A chicken with pink feathers is one in a billion in the world, but some designers and engineers are pushing this crazy idea on a large scale. Not just for the sole reason of pink chickens to exist worldwide but more importantly to send a message to the future generation.
The Pink Chicken Project wants the entire species of Gallus Gallus Domesticus to turn into pink – their feathers plus the bones – by genetically modifying their DNA. It plans to use a recently invented genome editing tool called CRISPR, which has the capacity to “gene-drive” a species in just 12 to 19 generations.
By theory, a gene-drive chicken is enough to change the color of the entire species. A broiler chicken is the best candidate for this thanks to its short lifespan of only 6 weeks. For that, it is able to spread the pink characteristic to other chickens in just a few years.
But why chicken? Being the world’s most common bird and with fatalities of 60 billion annually, it leaves significant, distinct fossil trace in the earth’s crust, which becomes an identifier for the new geological age – the Anthropocene.
Source: The Pink Chicken Project
With that, the genetically-modified chickens will not only be colored pink because it is out of the ordinary, but they will also come with an encoded message in the bases of their DNA. The message, quoted below, will be identified by the letters A,C, G, and T:
“We the humans of planet earth, write this message at the beginning of the Anthropocene, year 2017.
The current devastation of the planet is not the result of activities undertaken by the whole species Homo Sapiens: instead it derives from a small group of humans in power. We urge you to fight this oppression: for it enables and aggravates the anthropocentric violence forced upon the non-human world.
Sent in hope that you have re-imagined us as a biological organism, joined in symbiosis with each other and the planet.”
Performing the gene editing for pink chickens requires an insect called cochineal, which produces a chemical called carminic acid. Its acid is combined with the calcium of the bone to form the carmine dye which is essentially pink.
Carmine dye is a common food colorant so in case you are served with a chicken with pink bones, you are already aware that it is completely safe to eat.
Source: The Pink Chicken Project
In an interview with Motherboard, the team behind the Pink Chicken Project shared that so far all of this is a concept. They are looking for inputs through their website about which steps they need to take next.
Source: The Pink Chicken Project | Motherboard
