back to article Mutated genetic supertrout developed in lab

After ten years of tinkering with DNA in a Rhode Island lab, a top fish boffin claims he has created a genetically enhanced mutant supertrout. "Our findings are quite stunning," says Professor Terry Bradley, an expert on trout, salmon, flounder and tuna. "The results have significant implications." Bradley says he has managed …

COMMENTS

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  1. Eponymous Cowherd
    Coat

    Mutated Genetic SuperTrout

    Sounds like the mother-in-law...........

  2. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Wrong fish

    Isn't it supposed to be sea-bass?

  3. Ed Blackshaw Silver badge

    Loks like a cross between

    a fish and one of those big black slugs I find in my garden.

    more to the point, are they ill-tempered?

  4. The Indomitable Gall

    My God! What have we done?

    Some supervillian will now apply this to the Great White, and man will finally be confined to land.

    Oh, the humanity!

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Welcome

    Its only a matter of time ....

    I for one welcome our new fishy overlords

  6. Andrew James

    great white...

    Can they not experiment with something interesting like great white sharks. Or lions. Or gorillas.

    Saving the trout farming industry a few quid is, i am almost certain, a very noble cause, but surely what the world really wants is to see some massive uber predator. Preferably a pair of king kongs that can duke it out for our entertainment.... possibly with ant n dec hosting.

    1. JimC
      Happy

      @Andrew JAmes

      Wouldn't it be better to have a King Kong duking it out *with* Ant and Dec?

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    eXistenZ was on last night...

    ...and we're still in the game, right?

  8. T.F. The Magnificent, Flying Trapeze Gumby Brothers and Furniture Removals.

    Tip for the subs

    NB: There is a breed of cattle called 'Belgian Blue', nothing new in its genetics. The actual cow doesn't have to come from Belgium; similar to Charolais , Jersey or Friesian cows, its just the area when they originated.

    Agri IT. Big business.

  9. mrzog

    MONSTROUS

    This monstrosity should be quarantined. If people farm this hideous perversion it will eventually interbreed with the wild populations. Do I need to explain why this would be disastrous? Some redneck that works in the lab mopping the floors will steal a few specimen and soon our rivers will be overrun by these mutants. This research should not have been funded!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Flame

      I taek it you are a frankentard ?

      OOOHHH genertic engineering....

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Thumb Up

        sure the opposite of Frankentard.

        Frankentard - love it.

        But what is somebody who is anti-frankenstein? Suggestions please (must end in ..tard)

        1. frank ly
          Stop

          I'm not geting involved.........

          ...........in this childish name calling contest.

      2. Ed Blackshaw Silver badge
        FAIL

        A frankentard?

        Or someone expressing a legitimate concern that if these fish were released into the wild, they may outcompete the natural species, in much the same way as introducing a foreign species is usually bad for an ecosystem?

        So, in response to you calling someone a frankentard, can I take the opportunity to call you a 'tardtard'* for your willingness to stick the suffix 'tard' onto any word?

        *Irony is intentional, just in case it doesn't go without saying.

    2. A. Coatsworth Silver badge
      Flame

      v--- Here is the torch

      I'll get the pitchforks. The rest of the lynching mob should be here any minute now. Get ready to be soaked in boiling tar

    3. Flocke Kroes Silver badge

      Yes you need to explain

      Bigger muscles cost more food to grow and maintain, but at some point provide no advantage to a trout. Evolution has already selected the ideal amount of muscle for a trout. If you double the amount of muscle on some trout, and release them into the wild they will stand a smaller chance of survival than normal trout.

      It is like the insecticide gene placed in some plants. The gene requires lots of energy to produce insecticide. It is an advantage in a field dosed with loads of fertiliser. In the real world, other plants not wasting energy on insecticide grow faster and overshadow plants with the insecticide gene.

      Moving a gene from one species to another is challenging enough. Selecting the required genes to give a significant advantage compared to the results of millions of years of natural selection is beyond our ability.

