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Pigs / Swine

ramonmercado

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Taiwan breeds green-glowing pigs
By Chris Hogg
BBC News, Hong Kong



Scientists in Taiwan say they have bred three pigs that glow in the dark.
They claim that while other researchers have bred partly fluorescent pigs, theirs are the only pigs in the world which are green through and through.

The pigs are transgenic, created by adding genetic material from jellyfish into a normal pig embryo.

The researchers hope the pigs will boost the island's stem cell research, as well as helping with the study of human disease.

The researchers, from National Taiwan University's Department of Animal Science and Technology, say that although the pigs glow, they are otherwise no different from any others.

Taiwan is not claiming a world first. Others have bred partially fluorescent pigs before. But the researchers insist the three pigs they have produced are better.


They are the only ones that are green from the inside out. Even their heart and internal organs are green, they say.

To create them, DNA from jellyfish was added to around 265 pig embryos which were implanted in eight different pigs.

Four of the pigs became pregnant and three male piglets were born three months ago.

Green generation

In daylight the researchers say the pigs' eyes, teeth and trotters look green. Their skin has a greenish tinge.

In the dark, shine a blue light on them and they glow torch-light bright.

The scientists will use the transgenic pigs to study human disease. Because the pig's genetic material is green, it is easy to spot.

So if, for instance, some of its stem cells are injected into another animal, scientists can track how they develop without the need for a biopsy or invasive test.

But creating them has not been easy. Many of the altered embryos failed to develop.

The researchers say they hope the new, green pigs will mate with ordinary female pigs to create a new generation - much greater numbers of transgenic pigs for use in research.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/w ... 605202.stm

Published: 2006/01/12 11:04:37 GMT

© BBC MMVI
 
Cold Pigs Could Save Human Lives

A procedure tested on these poor pink porkers may allow surgical patients to flatline for over an hour.

By Bijal P. Trivedi from Wired magazine.
Jul 14, 2006 | 2:00 AM



Stuck Pig

cryogenics

Mike Duggan, a veterinary surgeon, holds his gloved hands over an 8-inch incision in the belly of pig 78-6, a 120-pound, pink Yorkshire. He’s waiting for a green light from Hasan Alam, a trauma surgeon at Massachu­setts General Hospital.

“Make the injury,” Alam says. Duggan nods and slips his hands into the gash, fingers probing through inches of fat and the rosy membranes holding the organs in place. He pushes aside the intestines, ovaries, and bladder, and with a quick scalpel stroke slices open the iliac artery. It’s 10:30 am. Pig 78-6 loses a quarter of her blood within moments. Heart rate and blood pressure plummet. Don’t worry – Alam and Duggan are going to save her.

Alam goes to work on the chest, removing part of a rib to reveal the heart, a throbbing, shiny pink ball the size of a fist. He cuts open the aorta – an even more lethal injury – and blood sprays all over our scrubs. The EKG flatlines. The surgeons drain the remaining blood and connect tubes to the aorta and other vessels, filling the circulatory system with chilled organ-preservation fluid – a nearly frozen daiquiri of salts, sugars, and free-radical scavengers.

Her temperature is 50 degrees Fahrenheit; brain activity has ceased. Alam checks the wall clock and asks a nurse to mark the time: 11:25 am.

But 78-6 is, in fact, only mostly dead – the common term for her state is, believe it or not, suspended animation. Long the domain of transhumanist nut-jobs, cryogenic suspension may be just two years away from clinical trials on humans (presuming someone can solve the sticky ethical problems). Trauma surgeons can’t wait – saving people with serious wounds, like gunshots, is always a race against the effects of blood loss. When blood flow drops, toxins accumulate; just five minutes of low oxygen levels causes brain death.

Chill a body, though, and you change the equation. Metabolism slows, oxygen demand dives, and the time available to treat the injury stretches. “With the pig essentially dead,” Alam says, “we’ve got hours to fix it and play around.” By noon the team has stitched up the arteries and gone to lunch. It has become ­routine: Alam has suspended 200 pigs for an hour each, and although experimental protocol calls for different levels of care for each pig, the ones that got optimal treatment all survived. Today he’ll keep 78-6 down for two hours.

