Using nuclear science to improve animal breeding

Animals, so important for food security — they provide us with milk, with eggs, with meat.

But as global population growth has accelerated, so has the demand for animal produce – putting a strain on both farmers and the environment. Simply raising more animals is not an option; it would put even greater pressure on an already strained environment.

The solution lies in increasing the productivity of those animals. This is usually done by selecting and breeding superior animals, but this is a slow process, it can take several years to determine their breeding potential.

Now, with advances in genomics, it has become possible to estimate the breeding potential of an animal on the day of its birth, simply by looking at its DNA — or genome map. Just watch the animation and you will see how.

Original source: IAEA
Published on 15 March 2019