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Glowing Fish are First Genetically Engineered Pets
securitas writes "It was bound to happen. Texas-based biotechnology company Yorktown Technologies will start selling a 'genetically engineered aquarium fish that glows in the dark.' The trademarked GloFish -- 'a tropical zebra fish infused with the gene of a sea anemone that makes it glow fluorescent red' -- is first genetically engineered pet. The possible consequences of introducing a new trangenic species into the environment has touched off a debate that has critics such as the National Academies of Science and the Center for Food Safety calling for a ban on the sale of the fish unless the FDA regulates and approves it. The fish go on sale in January 2004. You can see photos of the GloFish here. Cool, but it's no Blinky." M : I think these guys are marketing the fish for a Taiwanese company.
From their FAQ:
What if a fluorescent zebra fish is eaten? Eating a fluorescent zebra fish is the same as eating any other zebra fish. Their fluorescence is derived from a naturally occurring gene and is completely safe for the environment. Just as eating a blue fish would not turn a predator blue, eating a fluorescent fish would not make a predator fluoresce.
Bummer, I was hoping to see fluorescent cats!
You should use AdiumX on your Mac.
I've had about 5 fish, only one of them lived longer than a week.
With a few of these and one of these you'd have a way cool case.
Who needs cold cathodes?
You know, this has gone too far. Genetic engineering just for the heck of it? What purpose do a glowing fish have?
In US, you can easily buy enough major firearms to wipe out your neighbourhood but a few little fireworks are banned.
This is old news. These may be other glowing fish, as they are from Taiwan, but you can get the details
Here or here
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
This sounds a lot like what happened here at the Univeristy of Hawaii. They cloned mice and threw in a little jellyfish in the process to make the mice flourescent. "Four of the mice are fluorescent; they glow green under black light. The glow comes from modified gene protein from jellyfish, which "is a quick demonstration that they are transgenic," said researcher Istefo Moisyadi."
. ht ml
http://starbulletin.com/2001/02/06/news/story11
The methods used may be different but just about every breed of dog known to Man has been 'genetically engineered.' For example, I have a Boston Terrier. The Boston was created in 1857 as a dog fighter by breeding English Bulldogs and English Terriers. Therefore, the Boston was engineered. Take any dog and you'll find that someone wanted a dog that could do this or that or was such a size so they went about selecting different existing species and breeding them to create their perfect dog. So many people think that genetic engineering is done with test tubes but any time two species are brought together artificially you are engineering genetics. Mendel was a genetic engineer and he lived in the 1100s.
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I'm a little disappointed. These aren't bioluminescent-type glow-in-the-dark fish like the ones that live in the deep sea. They're fluorescent glow-in-the-UV fish like the ones that live in the rave.
My girlfriend is a molecular biologist who worked for a time in a lab where they made glowing animals like this ( mostly worms, but they had some rats also ). The reason, scientifically, for making these creatures is not just for the sake of seeing if you can make them glow. Rather, if you attach the genes for the glowing proteins adjacent to the genes for some other protein you'd like to monitor in the animal's DNA, then the glowing protein will become attached to the target protein, and you can get a snapshot of how active that protein is in the organism by simply turning on a UV light. This is a very useful tool for seeing how a particular gene is expressed in the active biology of the organism, because you can watch where, when and how the proteins which that gene codes for are expressed, and in what cells. The glowing pets is just some creepy Frankensteinian commercial spin-off of this research tool.
There are a thousand forms of subversion, but few can equal the convenience and immediacy of a cream pie -Noel Godin
These "GloFish" DO NOT glow in the dark. They fluoresce red under a black light (UV radiation, for those of us who care). But from everything I've read, they don't emit any light at all in the absence of external UV. None. So, that pretty much makes them "Glow-in-the-LIGHT fish."
Now, I'm not entirely suprised that the NYTimes doesn't understand that difference, but slashdotters should be able to.
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Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
Zebra fish are difficult, but not impossible for the hobbyist to breed, what happens then?
Since the fish is covered by patent, what happens to the next generations? Are aquarists going to fall into the same trap as farmers, where they can't replant patented products?