A better calf?: George and Charlie, the newest of the genetically-engineered animal set, emerged from the womb on a ranch in College Station in January. The calves were cloned from the cells of cow fetuses by two University of Massachusetts scientists, Dr. James Robl and Dr. Steven Stice. The procedure was essentially the same one that produced Dolly the sheep last year; a gene is added to cells extracted from a cow’s fetus and the nucleus formed replaces the nucleus of an egg. The egg is incubated for seven days in the lab, then placed in the uterus of a surrogate mother. Cloning advocates say that George and Charlie could help lead the way toward "pharming," the process of creating genetically-altered animals to act as living drug factories by producing valuable medicinal substances in their milk, or by producing organs that won’t be rejected by the human immune system because they’ve been grown from a cell containing a spliced human gene. Of course, the animal is using these organs itself, so the ethical debate of cloning will probably continue long after George and Charlie move on to pasture. Their births do herald one thing: that cloning technology is fast on the moo.

A lotta lemonade: A 62-year old fruit tree in Highland Hills has been producing lemons larger than grapefruits, yielding about 12-15 giant citrus a year. The tree was planted in 1935 by owner Pete Lalick’s father, who maintained its meticulous care -- lemon trees freeze very easily and are hard to grow in the South Texas climate -- and raised it from a seedling. Lalick told the San Antonio Express News that the now 9-foot tree was still a handful to tend. "It must be trimmed and wrapped carefully every winter," he said. The giant fruit, which is classified as a Ponderosa lemon, tastes the same as a regular lemon, but there is enough juice in a single fruit to make a pie from it.

Digging under the dugout: As the ground breaks for Houston’s new downtown ballpark, archeologists are asking: who’s under first? Turns out it’s the estate of James Wells, a St. Louis native who arrived in Mexico’s Texas territory as a teen in 1833. Wells fought in the Texas revolution, married, and was the first to purchase a tract of land along the southern boundary of the newly-founded municipality. State law requires archeological research of urban sites in order to preserve Texas’ cultural heritage, and the focus of this project is Houston’s growth during the years 1836-1870. So far, the excavation of Wells' property (contained in the 17-block area where the stadium and its ancillary facilities will be built) has turned up the brick and cypress beam foundation of the house itself, which miraculously survived the laying of train tracks over top of it, various bottles that once contained household and medicinal products, children’s toys, and lots of animal bones which suggest the Wells family ate well -- an indication of prosperous economic times. Margaret Henson, president of the Texas State Historical Association, observed that it was appropriate Wells' homestead would become part of a ballpark because James Wells was such an everyman -- perhaps the model baseball fan. Still, not every man’s living room was once in right field.

(2/1/98)