Taiwan’s pigs grow ever more fearsomeJanuary 13th, 2006 by Roy Berman |
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You may have already heard that researchers here in Taiwan have just perfected the technology of genetically modifying pigs to glow in the dark. This is apparently going to be very useful for research, since every scrap of pig material also glows green, and I imagine lets you more easily locate bits that you’ve dropped on the floor.
According to the report, “In daylight the researchers say the pigs’ eyes, teeth and trotters look green. Their skin has a greenish tinge.”
There is no word yet on how bioluminescence will affect the God Pig industry. According to a report last year in the Taipei Times “some farmers even pour metal into their pigs before a contest in order to increase the swine’s weight.” All said, we seen to be well on the way to one-ton partially metallic bioluminescent god pigs. All it takes it one minor lab accident and we’re in the middle of a 1950’s horror movie.
January 13th, 2006 at 6:52 am
Saw this on CNN this morning, but they only had some really crappy footage of it that didn’t even show them glowing in the dark, and the copy kept referring to Porky Pig and “porkers.” Ick.
January 13th, 2006 at 7:51 am
What the hell is a trotter?
January 14th, 2006 at 5:04 am
Trotter is a pig’s foot.
All I can think of is the potential for nighttime pig hunting (wild pig hunting is big around here): if you could release some of these pigs into the wild and get the gene into the wild pig gene pool… oh, wait. Natural selection means that the glowing pigs will get picked off first. Never mind.
January 26th, 2006 at 2:02 am
[...] And you thought that Taiwan’s cyborg god-pigs were the ultimate runaway technological threat of the 2030’s. Even though they’re a month old already, I only just ran across these truly disturbing photos of China’s first face transplant, and they are just the first taste of the unspeakable horrors to come. [...]
January 31st, 2006 at 5:14 pm
This is really cool, my science class is learning about bioluminescent things, and this is perfect..its cool…!
February 1st, 2006 at 8:23 am
I’m glad it helped you. Good luck with your science class!