GFP axolotls

I think animals are really smart. We take from the environment without giving back. We create ro renewal cycle at all. If we want to then we must protest. Animals are not like this. They all have a cycle and look after the earth not take what they want untill its all gone they hope on a boat to another continent in search for more stuff.

And then people say how bad the animal kindom is becuse of what certin animals do to the environment. But if they stop and think about it its they that brought that particular spiecies or animal into a whole new eco-system and making it crash into the ground. Everything was fine even when humans where around. One example was the aborijinals they looked after the land but it was the other half who thought it would be fun to experiment that recked it all.
 
Grant- think about it if we didnt have intelligence waht would we have, NOTHING! animals have natural defences like really good hearing sight and smell, teeth and claws, but we rely on clothes for warmth and if we took away our intelligence that means we would have no clothes no technology so we would be helpless and defenceless against everything! if you ask me i think we are too smart for our own good and i would prefer to be dumb and have all the natural instics and traits that animals get to have. AND we have no proof that we are more superior except for what other humans say and their opnions dont count cause that would be bias since they would be talking bout them selves.
 
The only reason the earth is going the way it is: Humans. As stated above, we're destroying the planet. Thousands of species go extinct each year. Why? HUMANS! We managed to save axolotls, but only because they're 'cool'. What about the passenger pigeon that we hunted to extinction? What about the carolina parakeet? What about Cynops wolterstorffi? What about Indian lions? There are 300 of them left in the wild. Why? Humans have moved into their territory, and the lions still roam it. Lions come into village, lions get shot because they're 'dangerous'. We should be staying out of THEIR territory, not the other way around.
 
im behind you joan. totaly right, its our fault, our technology and our way if life.
 
I agree with Joan and everyone else that humans are the reson this planet is going down hill! We now have global warming because of us, and because of this some of the ainmals that rely on temp will die out.

Animals cant change to there environment as quick as us, but why does that say they are inferior to us?

I agree that we do need to test some things on live animals, because if we didn't we would have alot of peole dying from things like cancer, TB etc. I dont think that geneticly moding a axoltol to glow has any benefit to us at all. But to take advantage of the regrowing abilities of an axolotl has some great potential behind it.

I'm not condoning experiments and neither am i saying we should test everything on every animal. There needs to be a balance of where things are necessary, and to see how things work.

I just dont think making an axolotl or and other animal (live seen the report on the guppies they are now selling that glow) glow has any benefit to anyone... so y do it?

Just my 2 cents.
 
Well...I believe a human life is worth more than the life of any animal. Yes, there are certain things in the world that are destroying animals that don't need to be done. But, just as a side note I DO recycle all plastic, paper, aluminum, cardboard, and many other materials. I also do not drive a car (I live on a college campus and I walk). I also buy recycled goods whenever possible. I know a lot of self named "animal rights activists" do not do as much as I do to actually help the environment. Scientists and engineers are working toward a society that is safer for the environment everyday. The mistakes of the past as well as the present have destroyed irreplaceable things in the world; however, they have brought technology and other things to the world that we wouldn't otherwise have. Oil will not last forever; infact, if people continue using it at the rate they have been it will be gone in less than 12 years (depending on what statistics you are looking at). There are alternate fuel sources that you can use instead of gasoline and I doubt anyone here on this forum uses any of them other than an "Hybrid" car. In conclusion, I am all for advancing society and economies even if it may make a "glowing green" axolotl.
 
what makes an animals life more worthless? eh, A life is a life.
 
i know some people over here that have setup their desiel engines to take second hand cooking oil and some other things, im not sure of the exact process but it works out cheaper and isnt taking from out non-renweable resources
 
I was always dead set against killing animals for the benefit of humans until I sat in one of Psychology lectures about moral issues.

The lecturer pointed out that although, yes, it looks and is cruel etc most of us would permit it in the right situation.

Although a life is a life, they are worth different amounts.

The example the lecturer gave was that if your closest loved one suddenly came down with a new strain of disease which was killing them, would you want them to live? Yes of course.

