysis? I hope it is available to researchers, and to public. Can someone point me to those?

They will get more sun burns... at least I do when I shave my head. They are probably doing this because the hair are a nuisance when they process the skins?

thebricksta 5y ago
The optimist in me hopes this really is a quality of life improvement for the cattle. The pessimist in me fears this a way to begin patenting livestock.
- x3c 5y ago
  Being out in the sun itself would be a huge step up in quality of life of cattle. Doubt free range cows represent a majority.
  - tormock 5y ago
    Either way, 1/2" long hair probably isn't a big overheating factor

AndyMcConachie 5y ago

0) Raise cattle 1) Earth gets warmer because we do shit like raise cattle 2) Cattle might die 3) Bio-engineer cattle that can live on warmer earth 4) ??? 5) Get fucked

spicymaki 5y ago
Perhaps we can bio-engineer humans to be humane. I would back that research.

riteme 5y ago

viswd 5y ago

More patented life and another food product I plan to avoid. I wonder if the average consumer will be as disgusted and turned off by the idea of eating genetically modfied meat as I am.

jsnodlin 5y ago
Not in the least. What’s so disgusting about it? Totally concerned about “patented life” however.
ekianjo 5y ago
> average consumer will be as disgusted and turned off by the idea of eating genetically modfied meat as I am. And yet people seem to be interested in lab-produced meat alternatives that use synthetic blood-like formula to make it taste like actual meat?
- rtpg 5y ago
  Right because of the idea that you can look at lab produced meat and feel like there is basically no suffering involved.
- ticviking 5y ago
  Most meat alternatives sit on the shelves around here even when we have people stocking up for severe weather and there's nothing else left.
awb 5y ago
Price tends to be a big persuader.
kmlx 5y ago
> I wonder if the average consumer will be as disgusted and turned off by the idea of eating genetically modfied meat as I am. quite the contrary. i think this should be celebrated as a great achievement and will happily eat it if it’s delicious :P
diffeomorphism 5y ago

ksec 5y ago

From the 12+ Years on HN I know this is an unpopular opinion. I dont like GMO / Genome-edited cattle / food or crops. Even if it could theoretically occur through a natural breeding process. You can cross breed all you want. GMO is not cross breed as many on HN somehow believes last time we had this discussions. You can do Data Science and other controlled environment in providing better yield as in EUR ( Or specifically the Dutch ). And we may soon have Cattle labeled as GMO / Genome-Edit Free as selling point, as US likes to do with Antibiotic Free and Growth Hormones free labels. Part of the reason why EU has never been keen on US Beef import. To add some other context, US Beef export rank third in export volume and first or second in export revenue.

ekianjo 5y ago
> Even if it could theoretically occur through a natural breeding process. You can cross breed all you want. I'm no fan of GMO products either, but the whole point is that it gets you there faster , and in a more predictable way, than doing cross-breeding. Economics at work.
Thorrez 5y ago
>And we may soon have Cattle labeled as GMO / Genome-Edit Free as selling point A lot of food I buy has labels saying GMO-free on it. Although maybe that's just to distinguish from GMO plants currently.
- klondike_ 5y ago
  There are actually very few GMO crops available commercially. Mostly corn and wheat. The "No GMO" label is meaningless for most products that don't use these ingredients
  - ksec 5y ago
    And potatoes.
  - ben_w 5y ago
    Most of the hard cheese I eat was processed with genetically modified bacterial rennet, and would otherwise not be vegetarian.

danielovichdk 5y ago

Address the real problem. We are too many people on the earth for the resources that we are naturally given. That's a fact.

