
How would you design a chicken? - andygeers
http://apply.hubbub.co.uk/design_a_chicken
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Falling3
I understand the interest in a novel kind of engineering, and this seems to be
more of a thought exercise than anything else. I also understand that not
everyone shares my views on animals, but this is such an awful exercise. This
absurd mechanization of a living creature is just disgusting. Modern factory
practices already deny animals of so many of their natural behaviors. This
kind of thinking totally lacking in empathy and consequences scares the hell
out of me.

~~~
AngryParsley
On the other hand, we could drastically improve the lives of farm animals if
we engineered them more. For example, we could give them CIPA[1]. We could
make their brains smaller. A vegetable chicken can't suffer. These
modifications may sound perverse, but I doubt we're going to stop cooping
these creatures up and killing them any time soon. We might as well do our
best to reduce the amount of suffering we cause them.

1\.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hereditary_sensory_and_autonomi...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hereditary_sensory_and_autonomic_neuropathy#Type_5.2C_Congenital_insensitivity_to_pain_with_partial_anhidrosis)

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Falling3
You think factory farms are disturbing now? Just wait until animals cannot
feel pain. I'm envisioning far more fights to the death for starters.

~~~
AngryParsley
Painless death at the hands of other chickens sounds more moral than the
current situation: a life of suffering followed by painful death at the hands
of a machine. Of course if all chickens are born into a persistent vegetative
state (or something close to it), I don't see how fights could happen. Also,
farms where chickens kill each other would probably be less profitable than
farms that slaughtered their chickens at the optimal time.

Painless animals were discussed on Overcoming Bias a few years ago:
<http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/09/painless-meat.html> . Interestingly,
vegetarians were more likely to oppose painless animals than meat-eaters.

~~~
Falling3
Well animals in a coma all of their lives will clearly not being killing each
other. You're right about profits though which of course is the driving force
behind all of this. There's also human safety to consider. Painless, larger
animals would be quite dangerous.

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jon-wood
Honestly, the driving force behind all of this is that we thought it was an
interesting question which tells you about how people view food. My favourite
answer so far has been "Don't redesign the chicken, redesign society to better
use it."

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stephengillie
For what purpose are we designing the chicken?

If we're designing it as a food animal, I'd maximize the meat area and try to
minimize the rest. I'd reduce the amount of body fat naturally carried. If
possible, I'd take a page from "Top Secret"[1] and make the bird perform
photosynthesis.

If we're designing a good prey, I'd make it smaller and give it better wings
for flight.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Top-Secret-John-Reynolds-
Gardiner/prod...](http://www.amazon.com/Top-Secret-John-Reynolds-
Gardiner/product-reviews/0316303631)

~~~
alsothings
Is very low fat necessarily optimal? I think _excessively_ fatty birds are a
problem, but depending on use, I suspect a non-zero percentage of fat is
desirable. Though I have no idea what the optimal amount would be. But in
plenty of food applications, grease is good.

~~~
jon-wood
If anything, you'd want a chicken with skin which excretes fat so you can
avoid putting butter on it, although that would make it quite a bit more
difficult to catch.

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alsothings
self-buttering chicken makes me drool at my desk. Would that make it a cow-
chicken hybrid though (assuming it's butter from cow's milk anyway)

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songgao
I would like chicken to have a programming interface so I could write
automated scripts. For example, if an event is sensed that an egg is coming,
then walk to my boiler and tweet. By tweet, I mean tweet like a chicken, or if
you like, tweet like a chicken _and_ tweet through the Internet.

~~~
stephengillie
The internet of animals?

