Fish Changes Colors When Detecting Pollution

Ant writes: "Say goodbye to Birkenstock sandals and woolly jumpers -- tomorrow's eco-warrior will like nothing better than swimming naked in defense of cleaner oceans. That, at least, is the hope of researchers in Singapore, who are developing a breed of fish capable of detecting water pollutants by changing color."

Comments

Superb Idea, as long as...

[Ieshan]

If you ask me, this is a superb idea, as long as the fish can survive in the waters you release them.

Basically, this isn't harming anyone or anything. The fish have been manipulated once, and have very little advantage over other fish in the water. In fact, they probably have no advantage, being that they aren't conscious enough to realize that they're changing color in a certain amount of pollutant.

However, if we're releasing fish into waters they'll surely die just to see, visually, on their new color coded scales, that they'll die... I think that's wrong.

I disagree with the dude who said he was a fish breeder and that he doesn't understand how we evil humans can be altering nature to better suit us. He goes so far as to suggest genetic experiments on humans. Counterpoint: This is an operation useful to human society AND ecological wellbeing, as once the fish in the water can show us where the water is polluted, they can also show us where we need to direct cleaning and research.

Genetic Engineering is one of the most useful and dangerous sciences of our times. Everything with a purpose is dangerous - we just need to be careful.