Salmon gives birth to trout - gives hope to endangered fish

[indigobusiness]

Biology textbooks will never quite be the same again. Scientists have altered the reproductive organs of salmon so that they produce trout offspring.

A "germ" tissue from young trout was put into young salmon so that when the salmon became sexually mature they produced the sperm and eggs of trout. In a study published today in the journal Nature, the researchers report that they have successfully used the technique to breed healthy rainbow trout from salmon parents.

The scientists, led by Yutaka Takeuchi of the Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology, said that the development could help many of the world's endangered species of fish. Dr Takeuchi said tissue transplants from one endangered species to a related but more common species that is easier to rear in captivity could help to boost the wild populations of threatened or commercially valuable fish.


http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=548042

[prodigal_green]

1. You know where this is going don't you?

I don't want to ruin my perfect surgically enhanced body--please obtain a surrogate gorilla for me.

But that is good news for the trout!

[indigobusiness]

2. That would be one way to keep gorillas from going extinct.

Brilliant!

[phantom power]

3. Does that make it a "salmon of a trout"?

(apologies to Douglas Adams)

[blindpig]

4. neat trick but

how about just letting trout do their thing in the wild? Useful for last ditch efforts but should we let it get that far? I suppose it's easier to pull off neat tricks like this than to curb human greed and stupidity.

[indigobusiness]

5. Of course we shouldn't let things get this bad, but we did

and if species can be saved, I applaud those doing the saving.

[blindpig]

6. while I agree that extinction must be prevented at all cost

this guy seems to be more interested in providing sushi. Expect that if this technique becomes practicable that it will primarily be used for commercial species and perhaps a few high profile charismatic species. Nobody's going to use expensive, high tech techniques to save LBJs(little brown jobs). Much better to reserve habitats and species in situ.

[indigobusiness]

7. People gotta eat...and the seas are dying...Sushi? I guess...

I'm concerned about bio-engineering and the ethics of frankenstein science, but we are nearing a time when techniques like this will be needed to feed the bulldog.

Jobs are becoming a joke, survival is the issue.

[blindpig]

8. my concern

is primarily the continuance of natural life as best as can be. What our species has done to our fellow life forms in the past 40,000 years is criminal stupidity. Yeah, we gotta eat, but you don't kill the milk cow. If we wish to prove that we are a maladapted species, well and good, but taking down the rest of the biosphere with us is sickening.

[indigobusiness]

9. The current mass extintion began with the industrial revolution.

And we are in the midst of a stop gap scenario. It is counterproductive to wax nostalgic about 'what was', when we are in a catastrophic 'what is'.

We have killed the milk cow, that is why desperate technology is being developed that has salmon spawning trout.

Of course we have ruined the garden, and I agree with Twain, Einstein and Vonnegut in giving up on man, but the good fight is still on...at least some are still fighting the good fight.

Curse the darkness, or light a candle...choose.