What are your thoughts on making pigs glow in the dark?
By wickedangel
@wickedangel (1636)
Dominican Republic
March 24, 2008 6:32am CST
I have just read this article which states that a Chinese university has altered a pigs genes to make it glow flurorescent green and it has now passed on this trait to its piglets. Two of the 11 piglets glow green from their ears, nose and trotters.
How sick is that? Why on earth would you want to do that? What are your thoughts on man's manipulation of genes? I know that there are some scientific / medical reasons for 'playing around with genes' but to make a pig glow?
Would love to hear your thoughts....
3 people like this
5 responses
@Aurone (4755)
• United States
27 Mar 08
They don't really glow in the dark thy have fluorescent tags in the cells which means they glow under certain circumstances. They didn't do this for the heck of it, they wanted to see if genetic changes in the parent would be passed on to the offspring. And it did, which is good. That means we can genetically manipulate pigs to use for human transplant purposes and have the offspring carry the change in genetics as well. Also, the fluorescent tags would allow for the tracking of transplant organs or cells in the body of the person who receives the transplant.
So you see there is some purpose to the glowing pigs, if you want to read the news article on MSNBC here is the link
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22563650/
Now the cats that glow red in ultraviolet light, I am not so sure about.
1 person likes this
@Aurone (4755)
• United States
7 Apr 08
You are welcome. I am biologist and I went and looked this up after reading your discussion. I think there are some very viable reasons to genetically engineer things as long as we don't go too far with it. I don't see any problem giving plant's disease resistance, or doing gene therapy on someone who would otherwise die. Plus there is a lot to be said about "Golden Rice" which incorporates important vitamins that are missing from some 3rd world country diets.
@wickedangel (1636)
• Dominican Republic
7 Apr 08
Thanks for your comment and the link. I realise that there was a a scientific 'purpose' to doing this but it really is a question of where are they going with all this and what is the next step. It is all quite horrifying that we can 'play' with our genetics. I know there are some good reasons but do they outweigh the bad ones? Poor kitties!
1 person likes this
@megumiart (3771)
• United States
25 Mar 08
Why? I think it's a waste of technology, money and time for people to be doing this for no purpose. I talso think it's very cruel to do that on living beings.
1 person likes this
@wickedangel (1636)
• Dominican Republic
25 Mar 08
I quite agree, it really shocked me when I read this article. I can't quite understand what purpose glowing pigs would serve (other than trying to find them in the dark?!??!?) There must be something else that there are trying to aim for with these experiments, poor piggies :(
1 person likes this
@danishcanadian (28953)
• Canada
28 Mar 08
What the heck would motivate someone to do a thing like that to an animal? Human beings can be extremely sick and twisted sometimes. I would love to know their motivations for doing this to the pigs. I think it's totally disgusting, and needs to stop now.
@wickedangel (1636)
• Dominican Republic
7 Apr 08
Thanks for your coment. I know how you feel. I know that this is done for a scientific purpose but at what point are the scientists going to stop playing with genetics? I find it all quite horrifying!
@cheongyc (5072)
• Malaysia
2 Apr 08
That's really amazing. I am quite isolated from the news because I am not reading the papers, but just reading news online. But I think I had missed this out LoL. It's a really a great discovery, the passing of altered genetic to next generations. It could be very scary, by thinking of such genetic alteration and its impact to our norm and society structure. But if a technology is used for good purpose, it will benefit the human being.
@wickedangel (1636)
• Dominican Republic
7 Apr 08
Thanks for your comment. I know what you mean that it is a great discovery in the sense that we understand a little bit more about our genes etc., but the question for me is when and where will scientists stop 'playing' with our genes?
@wickedangel (1636)
• Dominican Republic
24 Mar 08
I don't know, will have to try it and see!! Tee hee
1 person likes this
