In today’s Urban Cowboy, I’m touching on how animal technologies — cloning, genetic engineering, artificial insemination and embryo transfer — are being developed with the drive towards cheap, affordable food and environmental sustainability in mind.  Remember Dolly the sheep? She was a cloned animal.  She was actually named after Dolly Parton, because she came from a mammary cell. The two Dollys are pictured below.

In response to my column in the Mercury,  Canadian livestock genetics pioneer and University of Guelph professor emeritus Ted Burnside wrote a letter to the editor highlighting the contributions of the Centre for the Genetic Improvement of Livestock, which he cofounded. I’d mentioned the centre in my Urban Cowboy column a few weeks ago.

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