goodness.

January 12, 2006 12:44 PM

Glowing green pigs. Scientists from Taiwan have successfully created a bioluminescent pigs with genes from a jellyfish.
posted by delmoi (33 comments total)

Thank god, I'm tired of losing mine.
posted by NinjaPirate at 12:50 PM on January 12, 2006

Do their curly little tails act like stinging tentacles?
posted by Gator at 12:56 PM on January 12, 2006

I do not like green eggs and ham.
posted by MotherTucker at 12:57 PM on January 12, 2006

Ah, the footballs they'll make from these . . .
posted by hackly_fracture at 1:01 PM on January 12, 2006

byline: Chris Hogg.
posted by footnote at 1:05 PM on January 12, 2006

Scientists from Taiwan have successfully created a bioluminescent pigs with genes from a jellyfish.

...by making them drink the water next to the nuclear power plant!
posted by Mijo Bijo at 1:05 PM on January 12, 2006

Wonder how much pork I have to eat before I glow in the dark?
posted by kudzu at 1:06 PM on January 12, 2006

I have a real hard time finding the bacon when the light burns out in the fridge.

This changes everything.
posted by wakko at 1:07 PM on January 12, 2006

I speak for us all when I say:
FINALLY
posted by dougunderscorenelso at 1:08 PM on January 12, 2006

These look like radioactive pigs. Cool! How soon until they can engineer lasers into their eyes and make them fly so we can have superhero pigs with frickin' laser vision?
posted by fenriq at 1:11 PM on January 12, 2006

These aren't the first man-made bioluminescent mammals.
posted by hydrophonic at 1:11 PM on January 12, 2006

Actually, these pigs are not bioluminescent. They're just fluorescent. You have to shine light on them to get them to light up. A firefly is bioluminescent.
posted by rxrfrx at 1:12 PM on January 12, 2006

The other glowing green meat,
posted by Astro Zombie at 1:22 PM on January 12, 2006

and period.
posted by Astro Zombie at 1:23 PM on January 12, 2006

I, for one, welcome our glowing pig overloards.
posted by jimmythefish at 1:26 PM on January 12, 2006

I hate pigs. I’m not phobic or anything. I just despise them. I buy ham and pork chops and just throw them away, glad that a pig wastefully died. (And I don’t really like ham or pork products anyway) I protested the film “Babe.” I’d work part time in a slaughterhouse if one was near enough, just to kill pigs. I saw a pig penned when I was visiting a farm and my wife had to restrain me from hurling rocks and invectives at it.

I welcome this as an opportunity to better shoot them in the dark.
posted by Smedleyman at 1:28 PM on January 12, 2006

Oh yeah, it's been ages since we welcomed any new overlord management...
posted by klaatu at 1:29 PM on January 12, 2006

The image is actually a capture from a video. In the next scenes the pigs are wasted with large caliber rounds and a blackwater security consultant can be heard giggling and saying "Mmmm Bacon" over and over.
posted by srboisvert at 1:31 PM on January 12, 2006

MotherTucker, that's "I do not like eggs and green ham." or perhaps "I do not like green eggs and green ham."
posted by shoepal at 1:35 PM on January 12, 2006

When lit up in the dark, the pigs glow green

Sounds like they are UV florescent not luminescent, which was also true of the green rabbit, If I am not mistaken.
posted by StickyCarpet at 1:39 PM on January 12, 2006

At least you can tell this pig is bio-engineered.

Hard to tell if the soy is gonna damage your heart or not.
posted by rough ashlar at 1:40 PM on January 12, 2006

Is it just me or does anyone else find this sexy? The possiblities for kinkiness are...bright.

Assuming it's on a human of course. A well adjusted human with little or no baggage and a steady job. Who, on occasion, when the mood is right, can squeal like a pig.



Seriously, as many messed up things we'll be able to do genetically, some of that have great potential to broaden our sense of what it means to be human.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 1:52 PM on January 12, 2006

Can we get Ned Beatty to turn a glowing green? He has such a pretty mouth.
posted by Astro Zombie at 1:56 PM on January 12, 2006

I'm not impressed. I've seen that video of Paris Hilton before...
posted by PeterMcDermott at 2:01 PM on January 12, 2006

Hopefully this will result in a reduction of night-time bicycle-pig collisions in remote rural areas.
posted by carter at 2:04 PM on January 12, 2006

These days if you scream GENETIC DISCOVERY around people with some money they'll jump on your ass offering you a trip into their wallet and into they privates, if it's necessary.

For instance, the now disgraced researcher Hwang Woo-suk (an appropriate name that will give comedian an excuse) apologized
profusely to South Korean public taking responsability for his error a.k.a "he lost face"

There is public concern about the $29m of government funding he received for his research.

$29M ! To a research not producing gold ? Too good to be truth, it's a democrat wet dream. What did he do ?

He said his lab had produced about 100 cloned human embryos

But then claimed the director of the hospital who gave him the result deceived him with fake data....a researcher deceived by data..mmmmhh.

The South Korean government stripped Dr Hwang on Wednesday of the title "top scientist", which entitled him to at least 3bn won ($3m) in state funding a year for five years.

Mo money mo problems.

But it did conclude that Dr Hwang produced the world's first cloned dog, an Afghan hound called Snuppy.

There the tie with the green pigs.
posted by elpapacito at 3:59 PM on January 12, 2006

The researchers, from National Taiwan University's Department of Animal Science and Technology, say that although the pigs glow, they are otherwise no different from any others.

Yeah, until we eat their bacon and our turds arrive green and *sentient*. They'll form armies in the sewers and take over the streets at night. The last thing we will see will be the green glow reflecting in their tiny samurai swords as they slit our plump throats.
posted by Manhasset at 4:28 PM on January 12, 2006

MetaFilter: Our turds arrive green and sentient.
posted by Gator at 4:52 PM on January 12, 2006

MotherTucker - very first thing I thought of. When I first spied this thread it had 25+ comments and I'm thinking "what are the odds some wag hasn't already beaten me to it...?"

3rd post. I dips me lid in your general direction.

Then I thought of posting a quip about Homer's wonderful, magical animal quote but thought better of it. Too many The Simpsons references from me lately.

Er. Oh yeah. From a recent thread:

Whole Foods is the first fortune 500 company to go 100% green. They will obviously be stocking foodstuffs derived from this animal then.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 5:54 PM on January 12, 2006

Whenever a story like this comes up I always wonder what kind of creatures have been created but kept TOP SECRET.

I betcha there is a real Island of Dr. Moreau and the creatures there would blow your mind.

I'm thinking China and South Korea have spliced some humans with who-knows-what and conducted some insane experiments.
posted by SwingingJohnson1968 at 7:10 PM on January 12, 2006

Hulk smash
posted by Peter H at 7:17 PM on January 12, 2006

Eat enough of them and the CSI guys won't need that special light to see your DNA contributions ...
posted by bwg at 7:19 PM on January 12, 2006

The future is now. All these glowing animals will be necessary when we finally decide that the only real way to end global warming is to blow up the sun.
posted by phylum sinter at 2:51 AM on January 13, 2006