Scientists Create Fluorescent Puppy
Source: AOL
Posted: 04/25/09 2:13PM
Filed Under: Science & Tech
(April 24) – Bioengineering is going to the dogs.
A team of South Korean scientists has created the world’s first glow-in-the-dark puppy, according to New Scientist magazine.
Animals in the News |
By normal light, Ruppy looks like any other beagle puppy. But under ultraviolet light, Ruppy glows red. She's the first transgenic puppy - created with some genetic material from another creature, in this case cloned cells that include a red fluorescent gene that sea anemones produce. A team of researchers from the Seoul National University in South Korea released the photos this week. |
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The cloned beagle, dubbed Ruppy, which is short for Ruby Puppy, made her photographic debut on Thursday. The four-legged experiment looks like a normal pup in daylight, but under ultraviolet light she glows red.
The odd effect was created by cloning cells that include a red fluorescent gene that sea anemones produce.
Ruppy is transgenic, meaning she has genes from another animal. Scientists said they hope this will pave the way to model human diseases in dogs, whose relatively long life-span could make them better study subjects than other animals.
Did You See That? |
A car ploughs through spectators in Apeldoorn, Netherlands, Thursday, April 30, 2009. A speeding car raced toward an open bus carrying Queen Beatrix and her family during celebrations for the national Queen's Day holiday, careening through spectators. Dutch television says two people were killed and about a dozen injured. The small black car appeared to be deliberately heading at high speed toward the royal bus and passed within a few meters before it plowed into a stone monument. About 20 people were seen flying through the air after the car swerved across police railings, where crowds of people lined five or six deep to see the royal family pass on its way to a palace on Thursday. The TV put the number of casualties at 14. |
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While scientists have created other animals that glow, Ruppy is a first for canines. The magazine said scientists also created four other beagles that share her same red trait.
Byeong-Chun Lee of Seoul National University in South Korea lead the team that created the dogs. Stem cell researcher Woo Suk Hwang was also part of that team. Hwang has come under fire for fraudulent work with human cells, but he also helped create the first cloned dog, Snuppy, and an investigation later validated the dog experiment.
One scientist called the glowing puppy an "important accomplishment." But another dog geneticist doubted the experiment's value, calling the developmental process "laborious, expensive and slow." Read the full story in the New Scientist.
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