Sigh, this is one of those posts that we're just shaking our heads at. Humans have made pretty amazing scientific advances in the last 100 years, but we're not sure if this is one of them. The whole point is that alligators have a gene that helps them fight off diseases and infections in their intestines. This is only significant because apparently, up to 40% of young catfish die from disease before they can be harvested.
Yes, it's true, a lot of fishing agriculture in the US is made up of catfish meat. We didn't know exactly how much until we did our research for this article (around 307 million pounds per year), but catfish can be an incredibly invasive species. They eat everything. If they become more disease resistant, they could end up destroying whole river ecosystems and making more problems than we had before.
For any who are interested, the full article is here.
We say it all the time that we love all animals….but catfish are a little hard to love. They just look so….wet. And weird looking. And slimy. But! They're a part of the Earth and everyone has their part to play, but they definitely have a face only a mother could love.
The genetically modified catfish is the one on top, and a normal catfish can be seen on the bottom. To our untrained, scientific eye, we can't see much of a difference except for the size, but at the genetic level they are a world of different!
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