
China cloning on an 'industrial scale' - bane
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25576718
======
awakeasleep
The part about halting pig's aging at one year stopped me in my tracks.

The whole article was incredible, but that has been my lifelong dream (for
pets) Imagine a dog that stayed one year old forever. Or a giraffe.

Edit: Guys. I get this isn't an immortal dog. I just want it to stop growing
at one year, like the article says. I also understand this isn't a perfect
commercialized technology.

~~~
prawn
Kittens forever. Would sell like crazy, then they'd get their butts kicked out
on the street.

Maybe when they discover how to maintain the playfulness of a kitten in an
adult cat forever...

~~~
arethuza
Our two Burmese cats are eight years old and are still as playful, energetic
and affectionate as when we got them as kittens - even though they are now
quite a bit larger and heavier.

This appears to be a characteristic of the breed:

"Burmese maintain kitten-like interests and energy throughout their
adulthood."

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burmese_%28cat%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burmese_%28cat%29)

[Should be noted that they are also utterly gorgeous as well]

~~~
DamnYuppie
I have a Burmese and they are VERY playful and energetic, sometimes too much
so. But they are an absolute blast of a pet.

------
car
_" BGI offers a glimpse of what industrial scale could bring to the future of
biology."_

 _" If it tastes good you should sequence it," he tells me. "You should know
what's in the genes of that species."_

 _" A third category is if it looks cute - anything that looks cute: panda,
polar bear, penguin, you should really sequence it - it's like digitalising
all the wonderful species," he explains._

~~~
waterlesscloud
Man. This disturbs me on a visceral level, even though I know it's inevitable.

~~~
gscott
He is like a developer who can do backend code and understands marketing too.

------
logn
We should be cautious of making even more of our food supply dependent on
cloning. Then one virus/etc can take out most of the supply. Look at what
happened with cloned orange trees.

~~~
gcb0
or bananas. but unless you go back in time and change nature, we will continue
to only have cloned bananas... unless I'm ignorant of some sexual species (no
pun intended)

what they are doing is not becoming dependent of cloning (i hope) but
experimenting. so what that we sequenced dna? what does pair 3531 do? they
change it to know values (how that part is done intrigues me) and observe the
result. ah ok, now we know that pair controls growth hormone. see, science.

it is very similar to what that monk did with flies, which is the reason today
that medicine knows if you will have some genetic disease based on family
history.

~~~
Silures
a monk and his peas

~~~
gcb0
right, mixed up the history of genetics study a little.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drosophila_melanogaster#History...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drosophila_melanogaster#History_of_use_in_genetic_analysis)

------
ck2
When China finishes its industrial age, it is going to be one terrifying
economic force to reckon with.

It is going to be completely self-sustaining, why will it need to answer to
anyone.

We've become completely reliant on it and we keep feeding it all our cash.

~~~
junto
China is the the world as Google is to the internet.

I've said this before, but we should not forget that for 2000 years China was
way ahead of other cultures both economically and scientifically. They had a
100 year blip and now they are back with their human ppulation almost
completely under their control. Nothing will stand in the way of progress.

Human life is cheap. They have a billion of them and counting. Be afraid, be
very afraid.

~~~
shalalala
Oh please. Take your fear mongering elsewhere.

------
Fuxy
People are going to freak out on this.

I just hope all the negative press wont stop them from continuing.

I have nothing against cloning it's a natural step in biology if we don't do
it we won't be able to discover new things.

~~~
jcfrei
I'm sure they (BGI) will make lot's of mistakes along the way, but they got
the right attitude.

------
anigbrowl
Execrable writing, but interesting to see that they're industrializing this
already.

~~~
richardjordan
As a long time fan of the BBC (well all my life really) their web written
content often disappoints. When it's on a topic I know it's too often wrong or
misleading. They need to bring their written web content up to the level of
the rest of their media product.

------
raghuHack
Would have liked some more info on how they counteract the risks of cloning.
Firstly, a success rate of 70-80% is unheard of wrt cloning. Survival rate of
clones is very less compared to the natural borns (I know that the pigs
probably get killed for food, but a low survival rate could be indicative of
unhealthiness too). Lastly, cloning is prone to complications during growth.
(more on that here -
[http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/cloning/cloningrisks/](http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/cloning/cloningrisks/))

I wouldn't want to eat a cloned pig. Would you?

~~~
1stop
Unless there was evidence to show that a particular clone was bad for you (to
eat) why wouldn't you eat it?

You trust 'natural selection' more than 'attempted perfect clone'... why?

