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Science marches on

cow

Good news! They’ve sequenced the cow genome. Finally.

The Hereford breed is the first domestic mammal to have its DNA completely sequenced and analyzed. At last we can get busy genetically engineering a cow that eats politicians and shits icecream.

Mmmmm. Ice cream.

It took 300 scientists six years to do rifle through all 22,000 Hereford cow genes. Then they took this map and ran it against the DNA of 19 other breeds of cattle.

Humans share 80% of those cow genes, and it turns out the organization of chromosomes in man is closer to moo than mouse. And before you even THINK about saying, “ZOMG! That means we’re all a real lot like cows!” …um, no, it means small genetic variations make huge differences.

God you get on my nerves sometimes.

June 1, 2009 — 6:49 pm
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