Green Eggs and Ham:Stem Cells

We now have green pigs to study, and I mean fully, all cells are supposedly green, compared to other fluorescent animals of previous years. They intend to use the colored pig cells to trace how cellular diseases happen. But in the near future, we can have any colored pet we want.

If Dr. Seuss were still alive, he'd have a field day with the most recent development in stem cell research.
Scientists at the National Taiwan University have created the world's first completely fluorescent green pigs.
Do you like green eggs and ham?
There are, of course, many partially fluorescent pigs wandering the stem cell research laboratories of the world, but these are the only pigs that are green "from inside out," a professor in the university's department of animal science and technology told BBC News on Jan. 12.

college journalist

Video:
BBC
The middle pig is Green:
MSNBC
wants to ttalk more of mice than pigs:
ARS
Seems to have interviewed diffrentiating opinions to round out the article:Suggests we'll be drinking jellyfish in our champange
ABC
Goes into previous fish color successes: The fish are more debated than the pigs...
Damn Interesting
Not the only green pig on the market....but this is a Spinach pig, apparantly:
CNN

I love this quote:

"There is no need to worry about that because, unlike fish, the confined green pigs have no way to crossbreed with wild species and produce 'Frankenpigs'," he said.

ABC

the old way: dyeing them when young instead fo changing their genetics:
Searchwarp

Honestly, this is too much. While I don't make too mcuh of a fuss about all the genetically altered stuff, I now have a sis-in-law who wants one fo these for a pet. I'm not being kept up all night by it.

In all seriousness, I think that if we are going to be toying with God's creation, at least this is a productive step. It may well mean, in the long run, less destruction of lab animals just to see what is going on with injected cells. Just as much as we shouldn't play God, we should be good stweards.

I rue the day when Ill see magenta poodles come prancing down the street.

This kind of crap is what turns people off to genetic research in the first place. Im all for genetic research and such, but when crossing creatures of two kingdoms and creating frankensteins, youre not really researching anything, except how much you can screw with nature.

I'm not as worried as mixing animal with animal....I'm more worried about mixing animal with plant, like the above link about the Japanese Spinnach Pig. Remember, some religions don't see plants as life....so a Rutabega boy can be sold as an object because he isn't fully living. As he certainly ain't living, he's not under constitutional jurisdiction.

This is actually a very old technology from the earlydays of genetic engineering. The protein that causes the green color is aptly named "green flourescent protein" or GFP, and is produced by the gene PUC19 from the jelly fish Vittoria aq. (I believe that's the right jellyfish). Even as far back as undergraduate, I remember using this with mice to produce tumors that will glow so that you could see how changingcertain genescaused lymphomas in certain areas. Really neat stuff. We can even do it in different colors nowto show a contrast.

Mariella

Yeah what happens when say ten years give or take a few and these pigs are now in are food chain. Maybe not these their working on today. But others the same way they put hormones in our chickens and turkeys.

Originally posted by Shar
Yeah what happens when say ten years give or take a few and these pigs are now in are food chain. Maybe not these their working on today. But others the same way they put hormones in our chickens and turkeys.

Nothing would happen. GFP is a fragile protein that the proteases in your salivaand intestines would break apart in no time. That's why we can't feed it to mice to follow the digestive track. Trust me, it's been tried.

Mariella

[edit on 8/12/2006 by bsl4doc]