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[Tormy]

http://www.nypost.com/seven/04242009/news/nationalnews/glow_in_the_bark_beagle_165954.htm

GLOW IN THE BARK BEAGLE
'RED ROVER' IS WORLD'S FIRST FLUORESCENT DOGGY



The cloned beagle -- her full name is Ruby Puppy -- and four other pups glow because they have genetic information from sea anemones, a breakthrough scientists hope will help in the study of human diseases.
The pups produce a protein that glows under ultraviolet light, New Scientist magazine reported yesterday.

Researchers created the first transgenic dog -- so-called because it has genes transferred from another species -- by cloning and inserting cells that express a red fluorescent gene produced by sea anemones.
Scientists hope it will lead to transgenic dog models of human diseases, the magazine quoted one of the team members, CheMyong Ko of the University of Kentucky in Lexington, as saying.

"The next step for us is to generate a true disease model," he said.
The team that created Ruppy was led by Byeong-Chun Lee of Seoul National University in South Korea, who with stem-cell researcher Woo Suk Hwang was part of the scientific effort that in 2005 created Snuppy, the first cloned dog.
Greg Barsh, a Stanford University geneticist who studies dogs as models of disease, called it an "important accomplishment," according to the magazine.
But Nathan Sutter, a geneticist at Cornell University whose specialty is dogs, said "transgenesis is laborious, expensive and slow."

When the cost of tending to the animals and negative public impressions are factored in, few researchers might consider transgenic dogs, the magazine quoted him as saying. "It's not on my horizon as a dog geneticist at all."

[Jackrabbit]

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

[Onlyhestands]

I hope they never become popular as pets. That would be some freaky stuff, waking up and seeing a glowing red light running around.

[Jackrabbit]

Unless you knew what to look for. And it would still be creepy to wake up staring straight at two glowing red, like my dog likes to do.

[JoshuaFH]

It glows under ultraviolet light, so unless you carry a black light around all the time, it'll just appear like a normal dog methinks.

The stigma behind cloning and gene therapy needs to be dealt with. Since natural evolution has practically halted, it'll be up to geneticists to build the platform for long-term human survival.

I'm not a scientist, but a possible nuclear holocaust would be a great deal less frightening if humans were made immune to radiation poisioning via screwing around with our DNA.

[Jackrabbit]

It's the "screwing around with our DNA" part I have a problem with

[JoshuaFH]

Why?

[Jackrabbit]

As stupid as it sounds, Hollywood. Start with "The Fly" and move on from there

[JoshuaFH]

For one, "The Fly" was a science fiction, and a preposterous one at that.

Two, actual cloning and gene therapy will be cooler. WAY cooler. Besides the vain stuff like being able to decide the hair color of your children, you can be naturally immune to horrible things like HIV or make it impossible for your body to develop cancer, or screw with metabolism so America's obesity problem is cured, or strengthen the human heart so heart disease isn't such a big problem. There's craploads of things one can do, we just need to figure it out.

[Jackrabbit]

I know its stupid, but its like a fear of flying. You let it happen, you know its necessary, but it freaks the hell out of you. I'm not sure, and hence probably wrong, but wasn't HIV created due to messing with genes?

[Akroma]

information from sea anemones, a breakthrough scientists hope will help in the study of human diseases.

bullshit

they only say that to justify why they are making a dog that glows in the dark
if they were honest and said "because it is fucking awesome" no one would give them money

[IndonesiaWarMinister]

@Jackrabbit: No, HIV is a virus for the primate, err, classis? That infected the monkeys in southern Africa.

No one knows how, but the first infection in USA happened in a, uh, same-sex group.
And that's all what I know. But no, it's cause is not a fault of the scientists.

[Jackrabbit]

awesomesauce.

[Mister Thou]

bullshit

they only say that to justify why they are making a dog that glows in the dark
if they were honest and said "because it is fucking awesome" no one would give them money

Ha! That exactly what I thought when I read that.
But honestly, does making glow-in-the-dark puppies really even need to be justified? If so, "because it is fucking awesome" should be good enough for anyone.

As far as modifying humans' DNA, there are a lot of legitimately good possibilities, but I think a lot people worry about things going horribly wrong. I suspect part of the reason is all the fictional stories, starting with recent science fiction (Hollywood, like Jackrabbit mentioned) going back to the fables, mythology, etc. where the moral is something like "look what happens when you try to acquire powers only God is meant to have."

We tried eugenics already. Didn't work out so well. I wonder if this kind of thing could provide an alternative where lots of "undesirable" types didn't have to killed off or sterilized.

[Jackrabbit]

Oh, oh! I thought of another one! Jurassic Park!