Via The Fat Guy, I see that the Taiwanese aren't sitting idly while waiting for the Chinese to cross the Straits of Formosa. They're making glow-in-the-dark pigs:
Scientists in Taiwan say they have bred three pigs that glow in the dark.
They claim that while other researchers have bred partly fluorescent pigs, theirs are the only pigs in the world which are green through and through.
The pigs are transgenic, created by adding genetic material from jellyfish into a normal pig embryo.
The researchers hope the pigs will boost the island's stem cell research, as well as helping with the study of human disease.
Not to mention providing live artillery markers for the Red Army.
Leaving aside the awesome ramifications of adding one species' genetic material to another (I'm holding out for endless rows of shark teeth and a scorpion tail), let's consider the nigh endless possibilities of luminescent pigs:
+ Power outages will no longer signal the end of a Pink Floyd concert
+ For use as nocturnal guard animals against Islamic burglars
+ Randy rural youths will have to be a little more discreet with their affections
+ Late night BLTs will be a lot easier to make in the dark
+ Babe 3: The Day After
+ Police department will save a fortune on those blood/semen-detector thingies
+ Easier for Circe to round up
Okay, when I've started referencing Odysseus, it's time to quit.
And the Dr. Seuss joke is too obvious.
Okay, when I've started referencing Odysseus, it's time to quit.
Should I be embarrassed that the Circe reference was the one that actually made me laugh out loud?
This was the inevitable path of genetic engineering: recreating creatures from Jabberwocky. First it's these raths (and mome is a state of mind, anybody can make a rath mome), next jubjub birds, and in twenty years we're all going to be cowering in the ashes of civilization hiding from the jaws that bite and the claws that catch.
The Dr. Seuss joke was so obvious, in fact, that CNN used it for their headline on the story.