ekianjo 5y ago
> We are too many people on the earth for the resources that we are naturally given. The same old rant that we hear for like 100 years now "when we reach 1 billion people everyone will starve", "peak oil is just around the corner (back in the 70s)", and all this kind of bullshit. Resources are plentiful as long as you are ingenious when it comes to harvesting them.
- pixiemaster 5y ago
  exactly. the Stone Age didn’t end because they ran out of stones.
- fnord77 5y ago
  like nuclear fusion, peak oil is perpetually 10-15 years away
  - ben_w 5y ago
    American oil peaked and then declined almost exactly as expected, and only saw a second growth phase when a new category of resources became exploitable. IMO, given the scale of everything in the USA, it’s more luck than anything else that the world is getting sufficiently cheap renewables and batteries on the right schedule to avoid peak oil actually harming civilisation in general and the USA catastrophically — the principle is a valid one, and in a hypothetical alternative world where global reserves had been half what they were, American rural areas would have had a much harder time than European equivalents adapting to electric power and long distance transport in the 70s.
- danielovichdk 5y ago
  Who is polluting the world ? Why are we breeding cattle which has modified genes for not sweating ? You say resources are plentiful but apploud (?) modified cattle so they don't sweat, so they don't pollute and so we all can keep eating meat. You really don't see a flaw in that ? Of course we are too many people. Denying that is really naive.

mgerdts 5y ago

I first thought “oh great more GMOs to maximize corporate profits while making animals miserable. Then my hopes rose with this: > They were bred with climate change in mind So they’ve found a way to have happy cows that burp less methane? No? Shorter hair so their methane burb greenhouse doesn’t feel so hot? Oh. This probably just boils down to profits after all.

lonk 5y ago
I wonder which one effectfull to climate change, people's total farts vs the total farts of cows in the world?
- karmakurtisaani 5y ago
  Cows by a wide margin, probably. And it's mainly their burps, actually.
  - kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
    Everyone forgets the missing methane output from the nearly extirpated bison population. Cattle in north america are only slightly more numerous than the peak bison population.
    - ben_w 5y ago
      I wasn’t expecting to ask this when I woke up this morning but: how much methane did bison burp relative to the same biomass of modern cattle?
      - imtringued 5y ago
        Probably less because we are feeding the cheapest source of feed to cows, not what they can digest the best. The food that your body fails to digest will be digested in the big intestine which can lead to bloating.

futuretom2055 5y ago

judging from the article right above this one, soon we will see "Lawmakers Eats CRISPR Beef to Celebrate Legality, Become Immediately Sick (2055) (modernfarmer.com)"

Thorrez 5y ago
Why 2055? Isn't it legal right now?
- DocTomoe 5y ago
  It will take some time for the public to take notice and create a meaningful movement against that thing. For nuclear, it took about 35 years before we saw public protest that was more than just three potentially mentally unstable folks raving about the end of the world.
  - zaroth 5y ago
    The nuke protests just managed to line Russia’s pockets with German treasure and lead to more coal deaths, so perhaps it’s an apt comparison, but not the one you’re looking for.

dmix 5y ago

Horse breeding is a big business. That would probably be a good target for this sort of thing.

kmlx 5y ago
maybe falconry as well? big business in some parts of the world…
- Eduard 5y ago
  Maybe naked mole-rats as well?

betwixthewires 5y ago

I want to know what exactly was changed to help them "endure climate change" because to me it sounds like bullshit designed to create a proprietary cow genome with a pretty story to sell it.

dillondoyle 5y ago
Also 'endure climate change' is so grossly ironic. Instead of factoring in the costs of our actions, engineer ways to lower price and feed more demand -> and thus creating more methane, forest destruction, emissions from feed, huge waste of water, and all the gas shipping it a continent away. If people won't reduce their beef consumption, maybe we can crispr out some methane (seems not possible just based on chemistry but who knows?). Or maybe just let the real price with externalities lower consumption.
- s1artibartfast 5y ago
  The methane isn't from the cows, it is from the bacteria in their gut. It can be greatly reduced with supplemental feeding that changes the microbiome
  - Eduard 5y ago
    The methane isn't from the bacteria, it is from their food. If the inefficient cow/bacteria processing step is skipped, the whole production pipeline is greatly more climate-friendly.
    - s1artibartfast 5y ago
      More specifically, it is a waste product from bacteria digesting the food. The food doesn't turn to methane without the bacteria. https://jasbsci.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40104-017-0145-9 https://jasbsci.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40104-01...
      - matthewdgreen 5y ago