That afternoon, the team scrubs back in and starts pumping warm blood into 78-6, watching the heart twitch and writhe like a bag of worms as it struggles to find a rhythm. A healthy heart should feel like a rare steak, Alam explains; medium or well-done ­suggests muscle damage. He pokes it. “Medium,” he says, removing clamps to let it pump more blood. If he closes the chest too soon and the heart tires, he won’t be able to save the animal.

A few minutes later, Alam touches the heart again. “Medium-rare,” he says. “Looks pretty good.” But he admits he’s ballparking. “It’s the gestalt,” he says. “It’s not in any book.”

Over the next hour, the surgeons stitch up 78-6. Everyone leaves except Alam, who perches on a stool at her side. When he removes her breathing tube, she breathes irregularly a few times and he leans in with a hand venti­lator, squeezing rhythmically and stroking her head. She quivers; her ear twitches.

By 6 pm she’s awake, draped in a blanket. Attendants roll her gurney into a recovery room with classical music playing on a radio and a healthy pig in an adjacent stall to keep her company. Pigs like that. Tests on other subjects – and postmortem examinations of brains – have revealed no cognitive damage from the ­procedure, but Alam will nevertheless stick around until 78-6 gets back on her feet, around midnight. “She didn’t look so great before,” he says, patting the pig’s side. “But she’s going to make it.”

– Bijal P. Trivedi


http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.0 ... .html?pg=4
 
Pigs sadly seem quite smart too. I prefer my animals dumb and tasty.
 
Pigs sadly seem quite smart too. I prefer my animals dumb and tasty.
IIRC there was a documentary on the idiot-lantern a few years back showing pigs were way smarter than dogs and capable of problem solving that even smart dogs couldn't manage at all - it's also worth reading 'The Whole Hog" by Lyall Watson on the same subject.

You may never eat bacon again
 
Roadhogs hold up traffic.

A family of pigs caused long loins of traffic when they hogged a main road.

The mother and piglets trottered out of their enclosure in Staffordshire at about 22:30 GMT on Thursday Police went to the scene in Heath Hayes, Cannock, and closed the road while they set about crackling the case.

But before officers could grill any suspects, the pigs returned to a field. Ch Insp Sam Rollinson said: "It's not something you deal with every day. If they hadn't gone into field, how we would have corralled them would have been interesting one," he said.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-stoke-staffordshire-47753142
 
Pigs - driving the future.

Looked for the end of combustion cars thread and couldn't find it, so here it is. METHAAAYNE!!
images
 
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Pigs - driving the future.

Looked for the end of combustion cars thread and couldn't find it, so here it is. METHAAAYNE!!
images
Who run Bartertown?
 
Wonder if crisps would work as boar bait?

An "angry pig" confronted engineers in a London street, delaying their repair of a burst water main before it was led away with a bag of crisps.

The pipe burst on Lamberts Road, Surbiton, damaging nearby railway equipment, which caused train delays. Thames Water said their efforts to reach a valve to cut the water were initially hindered by "a large pig" which was "acting aggressively". It is not known what flavour crisps were used to lead it away.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-50406198
 
Wonder if crisps would work as boar bait?

An "angry pig" confronted engineers in a London street, delaying their repair of a burst water main before it was led away with a bag of crisps.

The pipe burst on Lamberts Road, Surbiton, damaging nearby railway equipment, which caused train delays. Thames Water said their efforts to reach a valve to cut the water were initially hindered by "a large pig" which was "acting aggressively". It is not known what flavour crisps were used to lead it away.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-50406198

The pig was in a field and not loose on the road, but the workers had to go into its enclosure to reach the water cutoff. It had every right to kick off!
 
A Chinese theme park was opened with a weird stunt: a pig was forced to do a bungee jump.
Well, it was strapped up in a harness, thrown off a tower and then packed off to a slaughter house.

Outrage after Chinese theme park forces pig to bungee jump

A Chinese theme park has triggered a wave of outrage on social media after it forced a pig to bungee jump off a 68-metre high tower.

Video footage shows the pig tied to a pole, carried by two men to the top of a tower before being pushed off.

The theme park located in Chongqing said the stunt was held to mark the opening of the new bungee attraction.
 
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Poor thing. I'm sure it was terrified. And then to go to a slaughter house! Pigs do understand some things. Very cruel and very stupid people.