So if a doctor said to you, we don't have a cure, but if we did some tests of these here 5 rats (or whatever) we could develop one and save your loved one.

5 rats vs your _______ (mom? dad? sister?)

I know for sure what I would choose.
 
It doesn't say what research the GFP axolotls are for. Has anyone found this?
 
Actually Sharn the process you are talking about is kind of what I was refering to. Back when the diesel motor was first made it was suppose to be a motor that could run on different fuels and when it was introduced in a car exhibit way back when they actually had one running on used vegetable oil. I have been doing quite a bit of research on this (I'm an ASM major or pretty much ag engineering). They are starting to mass manufacture the "fuel" by getting pure vegetable oil and burning it by using methanol as a catalyst. You can even use ethanol (an organic fuel that you would find in alcoholic drinks). After this process is done you get your fuel. There is only one biproduct that is created in the process but is biodegradable. Plus it smells like french fries when your driving lol.

But I wouldn't say an axolotl is worth more than a human for a couple reasons. First, they aren't nearly as intellectual or beneficial. And two, they produce over 100 eggs each time they breed and they hatch shortly after they are laid. Where as, the gestation period of a human is 9 months and humans mature a lot slower. This is true with many animals. Almost all the endagered animals (especially mammals) have long gestation and are late maturing.
 
Also, Laura - GFP axolotls would probably be for tracing the migration and interaction of cells during development.

Wow, did this thread get off topic or what?

Animals do wage war. A lion will come into a pride and kill all the offspring of his rival. A troop of chimpanzees will systematically kill off a rival troop. A pack of wolves will fight with another pack over territory. An elephant seal will fight countless others to gain access to him harem (most herbivores do the same).

The cycle that animals have is that they kill each other. The reason they seem so in tune with nature is that they are part of our definition of the word nature. A plant does not want to be dinner for a deer. A deer does not want to be dinner for a wolf. A wolf does not want to be dinner for scavengers and decomposers. Animals do not have the thought capacity to consider their place in the world, they accept it with instinct. They do not have the power to change it. If they did, they would be us.

Any intelligent animal would act to make things better for itself, make food more available, remove predators, change the landscape, and maximize it's reproduction. Be it an intelligent therapod dinosaur in an alternate universe, a dolphin with thumbs, or anything else. In fact Dolphins will kill any shark they come upon, danger or no, big or small, because of the perceived threat to its young.

Humans are animals too. We do not have a defense besides tools and intelligence. But that is why we have tools and intelligence. We evolved these things to combat the threats of nature when we were forced out of the trees by a changing environment. They are our claws, teeth, instincts. They came about no differently than a Rhino's horns and thick skin. By the way, we do have excellent sight for a mammal - most mammals do not have color vision. That's why we are so dependent on it. Most animals only maximize one or two senses, and they are so easy to lose.

In conclusion, natural life is short, brutish, and nasty. We are the first animal to successfully escape that fate. The other species still strive towards that goal.

One last point. Every axolotl you own is a descendent of generations of lab axolotls. Albinos were created by the UI lab in the 1960s through cross-breeding experiments. White axolotls are from a mutant brought with the first shipment to Paris in the 1860s. It was recently discovered that lab and pet axolotls are not the same as wild axolotls, and have undergone artificial selection that reduces metamorphosis. So, no lab animals means no pets.
(Message edited by lollia on October 07, 2005)

(Message edited by lollia on October 07, 2005)
 
I disagree with using animals as test subjects unless it's for animal medicine and exploring how they work and behave.
If it's human medicine, don't use animals.

But I am glad that we're able to own axies.
 
Humans and animals are the same. The reason animals are used is because their diseases, immune systems, and development is the same.

Look at Bird Flu. Look at West Nile Virus. Look at Bubonic Plague. Look at HIV. All spread from animals to humans. We use lab animals as models because they have a short generation time, but their machinery is close to ours.