0des 5y ago

This might be an unpopular opinion here but if this puts more beef on the table or at a lesser price, bring it on. I love beef. I want more people to have access to good quality beef at a competitive price. The pandemic for me saw meat in general double in price on average. I can't in good faith consume corn, tomatoes, tobacco, or even broccoli while saying I don't support GMO. It is not the same but it also is not an entirely unrelated concept. As an engineer we are taught to analyze and overcome and to me this is nothing different.

bigDinosaur 5y ago
if you have literally no concern about the suffering of animals, then it's a good thing. If you think that the suffering of animals outweighs people's preferences (not needs, you can thrive on a vegetarian diet) then this is absolutely not good. I'm happy to see high prices for beef, and would be happy if everyone was priced out of eating it. As second best, I'd be happy if people at least considered the suffering that went into their food production and chose to reduce that consumption even if they feel they cannot eliminate it.
- triyambakam 5y ago
  I felt sad seeing the cows in the featured article :( Friends not food.
- throwaway73838 5y ago
  I agree. I think eating meat is abhorrent, and genetically mutilating animals even more so. Selective breeding is one thing, but this opens the doors to all kinds of ‘design gene’ questions that I don’t think the world is ready for, or ever should be.
  - furstenheim 5y ago
    How is selective breeding good? There are dog breeds that have respiratory problems all their lives. CRISPR should open the door to genetic improvements without genetic diversity loss

kotxig 5y ago

It's good for climate change because it will gross enough of us out to stop eating meat all together.

lonk 5y ago

If meat is designed and/or produced at lab, it is not meat. It is cancer. Do not eat cancer.

ls15 5y ago
Are cancerous cells unhealthy to eat?
- ben_w 5y ago
  I don’t know, but I do know some tumours are transmissible (even interspecies) so I wouldn’t want to rule it out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clonally_transmissible_cancer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clonally_transmissible_cancer I expect thorough cooking to prevent this sort of thing, but some people do eat raw flesh deliberately.
ben_w 5y ago
The first two sentences are so badly wrong I don’t even know which thread to pull on to unravel your thought processes. (I can’t speak for the third). Do you believe that “natural” is tautologically equivalent to “good”?

verisimi 5y ago

This is great news, and overdue! Of course there are issues with mere humans editing creatures, and true, coarse-grained crispr editing could result in unintended consequences. But our ethics committees see nothing wrong with this. And as my morality depends on what ethics are commonly said to be ethical, this is a decision I am delighted to accept. And think of all the invalid children this will help! Sure, I'm not clear on what has been edited here. Nor do I understand the legal implications of the editing, where a corporation is now considered to be a patent holder in a living cereus. And I'm not sure what the future holds for people, even though I have read talk that dna was changed by vaccines (not just rna). Surely, corporations wouldn't argue that they have a legal interest in people, and that their interests need to be accounted for? No, this is great news. Onwards and upwards into the brave new world! And special thanks to the FDA who have bravely represented the best interests of humanity, refusing to kowtow to corporate interests. I only sleep as well as I do thanks to my wonderful government and its 3-letter agencies! Good job.

microjim 5y ago

Would count this categorically as one of the ways we do not want to be using technology in the context of climate change, as it’s bypassing the negative feedback loop that already wasn’t strong enough to prevent us getting to this point in the first place.

