Eat your heart out Edward Scissorhands 鈥� scientists in Australian can
now 鈥榩eel鈥� sheep rather than shear them. At an exhibition before Christmas,
Peter Stockwell (left) of the Australian national research organisation,
the CSIRO, demonstrated how to fleece a sheep with his bare hands. The technique
relies on an artificial epidermal growth factor created by researchers at
the CSIRO. When injected, it interrupts hair growth. A month later, breaks
appear in the wool fibre (Science, 23 March 1991) and the fleece can be
pulled off whole in half the time it takes to shear a sheep.
For their next trick, scientists at the CSIRO say they intend to genetically
engineer a sheep that secretes insect repellent from its hair follicles.
The creature is needed to fend off the blowfly, a pest that costs Australian
farmers A$200 million (拢85 million) a year. As a spin-off, the sheep
will also shed the world鈥檚 first mothproof wool.
