# Jeezus H. Christmas - "Spider-modified goats"??!! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [November 23, 2003, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeezus-h-christmas-spider-modified-goats/214793 "2003-11-23T03:51:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![12hazel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/1/919ad9/32.png) [@12hazel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/12hazel)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2003, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeezus-h-christmas-spider-modified-goats/214793/1 "2003-11-23T03:51:49Z")
[http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2003-11-19-gene-goats-killed\_x.htm](http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2003-11-19-gene-goats-killed_x.htm) Spinning milk? Body armor? WTFreaking F??? I am so creeped out I can’t even rant straight. AAARRRGGHHHH!!! ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2003, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeezus-h-christmas-spider-modified-goats/214793/2 "2003-11-23T04:06:34Z")
What the HELL? That’s just sick. ---
**Author:** ![Taran](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/edb3f5/32.png) [@Taran](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Taran)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2003, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeezus-h-christmas-spider-modified-goats/214793/3 "2003-11-23T04:17:15Z")
☹ No love for the spider-goats? It’s a shame that the company had to euthanize them; I’d absolutely have adopted one. Hiding it from the building superintendant would have been a trick, so perhaps it’s for the best, but still. ---
**Author:** ![laigle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ce7236/32.png) [@laigle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/laigle)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2003, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeezus-h-christmas-spider-modified-goats/214793/4 "2003-11-23T04:18:27Z")
Okay, we have the creepy genetically modified monsters. Where the hell is my flying car and fembot already?!?!? ---
**Author:** ![Soul\_Brother\_Number\_Two](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/soul_brother_number_two/32/3515_2.png) [@Soul\_Brother\_Number\_Two](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Soul_Brother_Number_Two)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2003, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeezus-h-christmas-spider-modified-goats/214793/5 "2003-11-23T04:34:05Z")
Holy. Fucking. Shit. Truly the last days are upon us. ---
**Author:** ![Dizzy\_Fingers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Dizzy\_Fingers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dizzy_Fingers)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2003, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeezus-h-christmas-spider-modified-goats/214793/6 "2003-11-23T04:45:00Z")
There’s a lesson in all this: With great power comes great responsibility. ---
**Author:** ![Darkhold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@Darkhold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darkhold)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2003, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeezus-h-christmas-spider-modified-goats/214793/7 "2003-11-23T04:52:45Z")
Spider goats? Pah. I want them to make something useful like meat trees to make the vegans happy. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2003, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeezus-h-christmas-spider-modified-goats/214793/8 "2003-11-23T04:56:05Z")
I’m not sure that I understand the euthanasia (beside the economic considerations), but I have no idea why everyone is freaking out over the transgenic goats. The [Nexia Biotechnologies](http://nexiabiotech.com/en/01_tech/06.php) site seems to indicate that they are not crowding the goats in like egg-producing chickens. The goats don’t seem to notice that they have a special protein in their milk, so I am not sure what the issue is. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2003, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeezus-h-christmas-spider-modified-goats/214793/9 "2003-11-23T05:38:57Z")
> [@](#): > > I’m not sure that I understand the euthanasia It’s either kill them, or house them under fairly strict guidelines until they die of natural causes. However in this case, I think they should have hired a central american tramp steamer to secretly spirit them off to a deserted south pacific atoll were they could live out their sinister destiny. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2003, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeezus-h-christmas-spider-modified-goats/214793/10 "2003-11-23T05:55:41Z")
What’s the problem? Is it that they’re different and therefore evil? That’s hardly a valid concern. Is it that they’re manmade? Well, so are most breeds of dog. Same with wheat and corn: Do you think seeds that big are _natural_? And the silkworm cannot exist without human intervention. If humans decide to stop cultivating silkworms, they will go extinct. The only rant here is how the governments of US and Canada are shooting themselves in the foot by denying themselves the next few centuries’ worth of advances in biotechnology. But don’t feel too bad about that: If we don’t do it, China and North Korea would be more than happy to do it instead. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2003, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeezus-h-christmas-spider-modified-goats/214793/11 "2003-11-23T06:36:17Z")
> [@](#): > > The only rant here is how the governments of US and Canada are shooting themselves in the foot by denying themselves the next few centuries’ worth of advances in biotechnology. The program is not being abandoned. The 214 goats that were put down were producing (or no longer producing) and older, inferior version of the product. ---
