In today’s Urban Cowboy, I’m touching on how animal technologies — cloning, genetic engineering, artificial insemination and embryo transfer — are being developed with the drive towards cheap, affordable food and environmental sustainability in mind. Remember Dolly the sheep? She was a cloned animal. She was actually named after Dolly Parton, because she came from a mammary cell. The two Dollys are pictured below.
In response to my column in the Mercury, Canadian livestock genetics pioneer and University of Guelph professor emeritus Ted Burnside wrote a letter to the editor highlighting the contributions of the Centre for the Genetic Improvement of Livestock, which he cofounded. I’d mentioned the centre in my Urban Cowboy column a few weeks ago.