Cloned Horses Ok To Compete In Olympics 87
wisebabo writes with the news of a forward-thinking decision handed down by the Federation Equestre Internationale (reversing an earlier ban, so it's been on their minds) to not prohibit cloned horses from competing in the events it sanctions, including the Olympics. "Of course they'll still be restricted to the equestrian events (ha ha). One wonders if they'll be allowed to do the same in say, horse or dog racing. It'll then just come down to the ability of the jockeys I guess (or training). I wonder why they don't make all Olympic athletes use the same exact
'equipment' as their competitors. That would get rid of situations like with those super efficient swimsuits that were banned. Of course they really should return to the spirit of the original Games and compete naked. That would really improve ratings! (But it would make the winter games rather hazardous.) When do you think cloning athletes will become legal?" (Note to those who wish to enter more than one event: ultra-slippery swimsuits are back).
Dupe! (Score:2, Offtopic)
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Of course they really should return to the spirit of the original Games and compete naked.
But that would just lead to other regulations and attempts to circumvent them. Women's swimming would be merely a contest between flat-chested completely hairless females, while men's swimming would involve recently-castrated completely hairless males. Contests between shaved persons whose gender can be determined only by genetic testing is not guaranteed to provide a spectacle people actually want to watch.
Then again, most of the current Olympics is just as bad - many of my colleagues refer to it as "tu
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But now back to cloned horses competing in normal races. Sure, but in the long run it will probably make every horse cloned to perfection. I mean, horse's penis can only grow so big it's better to clone the largest one and shove it in the back of the competitors owner. But will it make it more
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Uh, sports competitors almost always have great bodies.
I'm guessing this is in response to this line?
Women's swimming would be merely a contest between flat-chested completely hairless females, while men's swimming would involve recently-castrated completely hairless males.
If so, I think AliasMarlowe's point was that since you don't have clothing to streamline an athlete's body, only athletes that are naturally streamlined would be presented by their respective countries. That means athletes with big breasts, testicles, and/or penises* would be out, since those parts would increase drag.
*While AliasMarlowe only mentioned castration, they also mention requiring a genetic test to determine an athlete's gender, so I suspect they w
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so I suspect they were including the removal of the penis
And IT guys thought they had to make sacrifices for their careers!
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(insert theoretical creepiness in some sports here)
The gymnastics chicks are already fully pedo bear compatible, so at least with some events its not like they could possibly get any creepier. I dated a gymnast chick in high school and she was informed that she was looking "too old" to compete, because the judges only like the preteen look and she looked like a normal girl her age. So she was thinking about going into coaching because she didn't look pre-teen enough anymore yet she was pretty skilled. Some events are already maxed out freaky icky and com
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In girls Olympic gymnastics -- not WOMENS' gymnastics because the competitors are all girls, not women, the trouble that women face is that they grow out of size for what they are expected to do. Once their bodies approach the size of normal women, it becomes physically impossible to do as many rotations in the air, jump their full height in the air off the spring floor or land a back flip ten thousand times in practice on the balance beam without breaking an ankle or worse. Taller women and those whose c
First mayonnaise post (Score:1)
I think there should either be unrestricted garnishing, or a single, Olympic standard mayonnaise.
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That's the way I understand it - as long as there's no genetic engineering going on, just a direct copy, then it's still no different than any other horse.
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Actually, unless at least a little occurs, there tends to be telomerase shortening and some epigenetic issues - if anything the cloned horse should be less healthy/sturdy than the original. I'm guessing they've made strides to fix this issue. Still, having a cloned horse, to me, says that your groups ability to breed horses is not being tested - so really, everyone should have a cloned horse, all from the same source. Otherwise, if breeding ability is being tested, nobody should have a cloned horse.
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And no one should copy the source, of course
That is, of course, unless the horse is released as open source!
(It was either Mr. Ed or Queen Chrysalis [youtube.com], and since we all know there was only one Matrix movie, I went with Mr. Ed. What can I say, I wanted this day to be perfect.)
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...grabs a shovel [findagrave.com] and a loan...
