Every reproductive physiologist on the planet has been influenced by work done at CALS since the 1930s. These animals' creators are fine scientists, but they didn't walk into the lab one day with a bright idea and then whip up a cloned animal. Early herd improvement work focused on artificial insemination. AI began as a sprint against time. Since untreated sperm live only a few hours outside the bull, semen was sometimes airlifted to farms.
Most scientific breakthroughs including cloning come about through a process of accretion.
Thousands of experiments in hundreds of laboratories create an infrastructure of knowledge, and scientists constantly tap into and build on this foundation. After review by other scientists, the results of experiments are published in professional journals and discussed at meetings of scientists. It's safe to say that every reproductive physiologist on the planet has been influenced by work done at CALS since the 1930s, and every cloning break-through that hits the headlines has some roots down the hill from Ag Hall. Here's a look at some of that work. Genes from superior bulls are the quickest way to improve the production and profitability of dairy cows.