Chickens
who won’t stop eating lack a protein – cholecystokinin – that signals the bird
that it’s had enough.
Scientists
at the Roslin Institute at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland made the
discovery and have published their findings in the American Journal of
Physiology, Edocrinology and Metabolism.
Their
discovery is likely to help researchers develop better diets.
It might
also help geneticists breed better birds because their discovery came from
comparing three genetic strains – fast-growing birds, slow-growing birds and a
cross of those two strains.
The lead
researcher was Ian Dunn. His work was funded by the United Kingdom’s Biotechnology
and Biological Sciences Research Council.
