Cloning Sheep, From Dolly to MMK

I sit here at my desk, sipping wine, writing this newsletter, wondering what it is you Neuralyzers want to read about from this very newsletter. Please, comment, let me know, I am interested as the guy who writes this thing. I am interested in science and technology news and figure and hope you are too. People keep unsubscribing like it’s 1999 but hey, that’s ok, that’s business. I unsubscribe after I bought that one thing about eight years ago…

The first cloned mammal was Dolly the Sheep. This was 1996. I was 6 years old. Ah, to be in the age of cloning and not even know it. And today, the children of tomorrow, what technologies will they see later in life only to realize it’s existed?

This image is from Getty Images, somehow they just own everything, kind of like BlackRock.

Cloning is an exceptional thought experiment for me, I use it in a story I’ve written, my past, your future, that uses it as an allegory for childhood trauma. I found it very therapeutic and rewarding to write about those experiences and to one day show the world. It’s called KEVIN II, and you’ll know why one day, but today, we’re talking sheep. Why? Well it’s today’s recent science news. No, not Dolly, like I said that was in the greatest age of all time, the ‘90s baby. But Dolly is the beginning, and what story should not start there? Dolly was an amazing breakthrough in science, replicating a mammal, an identical specimen. Imagine the lamb legs you could nom while reading your favorite verse from Leviticus.

Montana Man Pleads Guilty to Federal Wildlife Trafficking Charges as Part of Yearslong Effort to Create Giant Hybrid Sheep for Captive Hunting

Yes, we’re not at the stage of dinosaurs and wooly mammoths yet (I hope to fuck never for either one), but we are at the stage of capitalist science to breed animals to shoot in close quarters. Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve nothing against a good, fair chase hunt. I grew up hunting white-tail deer, fishing for catfish and crappie, and eating them all, that is my heritage and I love it to death and will fight for it forever. But breeding new species, ones that could not come up in the natural world, all so some rich asshole who owns a bunch of land can charge some people even MORE money to shoot a fat sheep is beyond lame. I think the real kicker of the story is not smuggling Marco Polo sheep ‘genetic material’ across international borders, but the dude is 80 years old. I mean come on man, retire.

Here is a line from the original Justice Dept article: Schubarth sent genetic material from the argali parts to a lab to create cloned embryos. Schubarth then implanted the embryos in ewes on his ranch, resulting in a single, pure genetic male Marco Polo argali that he named “Montana Mountain King” or MMK.

From Dolly to Montana Mountain King, sheep have been getting the lion’s share of cloning attention from the ‘90s to the dark age ‘20s, and if that isn’t interesting, I don’t know what is. PS. I just had a great lamb burger tonight for dinner, it was giant.

I had purchased said lamb leg about a week ago and been seam butchering it for meals every other day or so, and then the lamb femur was leftover. Disclaimer—If you’re vegan, get over yourself. I tossed that bone in some lamb meat sauce for some pasta and let her rip, cooked to perfection. As a new father and chewer of lamb bones, I had to let me near 1 year old daughter take a crack at it, and if she didn’t raise that bone like the war chimps at the beginning of 2001. And that’s our jump from ground to space. I’m a writer, I can relate what the hell ever to anything. Dare me.

My novel, Exoputians, debuts April 17, and starts off in Space. I capitalize it on purpose, because I believe it is a place. And places are capitalized. The Exoputians are a kind, thoughtful, super-intelligent species of human, bred for Space, much like the Montana Mountain King was bred for a purpose—but not SpaceSheep per se. The Exoputians were bred not just to live in Space, but to be arbiters of a race of hyper-intelligent extraterrestrials, The Folbulae. Their mission, to Contact the Folbulae and cure Planet Earth of its climate crisis. Oh, and there’s a racist war going on in America, and they get dumped in the middle of it, and could you guess the racist, white supremacist dictator is a psychopathic murderer? Crazy. April 17! And speaking of novels featuring Space as a background…

Jeannette Bedard is an über popular and talented writer friend - how do I know so many writers who are all more popular than me?! And she is offering up her novel, Day 115 on an Alien World (Settler Chronicles Book 1), FOR FREE. Just about everywhere you can download a book, it’s there. And check the cover, it’s pretty fucking rad.

Day 115 on an Alien World (Settler Chronicles Book 1)

A barren world. A crashed colony ship. A saboteur at work.

After a tarnished military record leaves her unable to find work on Earth, Margo is hunting for a fresh start. A colonizing mission heading to a new world creates the perfect opportunity—or at least that's what she thinks.

Strapped into a crashing colony ship, she realizes how wrong she is.

On the ground of their destination planet, the straight forward colonizing mission becomes a scramble for survival. Her new world is harsh and unforgiving. Accidents keep happening. Too many to blame on bad luck alone. The trail of evidence leads Margo to a startling conclusion—one of her fellow colonists is a saboteur.

Tomorrow is the colony's first communications window with Earth and their only chance to send a message home.

With the fate of the colony at stake, will Margo stop the saboteur before it's too late?

Don’t forget: Day 115 on an Alien World (Settler Chronicles Book 1)

Please readers, just promise me two things after reading this letter, don’t start breeding sheep for some wild money making scheme, and stay the hell on Earth. We need our resources here to stay alive to breed more sheep. If you want to buy some books, namely mine and my friends’, please do so. Either way,

Cheers,

AJ Pagan IV