      1. F MacIllFhinnein
        FAIL

        @ Flocke Kroes

        The trouble is that once the alien DNA is introduced to an ecosystem, it takes millions of years to breed it out again - if that ever happens. The wild Atlantic salmon DNA has been disturbed effectively for all time by allowing farmed salmon to escape. As has been pointed out elsewhere, introducing a different strain can upset a whole ecosystem, resulting in native species being endangered or driven to extinction. Look at the introduction of ruff to Loch Lomond by anglers using them as livebait: now the powan or "freshwater herring", which was perfectly adapted to the environment, needs human measures to preserve it - a species that has existed in and that has been perfectly adapted to that environment since the last Ice Age. The laissez-faire approach to introducing alien DNA is irresponsible and doesn't necessarily result in any improvement.

  10. Peter Gathercole Silver badge

    Bigger, more powerful...

    Hope they've not invented the samlon (from 'The Legacy of Heorot'). Don't want any Grendels escaping the fish farm!

  11. TeeCee Gold badge
    Joke

    Old hat.

    The British car industry is way ahead in this field. I remember reading in the Toadygraph at the millenium that the Queen had been presented with a new Bentley, equipped with an "800bhp twin-turbot engine".

    400 horsepower Turbot beat out slightly stronger Trout any day in my book.

  12. Mystic Megabyte
    Paris Hilton

    Teeth?

    The fish in the vid has had its transgenic Piranha teeth removed for safe handling.

    After DARPA read "Salmon Fishing in the Yemen" they planned to release them as Taliban killers!

    Paris 'cos we don't have a fish icon. cough!

  13. Paul Hates Handles

    The cow is not dead...

    Lovely cow, the genetically engineered Belgian Blue. Lovely plumage.

  14. bexley
    Thumb Down

    dear god no

    What...the....fuck?

    And he wants us to eat them as well?

    This has to stop, seriously this is not a good thing.

    1. Disco-Legend-Zeke
      FAIL

      Now I Know How...

      ...Mr. Burns was feeling when Marge fed him Blinky.

      Just eating chickens full of estrogen made American girls start "blooming" at age 11 or 12. I think much of the overweight problem is also animal feed additive related. This is the same problem but from a gene splicing way.

      This is basically a gene that makes steroids. Yeah that's gonna be healthy.

  15. SlabMan

    Trout milk?

    Don't tell the New York chefs - they'll use it for cheese.

  16. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

    Revolutionary?

    They think they can grow the double-size fish for the same amount of food? Have they also found a way around the laws of conservation? Or are the fish going to feed on dark matter in addition to fish food?

    1. Flocke Kroes Silver badge

      Easy to double size with constant food

      Simply halve the quantity.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Question is...

    Are they ill-tempered?

  18. Bumpy Cat
    Big Brother

    Humans next?

    Why go through the tiresome henchmen selection process when you can breed your own super-muscled goons, who can then wrestle the troublesome government operatives into the execution pool more easily?

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Execution pool for government operatives

    I insist that the pool's death-dealing properties be administered by having the troublesome operatives stand on a platform above it, said platform collapsing at the press of a button by an evil finger (or, possibly, collapsing when activated by a head-mounted device), relying on gravity to propel operative flesh towards hungry transgenic mouths. I sense a new Bond film coming on ...

    I'll get me coat, the one with the secret pockets and the lever that makes it turn into a motorbike.

  20. raving angry loony

    doesn't count

    It only counts if they breed fricking LASERs into them.

    1. TimeMaster T
      Coat

      Ah ....

      But you have to admit this is a good first step.

      First create something that can carry the dead weight of the energy weapon THEN add the energy weapon. They have probably had the gene splices for the Laser for the last ten years, but the fish wasn't strong enough to do more than sit on the bottom of the pool. Expect another anouncment soon.

      Now if you'll excuse me I must see about getting my pre-order in for the next version to stock my moat.

      Mines the one with the keys to the secret lair in a volcano and the copy of "How to be an Evil super villain"

    2. Disco-Legend-Zeke

      Not Sharks...

      ...electric eels would be a good start!

  21. Hollerith 1

    Is it just me?

    Or have none of these scientists read Oryx and Crake????

  22. The Sod Particle
    Linux

    Surely

    in 10 years they could have selectively bred bigger trout?

    or is that 'old skool' tech passe now?

    super penguins, now you're talking!

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Welcome

    The day of the trout is upon us!

    I for one welcome our burly, salmonoid overlords...especially with a side of tartar sauce.

  24. EvilJason

    Whats the problem?

