Security.

The perimeter of the Poultry Research Centre still has evidence of some of the security measures that used to be in place; today there are signs warning of dog patrols but today we don't see any dogs, neither do we ever see any guards. It was about twenty years ago that activists decided there were unsavoury goings on at this site and broke in and fire bombed some of the buildings. Many apparently happy and carefully nurtured birds died in the fire.

A mile down the road at Easter Bush Dolly was cloned from mammary tissue and consequently named after Dolly Parton. She had three or four parents (depending on your definitions), an arrangement which has similarities with a technique that is causing much ethical controversy at the moment over research into the prevention of mitochondrial disorders - diseases which cause some very unpleasant disabilities.

I occasionally bumped into Ian Wilmut, one of the lead researchers responsible for Dolly while he was out on lunch-time constitutionals walking round the perimeter of this site; our social interactions extended as far as a nod and a smile.

I’ve just posted a related item for Monday the 9th, “In  the Wind Break.”