Scientists insert a jellyfish gene into a rhesus monkey.

January 11, 2001 1:35 PM

Scientists insert a jellyfish gene into a rhesus monkey. No word yet on how many asses the monkey has.
posted by plinth (15 comments total)

I think this explains G. W. Bush
posted by Outlawyr at 1:52 PM on January 11, 2001

Sleepless in New Delhi: New glow in the dark monkeys mean even less sleep for harried legislators.

Hey, when can I get my very own glow-in-the-dark sacred monkey?
posted by xiffix at 2:05 PM on January 11, 2001

I think this explains G. W. Bush.

Why? How many asses does he have?
posted by jennyb at 2:07 PM on January 11, 2001

Are the days of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles finally upon us?!?!?

It's about time.
posted by Neb at 2:13 PM on January 11, 2001

check the photo. only one ass, apparantly, but i wish they'd taken it with the lights out so we could see the neat "glow-in-the dark" effect.

this qualifies for inclusion in the Guinness Book of Strange and Disturbing Genetic Modifications, along with the mouse with a human ear and the infamous and creepy twisty-cats.
posted by varmint at 2:14 PM on January 11, 2001

The article said that the monkey doesn't glow in the dark... His stillborn siblings did, though.
posted by Neb at 2:23 PM on January 11, 2001

ouch. i didn't read closely enough. or maybe i was getting everything mixed up with the luminous wallpaper story below. now if you'll excuse me, i'm going to stop thinking about glowing stillborn monkeys before i scream and bang my head repeatedly against a tree.
posted by varmint at 2:32 PM on January 11, 2001

Yeah, the last line of the article is great...

For some reason, ANDi [the one-assed rhesus monkey] doesn't [glow] and they don't know why that is. And they don't know if the fact that the stillborns glowed green had something to do with the fact they didn't live.

Gee, I wonder if nature knows what the heck it's doing.
posted by ratbastard at 2:40 PM on January 11, 2001

Well since they've mastered one-assed DEAD glowing monkeys, maybe three-assed dead glowing monkeys won't be far behind.... imagine what this could mean for the future of science!!

No, really, imagine it. What DOES it mean?
posted by elf_baby at 2:56 PM on January 11, 2001

It means that Ikea will have to clear room for the new line of lamps.
posted by cCranium at 3:51 PM on January 11, 2001

I hope it means that I can soon have a prehensile tail. that would be so great.
posted by varmint at 4:01 PM on January 11, 2001

It's a proof of concept. If a jellyfish gene can be inserted into a monkey, a human gene can also be, making the monkey a better model for a human in biological studies. Hilarity ensues.
posted by shylock at 4:10 PM on January 11, 2001

But aren't monkeys and humans closely-related enough? If we implanted human genes into monkeys, wouldn't they somewhere along the line be able to cross-breed? Hmm....

Or else we make Planet of the Apes a reality.....
posted by elf_baby at 4:46 PM on January 11, 2001

Not to degrade the excellent quote above about the dead monkies glowing, but I think this is the best quote:

This genetically engineered monkey named ANDi, which stands for "inserted DNA" backwards because that was the technique they used to get the DNA in him...
posted by daver at 4:51 PM on January 11, 2001

Humans and monkeys share on the order of 98% of their DNA sequence. They're close, but they're not that close. For reference, only about 0.01% of the genome varies from person to person in our own species. Transplanting a couple of genes into a monkey wouldn't allow cross-breeding.
posted by shylock at 6:18 PM on January 11, 2001