~~~
pyre
Your premise seems to be that if the natural born animal is ok to eat, then
the clone of it is ok to eat. On the other hand, if the survival rate of
clones is less than natural born, doesn't that imply that the two aren't
exactly equal?

~~~
Blahah
The survival rate is different because of the way they blastocysts have to be
implanted. We have no reason to presuppose that cloned animals will present
more risk to eat than bred animals.

------
galaktor
I found this amusing: "This is a BGI innovation: replacing expensive machines
with people."

Probably because it seems contrary to the common (western?) opinion that
workers might eventually be replaced by "cheaper" machines.

(fwiw I'm aware that it's not that simple, but from my experience many people
think machines are always cheaper than human workers)

~~~
jeremywenisch
China may also be more accustomed to seeing people as a cheaper resource.

------
narrator
Is there any good source for China science news in English?

~~~
bsaul
Damn, this sentence shows just how deep in the sh*t we in the west really have
become standing.

~~~
culturestate
I'm not sure I follow — how would it have been any different if he were
looking for translations of, say, German news?

~~~
bsaul
i include Germany in "the west".

Seing someone on hacker news trying to find scientific news in english from
China is a big hint that china is now where scientific breakthrough will
occur. And since China still remains a pretty "special" political regime, i
don't feel very reassured.

~~~
Blahah
For a long time exciting science has been coming from China. Why is that a
problem? It's not a competition :) it's all good for the world.

~~~
bsaul
Hmm, not sure today's china government is aiming at making "the world" a
better place. They seem pretty focused on China only interest at the moment
(and not everyone in China i would add)...

~~~
Blahah
It doesn't matter what their aim is, BGI are advancing science that benefits
us all. They publish their research, we read it, everyone wins. Except the
pigs.

------
walshemj
500 pigs a year is not industrial scale it's small scale batch production if
that.

~~~
est
Like a Chinese once said, a single spark can start a prairie fire

------
campbellmorgan
for anybody with a new yorker subscription this article on BGI is also
fascinating
[http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/01/06/140106fa_fact_...](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/01/06/140106fa_fact_specter)

------
tokenadult
The helpful link here to the New Yorker article about other BGI projects
helped establish some context for this article. The BBC and the New Yorker are
both professionally managed news organizations, but I think people don't
appreciate how practiced BGI is at playing two weaknesses of most news
organizations: (1) the gee-whiz factor of China as a still mysterious country
where most reporters can't speak the local language(s) and the government
still controls the press and (2) the gee-whiz factor of genetics research as a
developing science that seemingly explains everything. I have a lot of in-
person and online acquaintance with genetics researchers, and so far it looks
like BGI is overhyping and underdelivering in the usual manner of the science
news cycle.[1]

Particularly if we are talking about new developments in animal husbandry, an
important industry all over the world where people eat meat or use leather,
what is economical to do in one country may not be economical to do in another
country, and national barriers to free trade in animal products on dubious
scientific grounds are still very much a factor in international trade (and
thus domestic prices) for animal products. So maybe this is a big deal for hog
producers in other countries, or maybe not. The comment already posted here
that the scale described in the article kindly submitted here counts as small-
scale rather than "industrial scale" in the United States is correct--some of
my cousins are hog producers, and they keep track of all the latest technology
in the industry.

Here on Hacker News, we have had several discussions of gee-whiz stories about
predicted future developments in China that end up never happening. (How many
of you remember the many stories about the prefab skyscraper that was to be
built in a matter of days?) Predicting the future in China is easy these days:
just predict something amazing and seemingly impossible anywhere else, and
watch the journalists lap it up. But sometimes the future never comes to
China. Anyone who raises hogs for a living will follow this news closely, but
whether this news will change any practices in the worldwide industry as a
whole remains to be seen.

[1]
[http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1174](http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1174)

AFTER EDIT: From another comment in a different subthread here,

 _They 've already invested in researching the large patchwork of genes that
are correlated with high IQ._

And that is why I think BGI is more hype than substance. So far BGI has not
produced any publishable results from that research. When it has publishable
results, I venture to predict, the results will show that any one gene, and
any assemblages of genes that they find, will have limited effect on phenotype
for IQ. The research on this subject consistently shows this, and some of the
best human genetics researchers on the planet already have publications on
this issue.[2][3][4]

[2] Deary, Johnson, and Penke (2010). "The neuroscience of human intelligence
differences"

[http://www.larspenke.eu/pdfs/Deary_Penke_Johnson_2010_-_Neur...](http://www.larspenke.eu/pdfs/Deary_Penke_Johnson_2010_-_Neuroscience_of_intelligence_review.pdf)

"At this point, it seems unlikely that single genetic loci have major effects
on normal-range intelligence. For example, a modestly sized genome-wide study
of the general intelligence factor derived from ten separate test scores in
the cAnTAB cognitive test battery did not find any important genome-wide
single nucleotide polymorphisms or copy number variants, and did not replicate
genetic variants that had previously been associated with cognitive ability."

[3] Johnson, W. (2010). Understanding the Genetics of Intelligence: Can Height
Help? Can Corn Oil?. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 19(3),
177-182

[http://apsychoserver.psych.arizona.edu/JJBAReprints/PSYC621/...](http://apsychoserver.psych.arizona.edu/JJBAReprints/PSYC621/Johnson%20Current%20Directions%20Psych%20Science%202010%20\(G%20and%20E%20in%20IQ\).pdf)

looks at some famous genetic experiments to show how little is explained by
gene frequencies even in thoroughly studied populations defined by artificial
selection.

"Together, however, the developmental natures of GCA [general cognitive
ability] and height, the likely influences of gene-environment correlations
and interactions on their developmental processes, and the potential for
genetic background and environmental circumstances to release previously
unexpressed genetic variation suggest that very different combinations of
genes may produce identical IQs or heights or levels of any other
psychological trait. And the same genes may produce very different IQs and
heights against different genetic backgrounds and in different environmental
circumstances."

[4] Chabris, C. F., Hebert, B. M., Benjamin, D. J., Beauchamp, J., Cesarini,
D., van der Loos, M., ... & Laibson, D. (2012). Most reported genetic
associations with general intelligence are probably false positives.
Psychological science, 23(11), 1314-1323. DOI: 10.1177/0956797611435528

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3498585/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3498585/)

[http://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/9938142/Most_Repo...](http://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/9938142/Most_Reported_Genetic.pdf?sequence=1)

"At the time most of the results we attempted to replicate were obtained,
candidate-gene studies of complex traits were commonplace in medical genetics
research. Such studies are now rarely published in leading journals. Our
results add IQ to the list of phenotypes that must be approached with great
caution when considering published molecular genetic associations. In our
view, excitement over the value of behavioral and molecular genetic studies in
the social sciences should be tempered—as it has been in the medical
sciences—by an appreciation that, for complex phenotypes, individual common
genetic variants of the sort assayed by SNP microarrays are likely to have
very small effects."