**Author:** ![DreadCthulhu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/db5fbb/32.png) [@DreadCthulhu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DreadCthulhu)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2003, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeezus-h-christmas-spider-modified-goats/214793/12 "2003-11-23T06:39:32Z")
I other news, you can now buy [genetically engineered Glow in the Dark](http://www.glofish.com/) fish for your aquarium. And I do find it a shame that the goats were killed. But the article said current laws prohitted them from being sold. Still, I do think the benefits of genetic engineering outway the cost. Cheap spider silk would have many interesting uses. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2003, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeezus-h-christmas-spider-modified-goats/214793/13 "2003-11-23T06:40:18Z")
> [@](#): > > Is it that they’re manmade? Well, so are most breeds of dog. Same with wheat and corn: Do you think seeds that big are _natural_? No claim is made that they are evil. And they are substantively different than changes made through breeding programs or even genetic manipulation within a species. Their separateness comes from having a non-caprine gene (specificlly genetic material from spiders) inserted into them so that they produce a form of milk containing protein chains that allow it to be used to produce very strong threads. ---
**Author:** ![Phoenix\_Dragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/65b543/32.png) [@Phoenix\_Dragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phoenix_Dragon)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2003, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeezus-h-christmas-spider-modified-goats/214793/14 "2003-11-23T07:18:47Z")
I’m surprised how many people are shocked by this. The idea of genetically modifying animals to produce spider silk (Or drugs, or other products) has been thrown around for a good deal of time. I don’t really see any problem with it. The euthanasia kind of sucks (I can understand the reasoning, don’t want spider-goats cross-breeding with regular goats or getting into the larger population, but I think regulation might be better than euthanasia), but otherwise it’s not a very big deal. Before, they were used to make food for us. Now, they make body armor, too (Or, if they can produce it cheaply enough and in large enough lots, more durable clothing in general). I don’t see how it’s really any worse. ---
**Author:** ![Mac\_Guffin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/2bfe46/32.png) [@Mac\_Guffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mac_Guffin)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2003, 8:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeezus-h-christmas-spider-modified-goats/214793/15 "2003-11-23T08:54:37Z")
Not sure what the big deal here is. The fact is, through selective breeding, humans have been geneticlally modifying animals for thousands of years. Have you ever seen wild holstien cow? Do small dogs like the Jack Russel Terrier exisit out in the forests? (Other than those who have escaped captivity.) Do wild Chickens roam the prairies? Of course not. There are wild equivelents, (Oxen, wolves, prairie chickens.) but nine of them really resemble thier domesticated, and carefully genetiaclly screened counterparts. The only thing this engineering does is speeds up the proccess and adds to the variety of choices. ---
**Author:** ![Manduck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/manduck/32/256_2.png) [@Manduck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Manduck)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2003, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeezus-h-christmas-spider-modified-goats/214793/16 "2003-11-23T11:18:58Z")
I hate it when you’re walking down a shady path in the summer and you get a goat web right in the face. But I think it would be kinda cool to find an eight-legged goat hanging out in the corner of my shower stall. ---
**Author:** ![TheLoadedDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2003, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeezus-h-christmas-spider-modified-goats/214793/17 "2003-11-23T11:55:14Z")
**Manduck** (strangely apt username BTW), now _that_ was one of the funnier posts I’ve seen in awhile. Thanks for a bloody good belly laugh. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![CanvasShoes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/74df32/32.png) [@CanvasShoes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CanvasShoes)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2003, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeezus-h-christmas-spider-modified-goats/214793/18 "2003-11-23T13:18:53Z")
Ouch. That WAS damn funny! Wish I didn’t have such a sore throat, so truly LOL would have been more pleasant 😃 At any rate, chiming in here with a “why is this creepy??” and “they’ve been talking about this forever”. Interesting, fantastical, “WOW what an age we live in!!!” but creepy? naaaah. The only thing I think is bad is that they euthanized the “low-producers”. That’s not right, IMHO. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2003, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeezus-h-christmas-spider-modified-goats/214793/19 "2003-11-23T13:40:05Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Derleth \* > \*\*What’s the problem? Is it that they’re different and therefore evil? \*\* No, it’s that the entire concept is FUCKING GROSS. I mean… where was the silk meant to come from? Did the goats exude silk out of their asses? Or some gigantic hairy spider gland dangling from their teats? _Scrubs brain with washing powder_ C’mon now. You have to agree with me here: aaaaaaaaaaaagh. Bleaugh. ---
**Author:** ![Mac\_Guffin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/2bfe46/32.png) [@Mac\_Guffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mac_Guffin)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2003, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeezus-h-christmas-spider-modified-goats/214793/20 "2003-11-23T13:48:02Z")
It came from their teats, **jjimm**. It’s secreted from the milk glands. Ok, that is just a little creepy. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeezus-h-christmas-spider-modified-goats/214793.md?page=2)