Hi Mike

I was in Botswana when that was on so its another one of the things like Blake 7, Doctor Who and Bagpus that I have no idea what people are talking about Although I did read some of the book ages ago and at least know that the meaning of life, the universe and everything is 42...

The story reminds me of what some people in africa do when they are hungry but can't afford to slaughter their cow. So what they sometimes do it cut a steak of their rump and then cauterise it

Apart from that sort of thing, I have no problem at all with animals being raised for food or clothes or even for medical reasons. What I do have a problem with is genetic engineering when we know so little about genetics. Okay we know a lot about genetics - but we still don't understand enough to be messing around with it like this IMO. Its like someone who is just able to use a wordprocessor going into the operating system and swapping bits of code around. Sooner or later you will get to a situation where its too late to come back from. With things like the fact chickens and turkeys on farms are completely unable to survive in the wild, at least that is something where the worst consequence is related to that creature and through that our food supplies. But altered genes can jump between species through various vectors and I'm surprised you don't have reservations about the potential consequences. Personally I don't like the whole business more along the lines Joanna and Ritva have mentioned, but even just from a scientific basis I don't think any of this work should be getting outside of carefully controlled laboratory environments. As it is its all over the planet already, human gene sequences included.

Out of interest, if they asked if they could use your own genes to make these sheep with, say using 5% of the difference between your DNA and a sheeps, would you be happy with that ? And would you feel in any way related to those sheep ?

Simon