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it's still no different than any other horse.
not necessarily true: championship winning horses present with advantageous traits, such as huge hearts [nma.gov.au]; increased scope for ventricular hypertrophy could very well be preserved by cloning, as the enlarged heart [horsesonly.com] is a sex-linked trait [pedigreepost.net].
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It's probably less than any other horse. Clones tend to have more physiological problems than animals produced the old-fashioned way. And what are breeders for if not to improve the stock beyond what is available in past generations?
And it's not all genetics either. There are a thousand variations of development in an animal as complex and intelligent as a horse that will affect how and even whether it can race.
Cloned animals won't all have the same temperament as their progenitor, and that is a very imp
Really bad ethics.... (Score:3)
nothing to prevent (short of lack of funds) trainers from cloning ten animals and taking greater risks with training because they have spares.
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The same could be said of naturally bred horses. If you have enough money, you can just keep breeding the best together, weed out the unsuccessful ones and still have a whole lot of very good stock to train with plenty of "spares".
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No it can't.
If I make now 10 clones, I have in 2 - 3 years 10 exact copies of my "parent" horse.
If I breed 10 offsprings, first of all the female horse is 10 times pregnant in a row. Or I have to take 10 different female horses ... which obvioulsy introduces differences.
Further more, even if the same father and the same mother get 10 childs, they all will be different. So weeding the unsuccessfuls out might even weed all ten out ...
It is not unlikely that the trait that made the father and the mother succes
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Cloning would be much mo
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No it can't.
If I make now 10 clones, I have in 2 - 3 years 10 exact copies of my "parent" horse.
Cloning doesn't work like that. You have 10 genetic copies of the original horse, every one almost as different from the original horse as if you had bred the same stud to 10 different well-bred mares. There's a lot of random variation in gene expression in clones. But you get to use ordinary mares to gestate them, which is a saving and maybe worth it if one of those 10 clones turns out to be a good racer.
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All race horses can be traced back to three thoroughbreds.
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You need to train teh spare ones, too! So I guess a lack of time preents this. And: the horse likes to bond with the rider. So, the rider has to ride all horses ...
Re:Really bad ethics....(edit correction) (Score:3)
cloning one animal ten times, and taking chances with the training of the clones.,
because if you take a risk that breaks a leg, you shoot it and have 9 more.
I'd rather see changes to paralympics... (Score:5, Interesting)
How long before the paralympics become some kind of cyborg olympics? It's like the ban of drugs and performance boosters on athletes. We all want to see what records can be broken, just how far can we push the human body (within limits, I don't want to see lives destroyed for a record).
The olympics has become (or was it always in it's modern form?) a corporate circus. So let's go next step and merge formula 1 with it. /A Londoner not looking forward to public transport soon
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Londoner not looking forward to public transport soon
I lived in Atlanta during the 1996 Olympics and everyone predicted a traffic nightmare, but the reality couldn't be farther from the truth. Traffic was a breeze. Many workers took vacations, some to volunteer, others to watch, but many left town altogether. The out-of-towners hit the public transit a little hard, but the only stations really overcrowded were the ones closest to the venues. While it's likely that your fears are misguided, in the end it might be the perfect time to rent a car and get to
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Oh, we also know about Trafalgar square, for whatever that's worth.
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Considering Atlanta traffic, a nightmare would be a distinct improvement (spoken by someone who lives in the DC metro area).
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2. Cars travel at about 10mph through London. Cloned horses are faster.
I don't drive in London. No one with any sense does. The last time I drove through London (city) was on a Friday night during the rush hour. It took 2.5 hours to get out of London; about 10 miles. 1 hour to drive the other 75 miles home.
Re:I'd rather see changes to paralympics... (Score:5, Interesting)
Frankly, I'd love to see a competition where athletes use whatever enhancements they can. Pump yourself up with drugs, get blood transfusions from fifty people before you start the race, bring on the cyborgs an eunuchs! No holds barred.
Sure, some hearts may just simply explode, but the Olympics stopped being about sportsmanship a long time ago, so why keep up pretenses.
