flourescent mice- soon to be BP?!

[measley]

Someone posted this link on the BP.net forums and I thought it received some interesting responses:

http://www.neonmice.com/faqs.htm

This is the company that produced Glofish originally. Now they've done it to mice and in the FAQ they mentioned that they want to start looking into making other animals including BP's glow under black lights...

I'm not sure what I think yet but was curious to see what you guys think.

 

[Sharon]

Weeeeird....

 

[RobbiesCornField]

I think it's stupid. Just like the GloFish. Granted, there are fish that glow in the wild, but these aren't them. Mice don't glow naturally. I can see how someone would think a "fluorescent" snake might be cool, but it really doesn't appeal to me. This idea is almost as stupid as the tattooed molly fish:

 

[Chip]

Gene-splicing is nowhere in the same realm as the horrific practice of dying/injecting/tattooing fish. The fish are just as healthy and vigorous as a standard zebra danio. Painted glass, tattoo mollies and the like have a huge mortality rate.

 

[measley]

yeah, something about it just seems wrong to me- I understand it helps scientifically but like you stated, Robbie, there are so many beautiful types of fish and snakes out there that I just don't see the need for these as pets.

 

[LBoz]

DYK I didn't even read the article because I knew I'd get angry? I am completely and utterly against any type of genetic alterations that are done simply for the amusement/sellability factor?

 

[CaptBogart]

You know, I asked my tat guy about getting my next one done in the UV ink, and he said he won't do those because it's a cancer causing pathogen. I wonder if these were the test mice...

 

[Chip]

DYK I didn't even read the article because I knew I'd get angry? I am completely and utterly against any type of genetic alterations that are done simply for the amusement/sellability factor?

The Glo-fish were used for water pollution research. They came into the aquarium hobby as a fluke, and now outsell almost anything in my freshwater department. They aren't my thing, but they are very sturdy and hardy fish. I won't carry dyed/injected fish, but really don't have a problem with these (other than the fact they are tacky to my eye).

 

[measley]

ElRojo, a little off topic but I'm curious to know what the demographics of people who buy glofish are... Is it mostly kids/young people?

 

[tyflier]

El Rojo said:

Gene-splicing is nowhere in the same realm as the horrific practice of dying/injecting/tattooing fish. The fish are just as healthy and vigorous as a standard zebra danio. Painted glass, tattoo mollies and the like have a huge mortality rate.

How do you know? Where is the long-term testing data and research that shows this to be the case?

I have seen WAY to many things advertised as "harmless" over the last 20 years of my life only to turn around be told they can cause X-disease after further research. This goes for product developement for use by humans, foods, and pet products. I don't see how gene-splicing is any different.

I am no scientist. I am no biologist. So take my opinion for what it is worth...not very much. Less than $.02, I imagine, but here it is...

They are using jelly fish and sea coral with narually flourescent genes. These jelly fish and sea coral are also naturally poisonous and/or venomous. The potential for inadvertantly splicing venom or poison production genes right along side the flourescent genes is far too great, IMO, and further testing should be done. It was developed as a means to other scientific studies. Fine. But there is no evidence to confirm or deny the potential for these genes to be linked to the venom production genes.

We know that MOST animals that are venomous or poisonous, also posess some degree of visible warning either in the form of ultra-bright colors(in reptiles) or flourescant colors(in sea creatures and inverts). This is especially true in sea creatures and invertabrates. The animals that mimic these creatures do not posess the ability to the same degree as the dangerous ones.

So how do we know these traits aren't linked? We don't, I don't think. And even if they aren't developing venomous mice, the creation of these toxins could be detrimental to the host-creature, and we wouldn't know it until we had a large enough and broad enough study-group to create controls and give us data to compare.

And that's difficult to do when the lifespan of these animals in natural form order is very short. It's tough to say it's harmless when a healthy one only lives for 3-4 years. And it's not uncommon for healthy rodents to dies at 2 years of age for no apparent reason. So it's really difficult to say if the gene-slicing is having any effect on the animals. Hell, it could be creating toxin that lives in the blood stream and could be detrimental to anything that consumes it, for all we know...

At least...that makes sense to me. Again...I'm no biologist, so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong...

 

[Chip]

ElRojo, a little off topic but I'm curious to know what the demographics of people who buy glofish are... Is it mostly kids/young people?

Yep. They seem to really catch the kids and the crowd who like "clown puke" neon colored gravel, garish bright castles, and action ornaments. Takes all kinds, I guess.

El Rojo said:


How do you know? Where is the long-term testing data and research that shows this to be the case?

