(YouTube Link)
Okay, I made up the last bit. But these fish have been altered to grow far more muscular than normal trout:
The bodybuilder stature of the trout comes from turning off myostatin, a protein that normally slows muscle growth. Researchers had known of a natural myostatin mutation that allowed for 20 to 25 percent more muscle growth in Belgian blue cattle, but did not know if the same would apply to the different mechanism of muscle growth in fish.
Terry Bradley, a fisheries and aquaculture expert at the University of Rhode Island, worked with a group of grad students for 500 hours to inject 20,000 rainbow trout eggs with different DNA snippets designed to block myostatin.
About 300 eggs ended up carrying the gene for more muscle growth, and eventually produced fish that mostly have the six-pack ab appearance -- even though the fish don't have standard abdominal muscles. A big dorsal hump adds the appearance of muscular shoulders.
Photos at the link.
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-03/transgenic-trout-six-pack-abs-could-arrive-your-dinner-plate via io9
So tell me this: Why as a consumer, would I want mutant fish fillets, if I have to pay the same price I always paid?
No thanks.
But if I were starving, who knows? Maybe they're delicious.
Some body systems are controlled by turning off and on accelerators. Some control with inhibitors. Quite a few by balancing opposing factors.
I have seen guppies that breed true and grow muscles like these trout. The result was short lives and contorted spines. Not sure if myostatin inhibition was the cause, but Cola could be right.
:(
Be sure to release 20 or 30,000 of these new fish straight into the general population so we can get started without having to wait for boring testing to see what the side effects are. And it very comforting that the genius professor heading this project knows these are "happy" fish- why wouldn't they be in those lovely plastic bucket tanks?
God help us all.
Snarlz and big bob have it right.
This "feed the world" propaganda is complete BS, and the money savings will not be passed down to consumers - it will just go straight to profits.
No side effects on behavior? Happy fish? Riiiight. We know nothing about the short or long term effects on these fish or on other fish in the wild (when they are inevitably raised outside of closed tank facilities and then - whoops, whoda thunk? - they actually escape like all other farmed fish do and then breed/compete with normal trout. Finally, no knowledge of how they impact human health when consumers finally eat them.
Professor Bradley, please find something else to do with your time.