Genetically Modified Cows Produce Human Breast Milk
Finally, a part of the “buffalo” that the Native Americans might not use.
Mommie!!!!!!
Writing and Social Media Blogs
Must read! Check out Kristen Lamb’s interview of James Rollins. James Rollins–N Y Times Best-Selling Cyborg or Human Geek Like Us? It’s not just a great interview with the hard-writing, hard-gaming author of the Sigma Force series, it’s a hysterical look into the down-to-earth personality of this top New York Times bestseller.
NYT Best Seller James Rollins–Cyborg or Geek?
Lonny Dunn over at ProNetworkBuild gives us the straight skinny on the new Google +1 at Google Goes Social (Again) with Plus 1. Check out his other blogs, too. He has some great advice on building your social networks.
Blogs and Articles that Caught My Attention–In No Particular Order
Here’s one that’s near and dear to my heart, having lost my first husband to mental illness. Deborah Bryan shares a bit of her experience with her mentally ill mother. Six hands for lifting: on my mom, mental illness, fear & hope
Super fun new blogger Catie Rhodes has this terrific walk down memory lane with Songs that became Movies. From Ode to Billy Joe to Harper Valley PTA, and yes, I know the words to all of them. 
Every Tuesday I look forward to Tiffany A. White’s Tele-Tuesday. As something of a pop culture junkie, I appreciate the way she keeps me up to date with the TV happenings. This week, she’s going for blood with her Tele-Tuesday: TV with Bite in which she takes a look at favorite TV vampires, past and present.
From the Queen of Green, Shawna Coronado, we have How to Make a Light Fixture into a Recycled Green and Sustainable Strawberry or Vegetable Planter. . . . Who’d a thought? What a great idea. Check her out on YouTube at The Casual Gardener.
Meet Buster, an amazing lost dog who journeyed over 1200 miles from Colorado to California. Rumors are that he was with another dog and a cat who had bummed their way from Canada, but those are totally unsubstantiated.
Buster–I think I’d be lying down, too.
Druids Part I: Druid Origins is an interesting blog by Lyn Horner over at Writers In the Storm which explains a few basics of the Druidic religion, which is not the same as Wicca, and it’s origin with the Celts.
For SNL, Michael Bolton, and/or Pirates of the Caribbean fans, or if you just want a good belly laugh, check out this Andy Sandberg video featuring Michael Bolton and his tribute to Captain Jack Sparrow.
What do you think? Is breast milk from cows a great breakthrough? Or is this just messed up?
All the best to all of you for knowing what’s in your milk this week.
Piper Bayard–The Pale Writer of the Apocalypse
Piper – that GM human breast milk video was appalling! I find it difficult to believe that these scientists think they can beat mother nature with their science experiments. I’m sharing that video with my health group – thanks!
You bet. I get that human breast milk is best. But from a cow? Well. Let’s just say
eeewwwI have my doubts. Thanks for commenting.This is the way the world ends.
This is the way the world ends.
This is the way the world ends.
Not with a bang, but with a moo.
Sorry, I couldn’t help it.
This is a bad confession to make. I’ve been seeing that picture from James Rollins’s interview with Kristen Lamb all week. This is the first time I realized Mr. Rollins’s picture had been photoshopped. I kept thinking, “Why don’t they put up a better picture?”
Sheesh. I’m really not the sharpest tack in the drawer.
Lol. Love the song, and that’s a hoot about the Rollins picture. And for what it’s worth, you come across as a pretty damn sharp tack. Thanks for stopping by.
Love the song!!!
I LOVE these posts….the stick-horse-riding-rodeo-girls made the Dallas news yesterday, BTW.
Oh, why not on the breast milk? What harm is going to come if it’s available? People don’t have to use it….I try not to be surprised at what scientists do anymore. Take the Casey Anthony trial for example. Trapping aromas in cans for court? Nice…..
Thanks so much for listing me not only in your mashup (which is flattering in itself!) but to list me with such accomplished writers & bloggers. I’m blushing….
Interesting take on the breast milk issue. I know the idea makes me gag. Twice. But I also remember being very young and having people weird out over the idea of organ transplants. Now, it’s like, “Duh. Of course we do transplants. Why wouldn’t we?” The only unethical thing about it is that more people aren’t donors. Maybe more of society will feel that way about human breast milk from cows some day. Hard to say where this one will go. Thanks for stopping by.
Ugh. GMOs are going to be our downfall. Scientists: “What harm could it do to insert a fish gene into the tomatoes.” – 6 thousand years later, tomatoes go extinct because they can’t survive not submerged in water. Sure, GMOs might be the easiest most “convenient” way to farm right now, but what about our future-we don’t know what harm we’ll do! Cows producing breast milk! Gah!
NEways, sorry…my dad’s a soy mill/factory owner, he never uses GMOs, and he’s educated us on why he doesn’t. lol.
Great mash up, Piper! I love James’ interview, and The Incredible Journey story.
