Glowing Cats a New Tool in AIDS Research 107
sciencehabit writes "Scientists have developed a strain of green-glowing cat by infecting their eggs with a virus containing a foreign gene—the first time this method has worked in a carnivore. Experts say the advance could make the cat a valuable new genetic model—and potentially protect it from an HIV-like virus. "
Re:So.... (Score:5, Funny)
It is a common belief in Africa (as it was in England in the 1800s) that fucking a virgin will cure STDs.
But I have it on good authority that if you try to have sex with a lion, you will not die of AIDS.
Re:So.... (Score:5, Funny)
It is a common belief in Africa (as it was in England in the 1800s) that fucking a virgin will cure STDs.
But I have it on good authority that if you try to have sex with a lion, you will not die of AIDS.
Oh how wrong you are; and trust me, Acquired Intense Disembowelment Syndrome is not a fun way to go.
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On the other hand (Score:2)
On the other hand, I can see furries being all over this. "No, really, you'll be ok if you wear this glowing cat suit" :p
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Annoying at night... (Score:5, Funny)
From my experience in life, my cats always liked trying to wake me up in the middle of the night. So now they'll be giving off light too? Great. Not an improvement.
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It would really freak out any visitors at night. Go to sleep at night right when you are about to fall asleep you are in a half daze. You feel a bit of a movement then there is a glowing cat staring you down.
Re:Annoying at night... (Score:4, Funny)
I'm glad I quit doing hallucinogens a long time ago. Reality is getting to be just too damned weird as it is.
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I'm glad I quit doing hallucinogens a long time ago.
You sure about that? After all, you think you read this comment.
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A blinding blue night-light (Score:2)
So your cats will only wake you up if you have a blinding blue night-light
You mean like the power indicator LED on a growing number of electronic devices?
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Oh fer cri, it's 2011 people, we've been doing this kind of thing for DECADES. The cat isn't self luminous, it's NOT BIOLUMINESCENT, IT'S FLUORESCENT.
It does get me to thinking though, are there any phosphorescent proteins known?
Re:Annoying at night... (Score:4, Informative)
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Mmmmmno, they don't. The fish are FLUORescent, not PHOSPHORescent. They're transfected with GFP like these cats. Hence the name GFP: green fluorescent protein.
FLUORESCENCE PHOSPHORescence ELECTROluminescence GALVANOluminescence BIOLUMinescence
All these phenomena are distinct. I'm wondering if anyone has ever heard of any naturally occurring PHOSphorescent molecules.
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Oh, I guess /. doesn't render =/= signs, like the ones that were supposed to appear in between all those terms in my last msg. Megalamesville. C'mon, what is this 1997?
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I'm sure it's only a soft glow, and it will make it harder to trip over or accidentally kick them in the dark. That would be a big safety improvement, especially when they try to get your attention by zig-zagging just in front of your swinging feet in total darkness.
Not impressed. (Score:4, Funny)
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That 120px is for the "I can haz radiation?" caption.
Re:Not impressed. (Score:5, Funny)
It's probably going to take a while to decide on the cabling standard.
The quarreling feline-luminescence-transport camps are currently divided between CAT-5meow, CAT-6, High Definition Meow Interface and DisplayPurr-t.
Also, the mouse compatibility bug is being worked, but resolution appears to be a ways out still.
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Wait, Nyan Cat is the cure for AIDS? The meme circle is complete.
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Call me when you can display captions directly on the cat.
I mean without that whole messy staple-gun business.
Glow-in-the-dark ??? (Score:1)
Why am I suddenly reminded of the John Ritter movie, "Skin Deep"?
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please stop calling it "glowing" (Score:5, Informative)
It's fluorescing. Yes, technically that is a "glow" but glow is a lot more general term. All fluorescing items glow, but not all glowing items fluoresce. Most people that read "glow" will expect to turn out the lights and see a green cat without needing to shine an invisible special lighting on it.
Re:please stop calling it "glowing" (Score:5, Funny)
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Or at least install some little strip blacklights under all the cabinet and cupboard kicks to keep the floor areas lit. I must admit having a green glowing cat would be a novel thing. I assume this is a genetic trait and I bet you could get big bucks for glowing kittens.
I didn't see any mention of side-effects or other health issues in the article - you've got to wonder if there are any si
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It's a technique that had been used successfully in many organisms without any obvious effects.
Other than the 96% mortality rate for the procedure. Seriously, the process is incredibly far from a point of "no obvious effects."
Also if you RTFA you will see that they have a slightly modified method which yields only a 77% mortality rate.
Finally those that do go on to live have variations at the molecular level that still are poorly understood and side effects from those variations even less so. So let's not go simplifying this whole process by saying, "oh, ho hum just another insertion of genes
96% mortality? (Score:2)
I suppose it's a bad idea then to make it mandatory for traffic cops. I suppose the part where they have to be naked also wouldn't go down well though.
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If I had a cat like this I'd install the blacklights in my light fixtures and keep the normal lights off all the time.
If you have a cat and install blacklights, you might not like what you see. Cat urine glows. And you'd be surprised where cats get their urine. Sometimes they spray carpet and furniture, sometimes your bed or sheets, floorboards, all around the litter box etc. Seriously, taking a blacklight into a cat-owners home is usually not a pretty revelation.
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Re:please stop calling it "glowing" (Score:4, Interesting)
And in the same strain of disappointing mainstream science reporting, basically everything I've read on this seems to focus on the "we made cats glow green" part, rather than the more serious part of the research, which is to protect against AIDS. The gene to make the cat's fur fluoresce green is just a marker so that they know which cats will also have the gene that could protect against AIDS, and can then run experiments to see if that gene works as they hope. That article seems to be better than average, in that it largely focuses on the AIDS part, and keeps the "omg glowing cats" restrained to the headline and a few spots in the body.