Every axolotl at the colony (including the GFP ones) is being used for biomedical purposes. They have to figure out why the axolotl can regenerate before they can figure out why humans dont. In fact, they just created a mouse that can regenerate like an axolotl. They have to use the mouse so they can figure out why this mammal out of all mammals now has this ability. Then they can look at humans.

Lab animals aren't chosen at random. Experiments start with simple, distantly related models and then move through the classes to get closer to humans.

Some animals also offer opportunities that human testing does not. Axolotls have a mutation that causes heart defects 100% of the time and is passed by carriers with a simple Mendelian pattern. Humans do not. So we need to study heart defects in Axolotls because we will never have as many babies with the same defect available. But heart defects still need to be cured and prevented.

If you put humans and animals in separate spheres, then you are the one elevating humans to a higher status. Not the scientists.
 
my opinion is that if we(humans) are going to do any testing at all it should only be done on humans. animals dont go round testing us on medicine to help them so why should we do it to them? also what good is a gfp axolotl going to do to humans??. i think we should just let animals do there own thing and we should do ours! put yourself in the animals body, how would you like to get dragged out of your home and go to a labratory and be tested with medicines that could kill or mutate you? i curtainly no i wouldnt like that. but thats just my own opinion.
 
Thanks Lauren. Should have said that I know GFP is a reporter gene and what these are for. I just wondered what aspects of development they are studying. It's something I did practical work on at university.
 
Alex its weird that you say you wouldn't want to be dragged out of your home if you were an animal, but how many pets do you have?

Their ancestors were dragged out of their homes and put in unnatural environments such as your tank.

There are too many double standards about. Like when people say 'It's 100% wrong to test on animals for all purposes' yet they then go to hospital and glady except the medication they need to survive - medication which was developed purely through animal testing.

As for "animals do not test on us so we shouldn't test on them" - well thats an interesting point, because imagine if Rats were the most dominate species on the planet instead of us, do you think they would not test on us?

Animals contain the same natural instincts as us (because we are animals!), to protect and prolong their own species at all costs - even if it is at the expense of other animals.

Its nature.
 
Grant-I dont see how humans have been very beneficial to anyone on earth but our own kind.

Everyone else- well i dont see why we cant test things on humans i mean since we are the dominant species and have an evergrowing population im sure it wouldnt hurt to take a few of us away for the benefit of sience.
how do u measure or decide the worth of a life? as far as im concerned a life is a life and a life doesnt have a value it is priceless and therefore cant be measured, which means no life is more valuable than another.

i agree this thread has gone of topic.lol
happy.gif
 
Okay, imagine you are the first human test subject. We are going to test regeneration using your limbs. We are going to give you AIDS to see if this compound slows it down. We are going to use the embryos of your children to study developmental errors.

You say we have an evergrowing population. We took your advice and ran a lottery to pick test subjects. You (or someone you care about) won. You say you meant other people. But to someone in China, you are part of the ever growing population, an abstract that means nothing to them. They don't want to be tested on either.

But I tell you that you wont have to die if you offer up an axolotl embryo in your stead. A large percentage of axolotl embryos die anyway. In fact, this embryo has a fatal heart defect. Would you still sacrifice yourself, or other humans, to save a doomed axolotl embryo. One that could potentially save many human lives?

A human life and an animal life are not equivalent. Because we are the humans. To a wolf, a wolf and an animal life (especially prey) are also not equivalent.

By the way, Animal Rights (not Animal Welfare, like the ASPCA, there is a difference) groups, like PETA, are against the keeping of pets as well as animal testing. You can't straddle the fence when it comes to them, you must accept all their tenets or none.
 
You can't test many things on humans because last time I checked axolotls can regenerate their appendages and even cardiovascular tissue, and that is why axolotls are used by scientists (that and they have very visible embryos in their eggs).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
General chit-chat
Help Users
  • No one is chatting at the moment.
  • Newt Rancher:
    Hey Jamiee this is Rodger from Calgary we chatted a few years back. Do u still keep these newts?
     +1
    Unlike
    Newt Rancher: Hey Jamiee this is Rodger from Calgary we chatted a few years back. Do u still keep these newts? +1
    Back
    Top