Cloning Livestock
By Max Manfre
What is cloning livestock?
Many people believe that humans would benefit if we were able to clone our livestock. This can range anywhere from pigs, to cows, and to chicken. It mostly means more milk, and meat. The process is done by taking the nucleus out of one animal's cell, and putting it into cells of the other animal. to be a clone, the other organism would need to have the exact same DNA as the starting organism.
Is It Used Today? What Are Its Uses?
As of today, no livestock is currently being cloned. However, there is work being done by scientists to potentially clone them. No scientists are saying that this should be done just yet, as it is not fully researched yet. Scientists have tried to clone microorganisms in special laboratories, but there still isn't enough research that suggests it is safe to do.
Benefits?
In the long run, we can use these cloned animals for breeding, and choosing a certain animal that is strongest, has the most meat, or gives the most milk and then cloning them, so we can have more animals just like the best ones. We will also never run out of animals to use for our needs.
The Not-So-Great-Parts
Even though cloning can be an extreme benefit for humans, there are still problems with it.
One of the major downsides are if the DNA does not fit the cloned organism, it will become deformed and mutated. Also, these clones become more prone to developing diseases, like cancers or other life-threatening diseases. Scientists are not entirely sure why this happens, but they believe it is from defected DNA or traits that the first organism had been carrying, but did not affect the organism.
How Will It Affect Other Animals And The Environment?
Even though we are just cloning the animals on our farms and plantations, it can still affect organisms that live out in the wild. For example, if an animal with a defect somehow gets out into the wild, it may find a mate, and pass its condition down to its offspring, which can spread throughout the environment, and possibly change the animal.
What Is The Economic Effect?
Because we will have so much livestock, there will be no shortage of them. This means that farms and plantations will make much more money then they made before. It will also decrease the amounts of meat, chicken, eggs, and milk because there will be so much of it .
How will it affect Humans?
Since we now have the best animals, our health will improve. there may never be such thing as E.coli or salmonella. There may also be no such thing as food poisoning, or even Mad Cow. People will live healthier lives, knowing that what they are eating is the best.
Animal Cloning