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songgao
No, THE INTERNET. I mean post to twitter...

~~~
stephengillie
similar to the internet of things...

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dsr_
There's no point in redesigning _the_ chicken, because we already have quite a
few kinds. And yes, they are already optimized through primitive genetic
engineering techniques for various characteristics useful to humans: early
maturity, large breast size, egg production speed, taste (or lack thereof) and
so forth... not all in the same variety, of course.

Diversity builds resilience. When the genome development environments go
online, I recommend that we open source the chicken and let a million variants
cluck. Now, BSD, MPL or GPL?

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arethuza
Spin the chicken in a centrifuge so that it lives in 2.5G and develops far
more muscles:

[http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg13318124.900-review-
sp...](http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg13318124.900-review-spin-a-
chicken-.html)

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tgb
Stackable, of course:
[http://mydailycow.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/far_side_cows....](http://mydailycow.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/far_side_cows.jpg?w=500)

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Tipzntrix
"How would you avoid the impeding PETA backlash" is another good question...

~~~
pdog
I'd be more worried about the impending backlash from God.

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jsymolon
Don't worry about it - nothing been said so far.

[http://www.mnn.com/green-tech/research-
innovations/photos/12...](http://www.mnn.com/green-tech/research-
innovations/photos/12-bizarre-examples-of-genetic-engineering/mad-science)

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WiseWeasel
If it's going to be of any help for world domination, or at least in serving
as a good guard chicken, it'll need the personality of a goose, the fangs and
venom sacs of a deadly snake and the talons of an eagle. Something will have
to be done to make it sound more intimidating as well, so we should add a
rattle on its tail. Oh, and unlike a regular chicken, the wings should be
functional in order to control the skies. Behold the fully-realized rattle-
chicken.

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sdfjkl
This prompts some interesting questions. Could you design a brainless chicken
or one with just enough brains to eat, breathe and lay eggs? And would that be
more or less horrible compared to the way chickens are currently being treated
in factories? Where's the line between vat grown meat and brainless chickens?

~~~
shalmanese
> Could you design a brainless chicken or one with just enough brains to eat,
> breathe and lay eggs?

Yes, it's called a chicken.

~~~
pdog
Actually, chickens are pretty intelligent and social creatures[1].

[1] - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken#Social_behaviour>

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junto
Simple, you have two versions of the chicken - one optimized for eggs and one
for meat.

As an extension to the meat chicken I would like to see extra re-generating
legs, a bit like how lizards loss and regrow their tails through autotomy.

They would come with their own super-oven, so you press a switch and they
self-cook in 2 seconds. Pooof!

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CookWithMe
At least the meat problem is already solved:
[http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2012/07/...](http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2012/07/beyond_meat_fake_chicken_that_tastes_so_real_it_will_freak_you_out_.html)

~~~
CookWithMe
As for eggs, for baking they can easily be replaced.

It's more difficult if you want to replace scrambled eggs or similar. I have
tried the vegg [1], but have not been very impressed.

And I just googled and found out that apparently in China there is a food
scandal where they produce fake eggs [2]. Obviously they design them for
profit and not as a replacement for vegans or even a healthy, cheaper
alternative. But it seems that it could be done.

[1] <http://www.thevegg.com/> [2] [http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/11/06/how-to-
make-a-rotten-egg...](http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/11/06/how-to-make-a-
rotten-egg/)

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vibragiel
Screw redesign. Why not turn the chicken into a raptor-like dinosaur?

[http://www.ted.com/talks/jack_horner_building_a_dinosaur_fro...](http://www.ted.com/talks/jack_horner_building_a_dinosaur_from_a_chicken.html)

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alsothings
Obviously they should be cube shaped, to facilitate more efficient shipping.

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itcmcgrath
If you ever played the old game HyperBlade, it had it game ads about GE
chickens. IIRC, they were boneless and bun shaped.

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anonymfus
I expected growing meat and eggs from cell cultures.

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hayksaakian
I wonder how long until GM hackers can prototype their new chicken design.

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logn
I think I saw in Food Inc. that chickens have been bread to have enormous
breasts to serve the market demands. Same goes for basically all fruits and
vegetables, raised and modified for unnaturally large sizes.

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dutchbrit
For some bizarre reason, this reminds me of the human centipede.

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scottcanoni
Start with the egg

