LOOKING AT EWE: This 2008 photograph shows a cyclopic lamb delivered after its mother was fed cyclopamine—a plant compound that disrupts Hedgehog signaling—as part of a study to define the window of development when the fetus is most susceptible to its effects. These malformations develop if the ewe ingests cyclopamine between gestation days 13 and 15 (the total gestation for a sheep is approximately 150 days, according to USDA biologist Kevin Welch). The compound prevents proper cell division along the midline of the head, leading to a single eye, malformed brain, and missing upper jaw.USDA, POISONOUS PLANT RESEARCH LABORATORY
In the 1950s, Idaho sheep ranchers had a problem. About a quarter of their lambs were being born dead or deformed—sometimes with a single eye centered in the middle of their forehead, like the Cyclops of Greek legend, or missing their upper jaw. There were times when the pregnant ewes couldn’t give birth at all, carrying the mutated fetuses until they were surgically delivered or the ewes themselves died. Unbeknownst to the farmers, the cause was a poisonous plant, western false hellebore (Veratrum californicum). Eventually, the plant would inspire a successful cancer therapy—but at the time, the sheep were what mattered.
Ranchers in the area had seen these deformities on occasion for the last 50 years, but in the 1950s, the US Department of Agriculture ...