Sadly, China is not known for its respect for animal rights. Human minorities are treated badly too.
 
Sadly, China is not known for its respect for animal rights. Human minorities are treated badly too.

And then they wonder why deadly diseases break out?

The Guardian article clearly implicated revolting food preparation methods and inhumane animal husbandry in the outbreak.
 
Pig cuddlers needed to acclimatize rescued farm swine for eventual adoption as pets.
Sanctuary seeks 'piggy cuddlers' to socialize rescued swine

A South Carolina animal rescue group put out a call for "piggy cuddlers" to help 100 rescued pigs learn to be comfortable with humans for their new lives as pets.

Cotton Branch Farm Sanctuary in Leesville said in a Facebook post that that it is seeking "piggy cuddlers" to help socialize the animals after they were rescued from an animal hoarding situation in Kentucky.

"Belly scratches, cookies, sitting with and even just talking to our pig friends can get them ready for their new home," the post said.

Evan Costner, executive director at the sanctuary, said physical contact is important to help the pigs adjust when they are given new homes.

"We need to socialize them so they can eventually bond with the herd leader," meaning their new owners, Costner told The State newspaper.

Costner said the sanctuary is currently in the process of finding new homes for the 100 pigs as family pets.
SOURCE: https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2020/0...o-socialize-rescued-swine/8441580227731/?sl=1

LOCAL NEWS VERSION (With More Details):
https://www.thestate.com/news/state/south-carolina/article239695713.html
 
If I was a pig, I'd be pretty suspicious of humans anyway. George Clooney famously had a pet pig, cos he's a wacky guy under that smooth surface.
 
Praised Pig Peacefully Passes On.

A pig that became famous in China after surviving 36 days under rubble from a powerful earthquake in 2008, has died.

Zhu Jianqiang, or "Strong-Willed Pig", died on Wednesday night of "old age and exhaustion", according to the museum in China's Sichuan province where the animal resided. At the time of its rescue, it was seen as a symbol of hope and resilience.

Millions of people have taken to social media site Weibo to remember the pig and pay tribute to its long life. The Sichuan Museum of Jianchuan said Zhu Jianqiang had died at the age of 14.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-57509236
 
Perhaps a previous PM wouldn't have let this issue hog the headlines.

The prime minister is not taking the prospect of a national pig cull seriously, according to a top vet.

Some 600 pigs have already been shot and a mass cull is "the next stage", the National Pig Association said.

Boris Johnson asked a journalist if he had ever eaten a bacon sandwich, saying: "Those pigs when you ate them, were not alive".

Vet Duncan Berkshire, who is involved in planning any cull, said the remarks were "enormously disappointing". Mr Berkshire is liaising with the Department for Environment and Rural Affairs (Defra) over the logistics of tackling farms' overcrowding concerns as adult pigs are not being slaughtered fast enough.Abattoir labour shortages are being blamed on Brexit and the Covid pandemic.

Mr Berkshire said: "Unfortunately those discussions are around the horrific case where we are looking at not only when, but also how, we will have to enact a cull of healthy animals which would then just go for incineration," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. ...

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-58813959
 
Perhaps a previous PM wouldn't have let this issue hog the headlines.

The prime minister is not taking the prospect of a national pig cull seriously, according to a top vet.

Some 600 pigs have already been shot and a mass cull is "the next stage", the National Pig Association said.

Boris Johnson asked a journalist if he had ever eaten a bacon sandwich, saying: "Those pigs when you ate them, were not alive".

Vet Duncan Berkshire, who is involved in planning any cull, said the remarks were "enormously disappointing". Mr Berkshire is liaising with the Department for Environment and Rural Affairs (Defra) over the logistics of tackling farms' overcrowding concerns as adult pigs are not being slaughtered fast enough.Abattoir labour shortages are being blamed on Brexit and the Covid pandemic.

Mr Berkshire said: "Unfortunately those discussions are around the horrific case where we are looking at not only when, but also how, we will have to enact a cull of healthy animals which would then just go for incineration," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. ...

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-58813959
'Not slaughtered fast enough'? I seriously doubt pigs (unlike many animals) will be too worried about overcrowding as long as there is enough feed. They are intelligent and adaptable.

If someone's got too many I can take on a few dozen, and I know someone who can turn them in to bacon in an appropriate time scale.
 
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