Ok, all together now: EWWW!!!
If the milk scientists are going to argue that they are doing this because there are hungry people in the world, then why not use genetic advances to grow better rice, wheat, peanuts, or vegetable protein sources? Is human breast milk really what the world is in short supply of? Remember “weaning,” people? There’s a reason 30 year old men should not be drinking breast milk (insert punch line here).
It sort of sounds like the beginning scenario of a sci-fi story, before things go horribly wrong and the cows develop human intelligence and start packing uzis and milking…US.
You find the weirdest, coolest stuff, Piper. Thanks for a fun post!
It’s a good point that we could be putting that scientific effort into other areas. There’s more than one way to feed people. Even babies. Hope I live long enough to block out the image of cows with uzis milking us.
Thanks for the comment.
Kathy, they are already using GMOs in grains and all those other vegetable sources. You can’t find a conventionally grown plant these days that has not been modifed. But, genes aren’t like Leggo blocks. You can’t just take out a yellow one and replace it with a blue one and the kiddie castle will be unchanged. Genes have evolved/been intelligently designed/created to function in a very complex way, and taking out one little splice and replacing it with another can, and does, change the whole organism in ways that we have yet to totally understand.
And, if you would like to see a little snippet of what CAN and ALREADY HAS gone wrong with this whole thing, check out a documentary called The Future of Food. If I can figure out how, I’ll post a link if anyone is interested.
Callene
I’d love to see that link, Callene. Thanks for stopping by.
K. B.– You have a very weird mind. Check to be sure you haven’t somehow gotten some of my DNA on your peanut butter.
The last item I saw about breast milk had to do with some ice cream parlor, in England? making ice cream from breast milk. Had to throw my own twangy Eww in on that one. Bottom line is that it got that ICP a lot of attention for the requisite 15 minutes.
Here’s the thing: until we find a way to keep drugs, including but not limited to estrogen replacement and birth control pills, out of our water supply, nothing else we can do to sort this mess out has much value.
And, for the record, transplants are still creepy. In the UK, everyone is a donor. No volunteering needed, because your body doesn’t belong to you personally. I’d rather see us go cyborg than whatever it is that we are doing.
(This to be read in a deep, self-consciously masculine voice:) In a world where no one every dies, gets too sick, or suffers from low self-esteem, how do we know we’re alive and real?
Bloody good question.
I love this blog, you know that, right?
Thanks for the blog love, Texanne. You rock!
You make a great point about the estrogens and drugs in our water supply. I see that as becoming a serious problem in the very near future, and I would rather see science working on that one than on ways to create more human breast milk. I mean, most babies come with a mom that has a couple of breast milk makers that function just fine for every child. Having cows do it too seems a bit unnecessary to me and even redundant.
I didn’t know that about the UK. Someone near and dear to me is a transplant recipient so I absolutely believe being an organ donor is the right thing to do, but to have it required by the state? To me, that’s creepier than the Mommie Cows. Talk about the government getting all up in your business!
And I like what the man with the deep, self-consciouly masculine voice had to say. Though I believe chronic sickness and suffering is unspeakably evil, intense, and confusing, I think it takes a certain amount of hardships to make us grow as people and to cultivate our compassion.
Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts.
Breast milk is far healthier than cow milk (or formula, such as Similac). It enriches the immune system and in the current environment I can’t see how that is a bad thing. Sure there is a mindset that it is somehow “naughty or wrong” but those are moral thoughts based on societal values, not rational thoughts based on health and nutrition. I welcome my new cow mommie
I find it interesting that so many are upset with transgenic foods yet totally unconcerned about silver nanotechnology used in their socks to cut down on foot odor. Every time laundry is done some of these micro odor eaters sift into the waste water and and are carried away, after a time ending up in the water system and potentially what we drink. But I digress.
Great post Piper!
Hi Gene. Good to hear the other side of the debate. Remind me to ask about the ingredients if I ever have ice cream with you or Tiffany.
I had no idea that there was any nanotechnology in socks. I’m going to check into that to learn more about it. Sure don’t want to be drinking that.
Thanks for stopping by and commenting.
Google “socks + nanotechnology”, 878k hits. Here is one get you started. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080406175050.htm
Enjoy
Nanotech in sock! Freaky! I’m pretty sure we just buy regular cotton socks. Will have to check though.
Agree on the human milk issue. After all, cow milk is breastmilk from a cow. LOL. However, definitely not keen on GMO anything. And I rather resent a cow being used to do “my” job. There’s no way I’d feed my kiddos (or consume myself) human milk from a cow. Raw cow’s milk’s okay (though it’s too expensive for us right now). No GMO.
Always the unforseen consequences.
Oh. My. God.
I agree with the scientist that we should be doing all we can to help feed people in starving countries. I’m not sure I think it’s “unethical” but I do think cow’s milk should come out of cows, and human breast milk should come out of boobs. The world is complicated enough.
Also, one day China is going to rule the planet.