~~~
ihnorton
The article said _cloning on an industrial scale_ , not hog farming. 500/year
large mammal cloning is quite a lot more than anything I've ever heard of.
That was the actual point. The things they are claiming to do are not novel,
but the scale certainly is. As far as the "sequence everything" goal, BGI has
the infrastructure and an established track record already. The final claim
that China is an emerging science powerhouse is also not really debatable,
considering they are 2nd in R&D spending to the US.

------
ChuckMcM
Kind of surprised he didn't take the name Moreau :-) It will be interesting
and potentially shocking to see what comes out of these efforts. Both good and
bad scenarios come to mind.

------
jheriko
lets hope their less constrained ethics result in some good for the poor and
needy.

the idea of cute mini pets with their growth hormones gimped is all well and
good and i'm sure will be fantastically popular... but its not exactly a noble
use of the technology.

I'm thinking more like golden rice v2 - except without being crippled by the
infantile kind of controversy that it sparked in the west :)

------
Gupie
"produces an astonishing 500 cloned pigs a year" \- but why? Is there a market
for cloned Pigs!? Is this a research project?

~~~
malanj
Yes - there is a market. Having duplicates of the same animal is seriously
useful if you're developing medicines or doing other kinds of R&D

------
w_t_payne
I wonder how quickly we will be able to apply the technology to human clones,
breeding them for loyalty and obedience.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Difficult. We have a troubling capacity for meta-behavior, where we notice how
we're thinking and try to change it.

More likely, breed for non-violence and contentment. These are endocrine (?)
systems that are immediately available to genetic engineers for tinkering.

~~~
w_t_payne
Of course, you are still left with the problem of how to "retire" obsolescent
models. Perhaps the new models could be engineered with the ability to eat
foods that are toxic to the old models. In this way, simply turning over
increasing quantities of agricultural land to production of the new foods
would quickly push "old" food prices beyond the reach of (most of) the old-
model human. Without need for overt action, the whole "retirement" process
could proceed in an entirely covert and deniable manner.

------
Nanzikambe
So where, exactly, in China is The Island?

