Date: Tue, 25 May 1999 00:23:46 -0700 From: "Chris Hind" <chind@hotmail.com> To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com Message-Id: <aabcdefg1818$foo@default> Subject: Re: Regarding the possibility of discovery of new carnivoro
> Dear Chris,
> I seem to remember an article where scientist have taken genes from
> bioluminescent bacteria and inserted them into mice causing (you guessed
it),
> glow-in-the-dark mice! (Yes this is for real.) Once the fur grew into to
> the adult mice only the ears, eyes and any other bare skin glowed an eerie
> green. It must be a real pain to have the inside of your eyeballs glow,
talk
> about insomnia!
That stuff is standard procedure and its not true bioluminescense, its
flourescence which requires UV light in order for it to glow (like dayglo
colors glow under a blacklight)--- I know a friend of mine while at a
genetics internship showed me the flourescent mouse chromosomes under the
microscope. Although I believe long ago they truely did indeed induce
bioluminescence in a tobacco plant but that took forever with mapping and
all. Perhaps a glowing protein could be contained in something like a
chromoplastid or chloroplastid, something which could divide on it's own and
be transferred in the cytoplasm when the cell divides. This would be far
easier than mapping out its genome. Besides, who could pass up a
glow-in-the-dark capensis?
> I hear they are working on a bioluminescent cat to take care of
those
> pesky escaped glowing mice and a bioluminescent dog to make nightlights
> obsolete!
Thanks Cliff but I dont enjoy mockery.
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