mrfusion 5y ago
We need to be punished for our sins against the environment.
- datavirtue 5y ago
  I think we should go a step further and self-flagulate, honestly. Seriously though, this quote made me laugh: "the gene-edited cattle are the same—as far as a consumer is concerned." They should peek in on the anti-vaccine crowd for a glimpse at consumer reality. I'm sure more than a few normies are going to want to see this on the label as well.
  - 34679 5y ago
    "the gene-edited cattle are the same—as far as a consumer is concerned." For me, that statement invokes thoughts of "counterfeit cattle". By that logic, there's no harm to the consumer when someone sells a knock-off purse or watch, as long as it functions the same as the original. Taken a step further, there's no harm in stealing from someone if the victim doesn't know they've been robbed. I'm not against using advances in technology to feed more people. I believe the suffering of a hungry human outweighs the suffering of that human's potential next meal. I don't think it's wrong or immoral for a lion to eat an antelope. But I do believe honesty and openness are important. I want consumers to be able to make educated decisions on what they consume. It should be easy for someone who can afford an all-organic diet to purchase products that are in fact organic.
atemerev 5y ago
But if the loop is eventually not strong enough to have negative effects, why should we reinforce it? I am quite optimistic that the climate change crisis will be eventually resolved by the combination of engineering to restore the environment and adapting our existing technologies to damage it less (like it’s already happening). Humans are very adaptive.

koonsolo 5y ago

In Belgium we have cows specifically breaded for meat, which are called "dikbil" =(fatbutt). It's extremely unnatural, so I'm very afraid what kind of monstrosity the industry can come up with when using gene manipulation. https://www.google.com/search?q=dikbil https://www.google.com/search?q=dikbil

stefantalpalaru 5y ago
> In Belgium we have cows specifically breaded for meat, which are called "dikbil" =(fatbutt). It's extremely unnatural It's muscular hyperplasia obtained from inbreeding: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_Blue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_Blue They did the same thing in Piedmont, Italy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piedmontese_cattle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piedmontese_cattle
kawsper 5y ago
Denmark have been breeding pigs to have a higher amount of piglets, but it makes the death rate higher, about 25.000 piglets die a day, and the pre-wean mortality rate is ~21%. We're also exporting the technology and knowledge of breeding pigs. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/30/danish-bacon-what-happens-when-you-push-pigs-to-the-absolute-limit https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/30/danish-b...
sdflhasjd 5y ago
"Breaded" means coated in breadcrumbs. I assume they weren't bred like that.
- cik2e 5y ago
  I pictured a whole live cow covered in breadcrumbs instead of fur when I read that. The southern US would be a huge importer.
  - bombcar 5y ago
    If it was a chocolate cow you’d have chicken fried steak and a milkshake all in one. A marvel of engineering.

newman555 5y ago

“help endure climate change”, while beef and eating meat is one of the major contributors to climate change … This is wrong on so many levels.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

d23 5y ago

Dystopian beyond belief

amelius 5y ago

Why is this for the FDA to decide, not the electorate? We've had discussions about abortion for ages, yet here the FDA okays a human intervention just like that?

rocqua 5y ago
This is about suitability of meat as food. That falls squarely within the purview of the FDA. Whether this is allowed to do to animals is not determined by the FDA. I am not sure what law does cover this.

bannedbybros 5y ago

softwaredoug 5y ago

I don’t want to argue you should be vegetarian, but I hope at least people might consider eating _much less_ meat. I’m trying to save it for special occasions. It’s not always possible, but I try and do my best. https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/in-depth/meatless-meals/art-20048193 https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-h... https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/eating-less-red-meat-is-something-individuals-can-do-to-help-the-climate-crisis/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/eating-less-red-m...

