Got Silk essays

Got Silk essays The article Got Silk, which was written for The New York Times Magazine by Lawrence Osborne, tackles the controversial issue of cloning and genetic engineering. Osborne is a journalist who on a regular basis contributes to such noted publications as The New York Time Magazine, Salon magazine, and The New York Observer newspaper. All of these publications are known for their intellectual and academic articles, therefore one would expect an article written by Osborne to be of the same quality. Yet when he tackles a topic that is touchy as cloning and genetic engineering of goats to produce spider silk in their milk it is not up to par. Instead, while explaining how spider silk is one of the strongest materials in the world and what it could be used for; Osborne falls short. Osbornes main argument in the article was that some of Nexias workers were unsure at the beginning of the abnormal experiments but then came around to the idea; Osborne shows this by joking around about the though t of it. Lawrence Osborne takes a tour of transgenic farm; a place were animal species are either cloned or genetically mixed to create medically useful substance. The farm is owned by Nexia Biotechnologies. Nexia scientists are engaged in an experiment where a single gene from a golden orb-weaving spider is placed into a goat egg. Nexia ends up with goats producing spider silk in their milk. The reason for the experiment is because the spider silk is virtually the strongest material that exists in nature. The use of the BioSteel (Nexias name for spider silk) will be for body armor, tennis racket strings, and fishing line. After visiting the farm Osborne wanted to write an informative piece, because, as he says: ...genetics is the most glamorous frontier of contemporary science, but also the most fraught with anxiety. It seems that cloning, transgenic animals and genetic engineering are where our dee ...