    Every natural fish is a mutant compared to every other natural fish out there so why is it ok to eat natural mutants rather than ones mutated by ourselves?

    You know when you cook and eat something what its dna was before does not really matter after it has been though a cooking process and our digestive process.

    Anyway we have been genetically modifying creatures for are plates for thousands of years now though elective breeding, you think the pig that provided the pork your eat is a natural creature? what about the beef from cows or chickens? none of them are as they where in the wild yet a lot of you have no problem eating them.

    Btw after watching the video i can not find where the guy said that these fish get bigger with the same food but if he did say that all it could mean is that they grow quicker which means they process food better, you do not fully consume every thing you eat you know a lot of it gets flushed though your system.

    Hmmm i wonder why no bioscientist has not gone nuts yet and filled an island with really mutated creatures Dr Moreau style.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Troll

      An island with hideously mutated creatures?

      Manhattan.

  25. Wile E. Veteran
    Stop

    Kill them now while we still can

    Here in the Great Lakes region of the USA we are staging a last-ditch effort to keep 2 species of Asian carp from getting through the Chicago Ship Canal and into the Great Lakes ecosystem. These giant (up to 100 lbs.) and aggressive carp have already overrun the Mississippi River after an accidental release . They have a nasty habit of jumping at small-boat operators when they heat the sound of outboard or inboard engines and have caused many fishermen to require trips to the ER after an encounter.

    We don't need these GM Frankenfish in the ecosystem!

  26. Richard Jukes

    Salmon

    It wont be long before the farmed salmon industry uses this.

  27. Anonymous Coward
    Go

    Fish crossed with cattle?

    The time saving on preparing surf & turf will undoutedly free us all from our daily labours and we can explore the galaxy as one.

  28. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Blue belgium bovine bulge benefits

    "Are you happy to see me or is that a blue belgium bovine bulge benefit in your pocket?"

  29. Eddy Ito
    Pint

    cage^H^H^H^H tank match

    Are we ready to rumble?? The fight of the century where the truculent trout goes mano^H^H^H^H fin to fin with the sinister snake head in a winner take all... (What? An almond butter sauce)... move along people, nothing to see here.

  30. Anonymous Coward
    Troll

    The outdoor programs on cable TV might improve

    Watching paint dry or grass grow is usually preferable to watching the fishing shows on cable tv here in the US. When I read the article, I imagined how much video of Bill Dance being yanked off the front of his bass boat by a 9-foot trout could improve such a show.

    Then I read the comment about the asian carp in the Chicago river.

    Hey Bill, we have job for you, up in Illinois, nothing too difficult....

  31. slak
    Alien

    You re doing it wrong...

    That's deeply disturbing. Six pack abs fish, if they released into the wild who knows what will happen to normal trout...

    1. TeeCee Gold badge
      Pint

      Six pack abs fish?

      If we anthropomorphise a bit, the regular trout will look at the ripped version, say something like "poncey git" and order more lager.

  32. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Blue Blue Cow

    Everybody knows cows can't do that... Mooo..

    Couldn't they have bred in a useful genetic trait? Like perhaps modifiying the light emitting cells from some of the deep sea fish for higher intensity to develop trout with frickin lasers?

  33. Charles Spalton 1
    Pint

    Calling Sam 'n' Max...

    One must admire the skill with which the wily übertrout stalks its prey...

  34. Funkster
    Badgers

    Trout are very valuable, and immensely powerful.

    Keep away from the trout.

  35. Filippo Silver badge

    an amazing number of professional biologists in these comments...

    Wow, we have so many people who can confidently claim that a genetically modified trout is an ecological calamity just because it exists, and will be poisonous to eat anyway - and deduce all of this from nothing more than a pop science article, too! I didn't know there were so many top geneticists on the Reg comment section!

  36. Richard 23
    Thumb Down

    I shudder to think

    what could happen once this escapes into the wild. If not this particular mutant, some other mad scientific creation

  37. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    Trout are freshwater fish...

    ...and have underwater weapons.

    Trout are very valuable and immensely powerful. Keep away from the trout.

  38. frankenpete
    Alert

    -tard...

    As we are dealing with fish it surely should be bass-tard.

    On a serious note, if a great white eats genetically modified trout wouldn't his progeny attain modified genes as well?

    Please welome out aquatic overlords!

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