colordrops 5y ago
I do want to argue that you should be vegan. The meat industry is very cruel to animals, and it is nearly impossible to source truly "cruelty free" meat despite marketing saying otherwise. Dairy is far worse, with cows kept in small cages, constantly impregnated to keep producing milk, their calves pulled away from them and slaughtered for veal. Eggs are also horrible, with egg chickens living miserable lives, even "free range" ones, and the male chicks being culled by being thrown into a grinder. Furthermore, water usage, water table pollution, and greenhouses gasses from animal husbandry are a significant chunk of the pie when it comes to climate change.
- softwaredoug 5y ago
  That’s a valid position. However the reality many people I’ve found will be more open to eating less meat than going full vegan. If in the end you reduce meat consumption, it’s a win
- wincy 5y ago
  The happiest times in my life and the healthiest I’ve ever been are always when I eat mostly meat and very little of anything else. I don’t care about the emotions of animals at all, and never will. I purposely show my daughter videos of how to slaughter farm animals to try to make sure she has a full understanding of what’s happening so she doesn’t one day realize what “pork” or “beef” means and becomes vegan. Her favorite food by far is steak. I’m all for others reducing their consumption as hopefully that’ll drop prices so I can eat more meat and feed my children more meat. Which is the only actual end result people who advocate cutting meat consumption will ever achieve.

imtringued 5y ago

I sure hope that these cows can reproduce without the authorization of a mega corporation. Everyone loves talking about how their genetic engineering technique is the best and that at worst it is only as bad as selective breeding yet they completely dismiss the fact that you cannot apply selective breeding on a lot of these GMOs.

gruez 5y ago
> I sure hope that these cows can reproduce without the authorization of a mega corporation. What's the concern here? That violating the reproductive rights of livestock is bad?

kickout 5y ago

My opinion continues to be tools like CRISPR and genome editing techniques are just that--tools. Can be used for good or bad purposes depending on your context and bias. Most people associate these genome modification tools as inherently bad because the first generation of them were tied to herbicide and pesticide resistance. Whether you agree with those applications or not, its clear those tools worked and were extremely powerful. I would personally argue they work too well and the 2nd and 3rd order effects are doing the most damage. But these tools exist in regulatory frameworks that are archaic and rigid and when billions of dollars are on the line companies figure out ways to play in between the lines. An optimistic person might want these tools to be used to increase taste profiles, shelf-life, nutritional content, range of adaptation, etc. A pessimist probably sees this as a faster way to add more herbicide or pesticide traits to enable those chemicals to be applied. I'm very bullish on genome editing tech. Lots of these comments are applying 1990s thinking to a 2030 and beyond tech. Akin to 1950s 'futuristic' predictions showing flying cars.

sjmm1989 5y ago
Anyone who has ever eaten bread or a banana, has already been technically in some fashion or another, eating GMO's. Norman Borlaug helped rid us of Wheat rust, which took a more 'natural' approach to gene editing. The banana has been a mutant for decades now.
- qqtt 5y ago
  Also lemons, broccoli, and pretty much any modern vegetable or fruit - humans have been selectively growing plants since humans have had the knowledge of how to grow things period.
  - tsimionescu 5y ago
    What does that have to do with GMOs?
    - qqtt 5y ago
      That by selective growing of plants over thousands of years, we have altered the genetic make up of the foods we consume. While "GMO" is a "new technique", reductively this isn't exactly another dimension compared to over many years isolating and growing things like broccoli and lemons. Yes, GMO is a new technique to modify food sources away from "naturally occurring processes" - but again things like lemons and broccoli are also not naturally occurring in nature.

jdrc 5y ago

'Not' disappointed by the amount of content-free opinion in these threads. Gell-mann amnesia starts to fade

UltimateFloofy 5y ago

okja

mgraczyk 5y ago

Surprised by the negative sentiment here. This is exciting for the obvious reasons of helping make meat production more sustainable and making meat more affordable. It's also incredible that we have this technology and we're putting to uses with obviously prosocial benefits. I'm worried that we will reject climate change mitigations because of tradition or religious views. I hope we can change culturally to make it possible to survive for the next century.

orsenthil 5y ago

How do we review FDA's analysis? I hope it is available to researchers, and to public. Can someone point me to those?