Does humanity need glow-in-the-dark pigs? Probably not, but some scientists in China decided to make some anyway.
Well, they didn’t exactly invent glowing pigs from scratch. An experiment at the South China Agriculture University allowed scientists to create transgenic pigs by injecting a fluorescent protein from jellyfish DNA into pig embryos.
So why did they do it? They’re hoping to show that foreign genetic material can be incorporated from one animal to an entirely different animal, and via that develop cheaper drugs for human beings.
According to Dr. Stefan Moisyadi, a bioscientist at the University of Hawaii medical school’s Institute for Biogenesis Research, the pigs weren’t harmed in any way by undergoing the experiment, and are expected to live just as long as other, not tampered with pigs.
Via: Tracktec
For a bit more on scientific ingenuity, check out college student generates electricity using swimming pools or these robots with human urine-powered hearts funded by Bill Gates.
