Random Fact

The average person has 100,000 hairs on his or her head, each growing about 13 cm every year. Nails grow slower at about 2 cm each year, with fingernails growing four times faster than toenails.


Geek of the week

Nominate someone...

Nominate a Geek. Email news@null- hypothesis.co.uk

Goats Can Foil Gas Attack

Goats Can Foil Gas Attack

By Anne Pawsey

The US army has unveiled its latest invention to combat deadly nerve gases, the humble goat.

Scientists from biotech firm PharmAthene have created a GM goat which produces anti-nerve gas agents in its milk. The clever molecule is very difficult to produce in large quantities; previously it has been harvested from human blood - a method which produces
only milligram amounts of the drug

The goats solve this problem; so far they have produced over 15kg of the stuff at 2-3 grams per litre of milk.

To produce the drug the scientist genetically modified the goats by adding the string of human DNA responsible for producing the enzyme in nature
into the goat’s DNA, they also included “control elements” to make sure that the enzyme was produced in milk and not any other tissues.

Once this is done the goats go on to lead full and happy lives unaffected by the modification. The drug is thought to be more effective than current anti nerve gas drugs but no research has yet established how to milk a goat during combat situations.

Get more on Anne's page of follow the links for more military madness:


- Cool - Star Wars blaster quality check
- Weird - Weapons of monkey destruction
- Scary - Wanted: new nuclear bomb
- Untrue - Scotland in whale bomb alert
Image: Danny Wade


Return to the top »

Share this

Bookmark this article at Digg Bookmark this article at del.icio.us Bookmark this article at Slashdot Bookmark this article at StumbleUpon Email this article to a friend


Have Your Say:

Share your opinion:


LATEST CONTENT

Search




RSS FEED

Register with The Null
17 Jul 2011
Website by Forward Slash Media and Bristol Developers