I'm just waiting for the article about the research dog that harbors a cure for cancer, but more importantly, it can skateboard!
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Nice. But hey this is even better. You can use the 'fluorescence virus' separately. When is it coming up for sale? Next time you see a cow glowing in the night, it wasn't me. Probably.
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And in the same strain of disappointing mainstream science reporting, basically everything I've read on this seems to focus on the "we made cats glow green" part, rather than the more serious part of the research, which is to protect against AIDS.
Weird, because the first 3 articles I read off of Google News were entirely focused on the AIDS part, mentioning the glowing part only in the headline, and then in passing towards the end of the articles where they said they fluorescent gene was used to track where the modified genes were being expressed.
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I don't fuck nasty whores or do IV drugs. I DO own a cat. Therefore, glowing cats are more relevant to my interests than AIDS cures.
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Commercial application (Score:4, Informative)
I want a glowing cat ! Just sell them already, I'm sure there is a market for that !
Re:Commercial application (Score:5, Interesting)
Because everyone panics like little pussies or imposes their little misinformed values on entire populations. They have those glowing tropical fish, and California promptly banned them. One of the state commissioners, Sam Schuchat, an emotional twit, even came out publicly and said it want *not* science but a question of values- *his* values. *He* thought was wrong and spouted a pile of new age religious crap as justification.
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In the vein of custom pets, the Belyaev experiment [wikipedia.org] funds itself by selling the foxes-turned-dogs as pets.
Hilarious! =D (Score:3)
Seriously? Green glowing cats due to virus infection in a lab?!? Talk about comic book joke sci-fi... only for real. Totally awsome! Funnier than sharks with frikkin' lazer beams.
When I was a kid I lamented the boring age I was born into. I woz wrong. Can't wait to see what the next few decades will bring. Or should we be afraid, very afraid?
(I wonder how my cat would react if he met a glowing cat in the front yard at night.)
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(I wonder how my cat would react if he met a glowing cat in the front yard at night.)
Depends on how it smells. Cats may be sight based for prey, but they're very scent based when dealing with each other.
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Reminds me of an Asimov short story... (Score:1)
No dumbass. The bugs! (Score:2)
Everyone knows a glowing puss should be avoided, aids be damned. Wouldn't it be more useful to make bugs glow instead of the creatures that eat them? Glowing mosquitos. That is all I'm asking for.
New funding source (Score:1)
I only have one problem with this... (Score:1)
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I dissected a cat in high school biology.
Circle of life, bro; deal with it.
Cross breed them with the Kitlers ... (Score:2)
... and we will have really scary critters jack-pawing around . . . http://www.catsthatlooklikehitler.com/cgi-bin/seigmiaow.pl [catsthatlo...hitler.com]
Bad news for kittens... (Score:2)
From TFA:
The method's efficiency is only half the story, however. When the researchers tried to infect blood cells from the genetically modified kittens with FIV, the virus didn't replicate well. Poeschla and colleagues next plan to test whether the cats are resistant to FIV, or, if not, whether they are less likely to develop feline AIDS after infection.
"I think cats will become easier to utilize as a model organism now that you can manipulate the genome," VandeWoude says. "They're not going to replace mic
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Didn't they do this with a dog a few months back? (Score:2)
How is this the first carnivore they did this with? Is this old news? I read about this with a dog several months ago.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/27/us-korea-dog-idUSTRE76Q1MK20110727 [reuters.com]
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"Now if I can just keep them from running away from all the bass..."
I've seen a lynx that pulled the person holding his leash into the rave dance with him, and was having quite a time investigating all the weird stuff going on in there.
His name was Cody, and he was an educational animal for Animals for Awareness. They'd take him to schools in the Chicago area so the kids could see him. Incredibly cool critter. Very personable (a lot of lynxes are a bit skittish).
You mean.. (Score:2)
They're not *supposed* to do that.
New AIDS test? (Score:1)
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I'll just turn off this here light and let's see if you glow or not.
Vanilla Ice unavailable for comment...
Makes not to self... (Score:2)
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What about 2007? (Score:1)
Hard to tell what the veracity of the South Korean report is, though, and what sort of technique they used. So maybe "this method" really is new?
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That was done via SCNT [wikipedia.org] (aka cloning). This was done by using a virus to inject the modified gene into an egg cell, and the success rate is around an order of magnitude higher than it is for SCNT, but it's the first time it's been successfully done with a carnivore.
Yes, I rtfa:
the only proven way of getting a new gene into a cat, somatic cell nuclear transfer, is tricky ... The strategy works in only a fraction of cases. In cats it's been used to create glowing kittens with no other traits, just proof that it can be made to work.
Poeschla and his colleagues turned to a different method—using a virus to carry genes into an egg cell—that had worked in animals including mice and cows but never been successful in a carnivore. ... The 23% success rate is much higher than the typical 3% seen with somatic cell nuclear transfer
AIDS research my butt (Score:1)
In other words (Score:2)
Experts say the advance could make the cat a valuable new genetic modelâ"and potentially protect it from an HIV-like virus. "
In other words, they are going to expose animals just like your pet to HIV and then vivisect them.
fake picture (Score:2)
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Saw a glowing cat once. (Score:1)
Please make your ass glowing so.... (Score:1)
Dear scientist, please make your ass glowing so I can find it in the dark........
that is abuse (Score:1)