Taiwan Breeds Transgenic, Fluorescent Green Pigs 261
ScentCone writes "Transgenic pigs (and other critters) are valuable research tools because of their utility in studying human diseases. Tracking changes in some developing tissues is going to be easier, say a Taiwanese team that has introduced fluorescent, green proteins into the breeding. Said one of the researchers: 'There are partially fluorescent green pigs elsewhere, but ours are the only ones in the world that are green from inside out. Even their hearts and internal organs are green.' Do you like green eggs and ham?"
Why this is great science. (Score:5, Interesting)
Alistair Reynolds novels.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Who knows, maybe his description was just a few hundred years early
Re:Green pigs eh? (Score:3, Interesting)
Would chlorophyl-laden skin be useful for the average person? First off, I assume you mean chloroplast-laden skin, as chlorophyl doesn't usually float freely. Are you going to add vacuoles and all of the other support organelles? How much sunlight would they be able to use, given how much time most people spend indoors? If you spent more time out in the sun, you'd be increasing your risk for skin cancer. Would the additional energy costs to produce all of the organelles even get paid for by the amount of energy produced? Even if they did, they'd be dwarfed by the amount of energy that we, as humans, burn. Do you want your skin texture altered by the internal changes in the cells?
Night vision? Well, yes, I'd imagine night vision improvements could occur without too radical of changes, so I'll second that one
Re:Pigs like that will be easier prey (Score:3, Interesting)
Since Hernando de Soto brought pigs to the New World, wild boars were used up through the colonies to destroy Native American crops. Unfortunately, there wasn't much to kill these pigs. Feral pigs are quite muscular and large
Ever had to castrate a full grown boar? I have, and it's not easy, four grown men to hold it down and one to
Another use (Score:5, Interesting)
And this is supposed to make me feel better (Score:1, Interesting)
Ask yourselves these questions.
Re:Green pigs eh? (Score:3, Interesting)
Night vision would likely be a trade-off: increase night vision and you'll probably harm color. (Though there are a few things you could do that would increase both first. Reflective retina backs and larger pupil ranges come to mind.)
You probably could increase strength/reflexes a bit fairly easily. If you don't mind problems in low-food situations. (Again, not that big a problem.)
For some useful improvements, how about strengthing the back muscles? Or redesigning the backbone-ribcage entirely? It's not a particularly good design for an upright being.
Re:Pigs like that will be easier prey (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Green pigs eh? (Score:3, Interesting)
Really no need to speed up the metabolism (mmm, fever). All you need to do is short out the fat storage mechanism, so that excess blood sugars are dumped into the urine instead of stored away. A million years of evolution through feast and famine cycles favored humans with efficient metabolisms that maximized the amount of energy they could store as fat put us where we are, the last 50 have favored those genetic freaks who can eat whatever they want and never store anything as fat.
Of course, it will be better for the race in general if its a hormone that can be eliminated during times of extended stress, say the seige of Leningrad or the Holocaust, or perhaps an enzyme that chemically breaks the blood sugar down to an safe waste product that the kidneys can safely remove.
Pics (Score:4, Interesting)
They appear to glow in the dark!
Silent, hidden PRM (Piggy Rights Management) (Score:3, Interesting)
Easy! Create an artificial gene that makes a do-nothing protein with a novel, specific, unique sequence that you select. Insert that gene along with the action gene cluster (EatLawyer + ShtNickles) and the marker gene (Green Fluorescent Protein). Then, everytime the pig's cells express the action genes, they also express the marker (GFP) and your non-obvious marker protein.
When their SuperPigs(tm) hit the marketplace two years after your WonderPigs(tm), you just take a tissue sample and look for the telltale protein. Even if they silcenced the GFP and replaced it with Red, Yellow or Magenta, they wouldn't know to look for your hidden gene. You could even set it up so that it's only expressed under certain conditions, like an Easter Egg. That particular proetin sequence isn't found in nature, so if it's there, this must be a pirated pig.
It's like the funny pictures that chip manufacturers hide on processing chips [fsu.edu]... copy this layout and we'll know where to look for our signature.
Re:Green pigs eh? (Score:3, Interesting)
The backbone makes a lot of sense in four-legged animals, but not so much in upright ones. Same with the intestinal mesentary. They could stand some redesign.
I'd like to see animals with the ability to break down cellulose, so we could digest grass in case of starvation. (Yes, like cattle do, but they rely on massive populations of intestinal microflora to do the work for them.)
It'd also be nice if we could convert two carbon units to three carbon units and regenerate sugars from fats. If we could sustain our glycogen stores by burning triglycerides, it'd be impressive both from what we could do (and for how long) AND how much skinnier people could be. It'd also increase metabolic efficiency, though, so people could gain more weight on the same amount of food: maybe not so great.
While I'm dreaming, being able to control our cholesterol reuptake in the lower intestine could help with heart disease. It'd be cool to be able to change sexes, like some fish and frogs can. It'd be cool to regenerate body parts, like starfish do. It'd be cool to have an interface so I could stick a Tagalog thumbdrive in before flying to Manila. And immortality, and pyrokinesis, and...
Re:strengh (Score:1, Interesting)