How do I know? Well, I'm mostly going on the information that has been published. And over a year of caring hundreds (thousands?) of them in my store. They very seldom die, and seem to even thrive in poor water conditions. I can deduce that by the water tests I've carried out on people's aquariums where everything but danios have died. As for venomous properties, that would be pretty easy to measure. I've fed off DOA's with no ill effects, I was curious about that myself. On the mouse page, they say they are safe for feeders -of course, you would expect the company that produced them to say as much. I personally am not interested in buying these mice for my store.

 

[ghosthousecorns]

At the last herp show I went to, someone had a whole tub of flourescent pink and orange mice. They were just regular old white mice that had been dyed I am assuming with halloween hair dye. I was like, why?

 

[measley]

At the last herp show I went to, someone had a whole tub of flourescent pink and orange mice. They were just regular old white mice that had been dyed I am assuming with halloween hair dye. I was like, why?

I think that would bother me... Somebody is going to get caught into it and buy one of those colorful mice for their kid who thinks it's really cool and then after the dye and the novelty wear off, what will happen to the mice? Not to mention how mean it is to dip an animal in a foreign substance...

 

[tyflier]

...How do I know? Well, I'm mostly going on the information that has been published. And over a year of caring hundreds (thousands?) of them in my store. They very seldom die, and seem to even thrive in poor water conditions. I can deduce that by the water tests I've carried out on people's aquariums where everything but danios have died. As for venomous properties, that would be pretty easy to measure. I've fed off DOA's with no ill effects, I was curious about that myself. On the mouse page, they say they are safe for feeders -of course, you would expect the company that produced them to say as much. I personally am not interested in buying these mice for my store.

No offense, but that's what a mean...a year or two is hardly long enough for these animals to have been properly tested. Feeding a few DOA's over the course of a year doesn't satify much criteria to qualify as a study to find out if there really ARE any effects.

In order to conclusively determine there are no ill effects, these animals would need to be used as a sole source of nutrition against a control over the period of several years. And scheduled testing of the biological functionality of the subjects would need to be performed over most of the life-sycle. Preferably the entire life cycle of sibling test animals, before anything truly conclusive could be determined...

Again...this is just my opinion. There are many products and consumables that have been approved for HUMAN use that later were found to have seriously detrimental effects after further research and conclusive testing using more subjects, larger controls, and long-term study instead of short term testing on small groups.

As well, the effects of splicing aquatic cells with different aquatic life forms could very well be different than the effect of splicing the cells of aquatic animals with the cells of land-dwelling mammals...

I'm just saying...

 

[ghosthousecorns]

I think that would bother me... Somebody is going to get caught into it and buy one of those colorful mice for their kid who thinks it's really cool and then after the dye and the novelty wear off, what will happen to the mice? Not to mention how mean it is to dip an animal in a foreign substance...

It bothered me too, not just that it was kind of mean, absolutely not necessary, but mostly to think someone may feed them to a snake and what the dye may do if ingested by a reptile..

 

[CaptBogart]

When do the glowing babies come out...

 

[Ceridwen]

The potential for inadvertantly splicing venom or poison production genes right along side the flourescent genes is far too great, IMO, and further testing should be done....But there is no evidence to confirm or deny the potential for these genes to be linked to the venom production genes.

At least...that makes sense to me. Again...I'm no biologist, so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong...

Speaking as a biologist (currently a master's student, I've been working in research for three years now, specifically I do research on venomous snakes) I will tell you that these genes are NOT linked in any way that would result in the wrong gene being transferred (or extra genes being transfered).

We regularly use green fluorescent protein (GFP) and red fluorescent protein (RFP, the gene most commonly used in GloFish) as an indicator in MANY scientific studies. I've personally seen it in used in plants, sea urchins, and fruit flies, but it's used in many others. The methods used to transfer the gene into the target organism do not transfer genes other than the ones tha the researcher is purposely trying to introduce. If they did, the technique would not be nearly so useful as it actually is.

This is not to say that venom genes CAN'T be transferred into other animals, but GloFish are not at risk of this.

Also, GloFish have now been on the market for 6 years in the US. Considerable testing was done prior to that release.

If you want to learn more about GFP/RFP and how this transgenic stuff works (and WHY scientists use it) you can check out this site (and related book).

 

[Chip]

Fantastic link! I have some reading to do!

And TY, I never claimed to have done exhaustive scientific research on the matter or had a certain conclusion. Just that I have seen no evidence of venomous properties or ill-effects on the fish.

 

[tom e]

I'm not particularly against it, he says they are made sterile so they can't breed, that covers the only worry I would have about them. The 'color' comes from a gene in jellyfish if I read it correctly, so it's not a dye which would be harmful to them.
That said, I have absolutely NO interest in them, except reading and looking at the pictures.. Thanks for posting!

 

[Chip]

When do the glowing babies come out...

They've already done pigs!