I understand the interest in a novel kind of engineering, and this seems to be more of a thought exercise than anything else. I also understand that not everyone shares my views on animals, but this is such an awful exercise. This absurd mechanization of a living creature is just disgusting. Modern factory practices already deny animals of so many of their natural behaviors. This kind of thinking totally lacking in empathy and consequences scares the hell out of me.
I'm one of Hubbub's developers (the one who attached lasers), and just wanted to respond to this because I can completely understand the distaste you're feeling.
As you seem to realise, this is just an exercise in thinking "what if", I don't think anyone here would actually want to go ahead and make any of this happen, and we're definitely all very much against factory farming. Thats why we do what we do, giving independent butchers who genuinely care about the animals they raise a chance to compete with the big chains.
On the other hand, we could drastically improve the lives of farm animals if we engineered them more. For example, we could give them CIPA[1]. We could make their brains smaller. A vegetable chicken can't suffer. These modifications may sound perverse, but I doubt we're going to stop cooping these creatures up and killing them any time soon. We might as well do our best to reduce the amount of suffering we cause them.
If we're designing it as a food animal, I'd maximize the meat area and try to minimize the rest. I'd reduce the amount of body fat naturally carried. If possible, I'd take a page from "Top Secret"[1] and make the bird perform photosynthesis.
If we're designing a good prey, I'd make it smaller and give it better wings for flight.
Is very low fat necessarily optimal? I think excessively fatty birds are a problem, but depending on use, I suspect a non-zero percentage of fat is desirable. Though I have no idea what the optimal amount would be. But in plenty of food applications, grease is good.
I would like chicken to have a programming interface so I could write automated scripts. For example, if an event is sensed that an egg is coming, then walk to my boiler and tweet. By tweet, I mean tweet like a chicken, or if you like, tweet like a chicken and tweet through the Internet.
There's no point in redesigning the chicken, because we already have quite a few kinds. And yes, they are already optimized through primitive genetic engineering techniques for various characteristics useful to humans: early maturity, large breast size, egg production speed, taste (or lack thereof) and so forth... not all in the same variety, of course.
Diversity builds resilience. When the genome development environments go online, I recommend that we open source the chicken and let a million variants cluck. Now, BSD, MPL or GPL?
If it's going to be of any help for world domination, or at least in serving as a good guard chicken, it'll need the personality of a goose, the fangs and venom sacs of a deadly snake and the talons of an eagle. Something will have to be done to make it sound more intimidating as well, so we should add a rattle on its tail. Oh, and unlike a regular chicken, the wings should be functional in order to control the skies. Behold the fully-realized rattle-chicken.
This prompts some interesting questions. Could you design a brainless chicken or one with just enough brains to eat, breathe and lay eggs? And would that be more or less horrible compared to the way chickens are currently being treated in factories? Where's the line between vat grown meat and brainless chickens?
As for eggs, for baking they can easily be replaced.
It's more difficult if you want to replace scrambled eggs or similar. I have tried the vegg [1], but have not been very impressed.
And I just googled and found out that apparently in China there is a food scandal where they produce fake eggs [2]. Obviously they design them for profit and not as a replacement for vegans or even a healthy, cheaper alternative. But it seems that it could be done.
I think I saw in Food Inc. that chickens have been bread to have enormous breasts to serve the market demands. Same goes for basically all fruits and vegetables, raised and modified for unnaturally large sizes.
[+] [-] Falling3|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jon-wood|13 years ago|reply
As you seem to realise, this is just an exercise in thinking "what if", I don't think anyone here would actually want to go ahead and make any of this happen, and we're definitely all very much against factory farming. Thats why we do what we do, giving independent butchers who genuinely care about the animals they raise a chance to compete with the big chains.
[+] [-] AngryParsley|13 years ago|reply
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hereditary_sensory_and_autonomi...
[+] [-] jopt|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stephengillie|13 years ago|reply
If we're designing it as a food animal, I'd maximize the meat area and try to minimize the rest. I'd reduce the amount of body fat naturally carried. If possible, I'd take a page from "Top Secret"[1] and make the bird perform photosynthesis.
If we're designing a good prey, I'd make it smaller and give it better wings for flight.
[1] http://www.amazon.com/Top-Secret-John-Reynolds-Gardiner/prod...
[+] [-] alsothings|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] songgao|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stephengillie|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dsr_|13 years ago|reply
Diversity builds resilience. When the genome development environments go online, I recommend that we open source the chicken and let a million variants cluck. Now, BSD, MPL or GPL?
[+] [-] arethuza|13 years ago|reply
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg13318124.900-review-sp...
[+] [-] tgb|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Tipzntrix|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pdog|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] WiseWeasel|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sdfjkl|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shalmanese|13 years ago|reply
Yes, it's called a chicken.
[+] [-] finne|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] junto|13 years ago|reply
As an extension to the meat chicken I would like to see extra re-generating legs, a bit like how lizards loss and regrow their tails through autotomy.
They would come with their own super-oven, so you press a switch and they self-cook in 2 seconds. Pooof!
[+] [-] CookWithMe|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CookWithMe|13 years ago|reply
It's more difficult if you want to replace scrambled eggs or similar. I have tried the vegg [1], but have not been very impressed.
And I just googled and found out that apparently in China there is a food scandal where they produce fake eggs [2]. Obviously they design them for profit and not as a replacement for vegans or even a healthy, cheaper alternative. But it seems that it could be done.
[1] http://www.thevegg.com/ [2] http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/11/06/how-to-make-a-rotten-egg...
[+] [-] vibragiel|13 years ago|reply
http://www.ted.com/talks/jack_horner_building_a_dinosaur_fro...
[+] [-] alsothings|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] itcmcgrath|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anonymfus|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hayksaakian|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] logn|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dutchbrit|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scottcanoni|13 years ago|reply