OT:Glow-in-the-dark fish light up aquariums
DustBunny
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/12/03/MNGN83EU501.D
TL
One fish, two fish, red fish ... blue fish?
Pet with a glow runs up against state's bioengineering ban
Glen Martin, Chronicle Staff Writer Wednesday, December 3, 2003
All hail the GloFish: The heir to the Day-Glo poster, the strobe light and
the lava lamp and, if a Texas company has its way, the first genetically
engineered household pet.
Transgenic zebrafish, which glow with the intensity of radioactive isotopes,
were designed to detect toxic substances in the environment, but such an
application was commercially limited. If you're talking fish and profits,
you have to talk supermarket seafood counters and restaurants -- or pet
stores. And at a maximum length of a few inches, zebrafish won't make it to
very many catch-of-the-day specials.
The fish will go on sale next month to aquarium hobbyists across the
country. But to market the fish in California, Yorktown Technologies of
Austin must win an exemption to a recent state ban on lab-engineered aquatic
species.
The California Fish and Game Commission is expected to take up the issue
today in Sacramento. State biologists have concluded that the fish poses no
threat and recommend that the state grant the exemption. Environmental and
commercial fishing groups oppose it because of the precedent it would set.
Yorktown Technologies plans a nationwide rollout for the fish Jan. 5. The
company will charge $5 apiece and expects them to be hot sellers.
"Anticipation has been so intense and the demand so great that we're now
hoping to pre-ship to select stores,'' said Stephen Oakes, a spokesman for
Yorktown. "The distributors we work with have been in the ornamental fish
business for 40 years, and they tell us they've never seen anything like
this."
At first, the only color option will be red. Later, you will be able to buy
green fish, blue fish -- who knows? The only limitations are the skills of
the DNA splicers who cobble the proprietary critters together from your
average run-of-the-mill zebrafish and the fluorescing genes of an
Indo-Pacific marine sea anemone or a Pacific jellyfish.
"In normal daylight, they're bright red, much more brilliant than any other
freshwater fish," Oakes said. "But under a black light, they're really
fluorescent. They're so intense that if you have white sand in your
aquarium, you'll see red reflections on it."
Some marine organisms display bioluminescence, but the phenomenon is almost
unknown in freshwater fish. "Until now, if you wanted any kind of
luminescent fish, you had to have a saltwater aquarium," Oakes said.
"They're extremely expensive, and so are saltwater fish. Freshwater aquaria
are cheap, easy to maintain, and freshwater fish are much less expensive. ''
Karen
> There's a cool pic here:
>
> http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/12/03/MNGN83EU501.D
> TL
>
> One fish, two fish, red fish ... blue fish?
> Pet with a glow runs up against state's bioengineering ban
>
> Glen Martin, Chronicle Staff Writer Wednesday, December 3, 2003
>
> All hail the GloFish: The heir to the Day-Glo poster, the strobe light and
> the lava lamp and, if a Texas company has its way, the first genetically
> engineered household pet.
> The fish will go on sale next month to aquarium hobbyists across the
> country.
And rational fishkeepers everywhere will refuse to buy them. What a
waste of tankspace...
Karen E.
--
_______________________________________
"Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example"
Mark Twain, 'Puddn'head Wilson'
AngrieWoman
"DustBunny" <who...@earthlinc.net> wrote in message
news:sRnzb.26395$sb4....@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net...
> There's a cool pic here:
>
>
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/12/03/MNGN83EU501.D
> TL
>
Asia has had these since 2001.
A
John Savard
wrote, in part:
>The fish will go on sale next month to aquarium hobbyists across the
>country. But to market the fish in California, Yorktown Technologies of
>Austin must win an exemption to a recent state ban on lab-engineered aquatic
>species.
They should ban these fish from the stores, like they should ban
dinosaurs from the schools!
After all, if young children get used to the idea of living creatures
whose genes were slightly altered using technology, they might be
confused, and not realize that those fish still belong to the fish
"kind", and weren't really fully engineered by people... and thus
might be led down the road of accepting that horrible lie, Darwinism!
After children are old enough to have been thorougly trained in the
right way, in the truth of the Creation story, then if they use these
fish professionally in hunting for pollution, that's one thing. But
putting them in mere aquaria is dangerous, and will spread atheism!
John Savard
http://home.ecn.ab.ca/~jsavard/index.html