Boffins invent LUMINOUS PIGS again, glow-in-dark bacon sarnies presumably imminent Chinese scientists have created a pair of glow-in-the-dark pigs which shine with an eery green luminous light. Dr Zhenfang Wu and Dr Zicong Li of the South China Agricultural University injected the porkers' embryos with jellyfish DNA, so they shone when exposed to UVA light. The addition of luminous genetic material does not …
re " Taiwanese scientists were the first to make pigs glow." I always thought it was those guys at chernobyl all the way back in 1986..."
I think British Scientists did it back in the 1950s at Windscale. Plus all the fish in the Irish Sea glowed due to them, and the ReadyBrek kids must have been from a Cumbrian School.
It's just plain old photoluminescence - the pigs don't glow unless you shine UV light on them. That's been done already for fish. I'll be impressed when they can manage true bioluminescence. There could be a lot of money in the pet market for those, plus sticking it in plants would make a handy form of emergency illumnination. Imagine loading up a lawn with it.
Still a useful research tool though, and practice for more useful gene insertions.
Calm down lad, it's not what the man suggested, at all. He was talking about using the pigs as enzyme-making factories, the enzymes being then administered to human. It's a long way from gene therapy.
Gene therapy has been famously tested in cystic fibrosis, a very simple autosomal monogenic disease, and it failed for reasons that are still being investigated. Congenital haemophilia is a wholly more complicated beast, being gonosomal (single-allele in men, that means trouble) and very subtle (if you over-correct, you clog the blood vessels -> death, most likely antenatal).
So, no DNA injection in human embryo yet for haemophilia; "just" medicine-producing pigs.
I have previously had artwork published, but I never expected to see my "flying pig" joke picture published in the noteworthy el Reg!
The picture used in the link uses a 3d model that I in my former life generated for open source (slow)MMO found at www.worldforge.org combined with a pair of wings. I hacked up that picture in order to convince another contributor that it definitely was the right time for her to release some more artwork.
Some years ago I noticed that someone had contributed the picture to wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Flying_pig_hell_freezing.jpg , pretending to be the creator. Have never bothered to rectify, but think it is funny to be the creator of the most used "flying pig" image available in the interwebs (says something about the quality of the net doesn't it?).
some more piggyness:
http://purple.worldforge.org/~munin/logo/wf_media.jpg
http://purple.worldforge.org/~munin/models/pig/pig05.jpg
Like I said the first time you gave us the news on GitD pigs.. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/01/12/fluorescent_pig/ ..
Forget medical research, green bacon or whatever it is they're trying to push onto us.. we want glow in the dark dogs. Most of us want flying cars, many would find amusement owning a gay flamingo.. but a glow in the dark dog would trump those shits that own a PS4, X-Box One and a diamond-encrusted gold iPhone. Yes you might have all the sparkly electronics the world can offer.. but my dog provides emission-free lighting on demand! Plus it's so fucking cool it will never be yesterday's tat.
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