Re:I'd rather see changes to paralympics... (Score:4, Insightful)
bring on the cyborgs
We already have those sports, instead of running we have cycling and formula one, depending on whether you allow engines or not. They're just not fancy enough to be called cyborgs. What's the point of seeing how far a spring-loaded jumper can be catapulted in the high jump? We already have human cannonball shows. Sure the Olympics have turned into a perversion of itself, but sports is a lot more than that and I'd hate to see kids and youth thinking it's all about the drugs and turning themselves into freaks of nature.
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Actually, I agree with that. Not a huge sports fan, but if there really were some kind of "Trans-human Olympics", which allowed the best combination of athletics and weird science, I'd be more likely to stick around past the opening ceremonies. Better a separate event than just letting it leak in to the regular Olympics. I'd also expect that cloned horse to eventually have bits of tiger or dinosaur DNA... now THAT would be a horse!
What? (Score:2)
Based on the excerpt I am not even remotely tempted to follow the link. Something about preferring coherently written prose.
I'd like to blame the editors... (Score:2)
... but all they did was change the formatting a little and delete one or two sentences. As my only defense all I can say is I wrote it very quickly because I didn't want to be scooped. Here's my original submission:
Cloned Horses Ok To Compete In The Olympics
"Of course they'll still be restricted to the equestrian events (ha ha).
One wonders if they'll be allowed to do the same in say horse or dog racing. It'll then just come down to the ability of the jockeys I guess (or training).
I wonder why they don't
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When do you think cloning ATHELETES will become legal? That's something I wouldn't put past the old USSR/East European Block. Remember the "women" atheletes they sent?"
Link to Original Source
What do you mean when will it become legal ? It may not be legal but you can bet that certain countries *cough*China*cough* are already doing that.
For some regimes the only real definition of illegal involves being caught.
Maybe all should be cloned? (Score:2)
It seems to me, that by making all the horses a clone of the same original horse (i.e. no clones-of-clones), then the variables will be reduced to the ability of the individual to play, as well as raise/train the horses - more in line with the Olympics, I think, than breeding abilities.
Then again, if they want it to be a test of horse breeding too, then cloning shouldn't be allowed. I guess, what I'm getting at, all competing horses should be cloned from the same original horse (no clones of clones), OR no
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Except the jockeys are the human factor - what the race is about. The horses are just a tool for the competitors.
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i think the betting industry is the "human factor"
also while we are at it... centaurs
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Cloned jokeys (Score:2)
That's what I'm interested in.
Not only horses and swimsuit ... (Score:1)
New athletics track suit ...
And presumably new bicycles designs for the velodrome/road, new pistol/bow for the target events, new javelins designs, new discuss, new pole for the pole vault ... etc ... etc ... etc
Oh .. and new designer drugs !!!!
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...but horses *in* swimsuits!
And presumably new bicycles designs...
The equestrian cycling events are my favorite, but there's always room for improvement, such as preventing their tails from getting caught up in the rear wheel or the gears.
$RANDOM_PONY_REFERENCE
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tails, eh?
good point ... that probably explains why circuses never got more advanced than bears on bicycles
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The designer drug part sounds interesting. But there might be some drawbacks.
http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/update-all-drug-olympics/1198068/ [nbc.com]
Awesome! (Score:3)
> I wonder why they don't make all Olympic athletes
> use the same exact 'equipment' as their competitors.
That'd be frickin' sweet! Like IROC [wikipedia.org] but with horses!
Violates the Spirit of the Race (Score:2)
Without the competition of breeding, all horse racing really consist of is a midget and some dirt.
No point in cloned athletes (at the moment) (Score:2)
Why clone people (even if it was possible) when it would take 20-25 years for them become (potentially) champion athletes
It's much easier to illegally train (ie drug) unknown athletes for a few years, untested by drug authorities, before making a enormous debut into competition.
