Pigs and eggs that glow green under ultraviolet light

Thursday, April 3, 2014

Scientists at the South China Agricultural University have successfully created 10 glow-in-the-dark pigs. A University of Hawaii press release reports that jellyfish DNA injected into their embryos gives the pigs the ability to glow green under ultraviolet light. The piglets are otherwise normal and will have normal lifespans.

Why does the world need fluorescent pigs? "It's just a marker to show that we can take a gene that was not originally present in the animal and now exists in it," explains Dr. Stefan Moisyadi, a bioscientist at the University of Hawaii's Institute for Biogenesis Research, where the technique was originally developed. Scientists hope to use this research to develop cheaper and more efficient drugs for humans by making enzymes inside animals rather than in a costly factory.

And we've got green eggs to go with that ham. World Poultry reports that scientists at Charles Sturt University in Australia are attempting to use jellyfish DNA to determine the sex of chicken embryos while still inside the egg. If the experiments are successful, only female embryos will glow, avoiding the unnecessary incubation and mass culling of male chicks. BP