“The world is complicated enough.” Lol. An excellent observation. Thanks for stopping by.
Do we really need to outsource the making of breast milk? Really?
Lol. That’s a great way to put it. Thanks for stopping by.
As I understand it, human breastmilk can be very useful in some situations far beyond weaning age. I think it’s been used to help cancer patients, for example. Still, can’t really fathom using human milk that came out of a cow.
Even if I weren’t put off by GMO issues, there’s still something cow-human breastmilk wouldn’t be able to match fully human breastmilk on: human milk straight from the tap adapts to the child’s immediate needs. Antibodies, at the very least, are produced on demand for the child’s needs. Even the amounts of nutrients change as the child grows and milk demands change. The cow produced variety just couldn’t do that.
Thanks, Sonia. You just gave me an idea for a dystopian novel.
Having had cancer, I think about treatments. If breast milk was part of the regimen, I think it would be weirder for me to get it from another human than from a cow. I mean, that’s a very mom-specific thing to me mentally, and mentally, if I have to drink any kind of milk, I think of a cow for that purpose.
Thank you for making me think about something I never would have spontaneously thought about. Thanks, too, for stopping by and commenting.
I can see the strangeness there. Hey, Nancy, thanks for that milk you sent me…but can you lay of the garlic a little. LOL.
When people were talking about that human breastmilk ice cream news story, my friends and I were joking about what it would be like if there were human dairies. Rapidly, the conversation turned a little dark. If the demand for human milk were high enough…what would that mean for the women who are often exploited in situations like that?
Still, I can’t get behind a cow producing it. I’d rather raw cow milk become much more easily available, especially from grassfed cows.
Good point about the grassfed cows. I find it interesting that lactose intolerance and reactions to proteins in milk didn’t seem to exist when I was a kid, and there was so much less processing. I would love it if science would focus their attentions there. I don’t think the milk industry would like the answers, though.
This is udderly gross although I can see those who have to have human breast milk benefiting.
Yep. That sums up my feelings well, too. Thanks for stopping by. Good to see you.
[...] Genetically-modified Cows produce Human Breast Milk. Need I say more? Check out this enlightening article on Piper Bayard’s masterfully-written blog. [...]
As I am 100% weaned, I don’t drink cow’s milk and I wouldn’t drink human milk. But if human milk from cows will help feed people who would otherwise go hungry, then I’m not going to make a fuss . . other than to say GMOs are a dangerous unknown, and I believe we’ve already gone too far down that slippery slope . .
There are always unforeseen consequences when we start muddling with the gene pool. Thanks for stopping by.
I’m not mature enough to participate in the debate for laughing at the dairy farmers smiling while downing the breast milk. I doubt adults with functioning immune systems benefit much but it sure makes a great story! I’m glad I didn’t have to film it. Even the graphic was funny….
That smile is rather reminiscent of the Bass-O-Matic SNL skit to me, now that you mention it. I’m not sure how that reporter kept a straight face. Thanks for stopping by and commenting.
I’m sorry, I know some people were excited about that “scientific breakthrough” but that scares me. Too Island of Dr. Moreau.
I think Isle of Dr. Moreau is the perfect analogy. LIke you, it just stretches my envelope a bit far. Thanks for stopping by.
And the Michael Bolton meets Jack Sparrow….bwa ha ha ha ha ha ha. Great stuff
.
Glad I could give you a laugh. I crack up every time I watch it, too.
Human breast milk in cows? THAT is just weird. Not personally liking the idea since I stopped drinking from my mother when I was a baby. We’re messing too much with our food source. What happened with traditional farming?
I’m with you, Marilag, in that I’m definitely a traditional farming advocate. We raised our own meat and vegetables back in a time when food allergies were unheard of. I don’t think that’s an accident. And I’ve personally seen many medical conditions improved or even cured with a diet of organic meats and garden vegetables. Thanks for stopping by and commenting.
Hi Piper.
I don’t fully agree with that making and I fully agree with breast feeding. But there are some issues to consider though.
Nowadays, many women can’t breast feed or they can’t do it for the full time required. An alternative must be found. And the alternative cow milk is better than the chemically produced milk substitutes coming out in powders etc., produced in factories, which all families use afterwards.
Whether we like it or not, the ideal world is long ago over, and food is not enough to feed more than 6 billion people around the globe, not to mention the economic means. All which should be taken into consideration when people have like 10 babies and then watch them suffer from starvation, because they don’t have the means to feed them. Is that less of a crime?
It sads me to see that people consider having many children a blessing, but in a selfish manner. Blessing for them, but when they don’t have the means to feed or raise their children properly, is it a blessing for those children to suffer? Did anyone ask the children whether they want to be born to suffer from young age or not, just because their parents decided so, in a selfish way?
But that’s another story.
I see your point. Personally, though, I think we need less genetically modified cows and a lot more free birth control and sterilizations. But once the kids are here, what do you do? Can’t exactly get a refund. Thanks for stopping by and commenting.