History says this works quite well ... Off the top of my head:
- germans in the 70s
- US track in the 80s
- cyclists in the 90s
- chinese swimmers in the 00s
and dare i suggest the current dominance of Jamaican sprinters who have 5 of the
Before you dare, check their biological passport (Score:2, Informative)
Currently athletes planning on participating in the Olympics are required to participate in biological passport program and be available 24/7 year round for testing.
Wikipedia Biological Passport [wikipedia.org]
Kind of amazing (Score:2)
For an industry which used to (and for all I know still does) prohibit artificial insemination, that cloning should even be considered seems crazy.
Jockey Club rule (Score:3)
For an industry which used to (and for all I know still does) prohibit artificial insemination, that cloning should even be considered seems crazy.
That's just a Jockey Club rule [jockeyclub.com] for thoroughbred racehorses. For other breeds, artificial insemination is common. Horse breeding involves only a small number of stallions; most stallions are gelded and never bred.
A horse is a horse (Score:1)
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I was with you for a bit, but notice you forgot the fine print: "but what if the horse is the famous Mr. Ed?"
Clone the Olympics (Score:2)
Could we clone the Olympics and have an event with the same questionable "sports" but no corporate sponsorship, no control-freaks, no rules-lawyers, no TV commercials by the winners, no idiotic sports announcers (at least in the USA; compare "ninja warrior" as imported from Japan to the tired formulaic coverage on the locally produced shows). Basically clone the olympics, flush the trash down the drain, and try the new improved cleaned up version?
Just a international group getting together and flinging jav
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So you'd be against a frist psot competition?
That's a rather narrow way of looking at it...
Olympics or Pharmalympics? (Score:2)
Like with doping in other sports this should not lead to a competition about who has the best medical support so I think this is a stupid step onto a very slippery slope.
Drop all restrictions (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, I wish they'd drop ALL restrictions.
Let's see what the best labs, piles of money, human ingenuity, and OCD athletes can accomplish.
I want to see sprinters winning the 10k in under 10m times with spliced cheetah tendons, and hyperoxygenated shrew blood.
I want to see swimmers with shark skin, webbed everything, and re-plumbed breathing holes out the top of their head doing the 1500m without taking 2nd breath.
Screw it, it's all about $$ anyway, and these athletes are already essentially sacrificing a normal existence for their sport. Let's see what we can accomplish when we REALLY try.
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Make it like old NASCAR, then? Essentially waiting for a sprinter to collapse and die fo a massive infarct a foot from the finish line?
Sounds like progress to me. Not. Not everyone goes to NASCAR races to see someone turn right in traffic. Ignornin the three road courses naturally.
Obligatory (Score:1)
It would be like the All Drug Olypmics [hulu.com]
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No restrictions and no rules = no sport, no game. Seems to me what you really want are different restrictions.
So you need to think harder about why your restrictions would be better than the current restrictions.
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If you can't tell the fundamental difference between one rule (in a footrace, people actually have to be running and can't, for example, fly a rocket) and another (runners cannot take a certain type of drug before a race), you've got bigger problems, chum.
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I'll just point out that you were the one who was saying "drop ALL restrictions". Note your own emphasis. I currently can't think of a game without restrictions. Different restrictions, different game. No restrictions, no game.
So if you want a particular sort of running game/sport, you're going to need to think harder and deeper about the rules than "drop ALL restrictions". Otherwise you might as well play Calvinball.
Actually ... (Score:2)
Of course they'll still be restricted to the equestrian events (ha ha).
The Games! (Score:1)
public attention to olympics (Score:2)
I suggest public attention to Olympics should be diverted to a better place by declaring Olympic games as a form of entertainment.
Why would anyone care about the rules of Big Brother or Jersey Shore?
Yoda? (Score:2)
Begun, the Clone Races have!
Cloning athletes? No sir. (Score:2)
Where's the money in cloning athletes? Now, if you get some hair from celebrities (say, Marilyn Monroe or any other sex symbol), you clone the celebrity and raise the child in a very protected environment to be sold to a tycoon when s/he matures (although most of the capital would be given in advance, so the clone would be mostly pre-sold), now there's a *lot* of money. Of course, it's most unethical and illegal, but that never stopped supply and demand.