B I O T E C H + A R T  :  H O N O R S   1 7 7

When looking at the class in relation to which animals were present and which animals from the Chinese zodiac were missing, two stood out to me: the pig and the rooster. Both of these animals are used in agriculture and common animals that people eat as these animals are pork and chicken respectively. This is not the only reason they stood out to me.

I chose the year of the goat/sheep because it’s my mother’s Zodiac sign and because of my interest in cloning.

After having done research on my own Chinese Zodiac animal, being the Rabbit, I came into this week excited. I genuinely appreciated the information I discovered when researching the Rabbit, and was eager to discover more traits about other animals as well. Regardless of the fact that these Chinese Zodiac symbols weren’t as prevalent within the class, they display a similar aspect when it comes to representation. As a result, I sought to discover more about the sheep and rooster. I say this because of the advances the sheep has projected within genetic engineering and food.

From an evolutionary perspective, monkeys are considered to be the organism most closely related to humans. As a result of their genetic similarity, monkeys are considered a prime research model, especially in the field of neuroscience. 

Dolly the Sheep, the first mammal cloned from an adult cell, was named after the American country singer-songwriter Dolly Parton. I will leave the why to your own curiosity :^>

This week I decided to research some of the animals in the Chinese zodiac that were not included in our class roster. The animals that I chose to focus on were the sheep, the rooster, and the pig. I chose these animals not only because they were a minority within our class but also because I felt that they were very prevalent in the food industry in America. I wanted to do more research into how these animals relate to the topic of genetic engineering and food.

Experimenting on animals has been a sensitive topic for many decades because many believe it is inhumane and cruel, while others believe it is necessary for scientific advancement. I believe that I am stuck somewhere in the middle of the two because I identify myself as a researcher. Often, much of the medical knowledge we know today comes from experiments done on animals such as rats, cats, and monkeys.

The two Chinese Animal Zodiac signs that I wanted to focus on for this assignment were the dog and the monkey because of their proximity to human experiences and traits. We have man’s best friend juxtaposed with man’s evolutionary cousin so I wanted to see the ways that these mythologies play into the scientific uses of these animals and what they can tell us about our human nature. 

In western culture at least, pigs and rats are typically associated with a lot of undesirable characteristics. Pigs are often associated with slobbishness and slothfulness - and rats are often associated with disloyalty, dirtiness and disease. 

While these associations are pretty wide spread in western culture, they aren't built on a firm foundation. In reality, both pigs and rats are incredibly intelligent creatures, who have greatly contributed to our understand of the world, and deserve to be respected as fellow members of the bio-sphere. 

since I began conducting research and the University of California San Francisco, I have noticed having animal models such as monkeys, rats, and sheep. albeit my lab did not use these type of animal models for we were studying but we could have chosen do use rats instead of mice. In a lot of research mice are preferred over rats because how fast they're able to multiply and thus the scientists can keep there line going.

This week I chose to research the sheep. My younger sister was born in the year of the sheep, so I was interested to see what I could learn about her zodiac sign. Just out of curiosity, I read about the sheep sign on the HOX website, and I learned that people under the sheep/goat sign are creative, delicate, shy about confrontation, and fond of nature. This aligns with my sister, who is a gifted musician and also despises urban life because of how far away it is from nature.

       Since we did not have any Monkeys in our class, I chose to research the Monkey Chinese Zodiac sign. Monkeys are primates which means humans are most closely related to primates and share a recent common ancestor. I thought that given this, relating how the Chinese zodiac conceives of Monkeys and our relationship to them would prove to be interesting. 

Last week, I ended my blog post talking about how Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Chinese Zodiac sign was the rat. This week, I’ve decided to dedicate my blog post to discussing how rats are used in scientific research.