I overheard news about this on the tv playing behind me as I'm here working on my computer.


(CBS) A certain little fish is making a big splash this holiday season. It's a designer glow-in-the-dark pet created in a lab, and it's been put on sale just in time for the holiday shopping rush. Just like any classic novelty toy, the first genetically altered pet has arrived, reports CBS News Correspondent Lee Cowan. "The wholesaler described it as probably the biggest thing to hit the fish industry in 20 years, maybe ever," says Sean Crawford of the Dallas North Aquarium. Scientists say they first "saw the light" in Singapore. Combining the genes from a luminescent sea anemone with the genes from a black and white Zebra-Fish produced a fluorescent phenomenon priced at less than $10. But not everyone wants them. California has banned all genetically altered animals, and today the man who is proud of his somewhat fishy copyright was in Sacramento to ask the state to reconsider. "We have been working for over two years with the leading scientific experts who specialize in environmental risk assessment and they have firmly concluded the fish are safe," says Alan Blake of Yorktown Technologies. Genetically engineered fish are nothing new, but unlike the altered Salmon that's been dubbed the "Franken-fish," GloFish aren't meant to be eaten. That means neither the FDA, the USDA or the EPA has the will or power to regulate them. And that has some critics giving the fish less than glowing reviews. "You name it, the imagination runs wild in this area and there really are no limits right now," says Peter Jenkins, of the Center for Food Safety. "Once they're out there, its very hard to call them back." The GloFish is the only pet for sale to have its genes altered simply for human amusement. And while few are suggesting that green and red cats are dogs are next ? some fear the technology has gone overboard and wonder whether it's moving from science to circus.

Source: CBS News

humans playing god. this should be a fun way to destroy nature even more.

lol, stupidity at its finest i must say...what next, a cat that can speak?

I heard of this before... very interesting to say the least...

ya this story was on GeekNewz front page a while back, like bangbang said i dont think we should be messing around too much coz they wont stop with just the fish but it is a neat idea.

I think its super cool some fish in a aquarium isnt bad I dont even mind genitacaly altered food (you dont sample the DNA into your body or anything) and besides people have been doing genetic manipulation for thousands of years (they just didnt know it was the genes) All breads of dogs came from wolves. New breads of animals are created all the time threw breading. Doing it with a gene splicer is just a nice shortcut and gives some nice cut and paste options LOL

With breeding though...We can only get so far. I just hope it doesn't get outta hand.

These glowing fish do sound interesting though.

This is old news. They already genetically altered rabbits to glow in the dark. They took the genes from a marine animal too, I think a jelly fish or something. Not quite sure. Either way, it's disturbing.

I think I also heard something about a human that was cloned called Eve. If I'm correct, she was a year old on the 24th or 25th of December.

On the one hand it is sort of terrifying what we are able to do because of the unstoppable limits it will be brought to, but at the same time so amazing!

I just think people forget how well nature works on its own

Yeah... as much as I'm interested in studying genetics in college, I think that stuff like that should just be left well alone.

It's all interesting as well as scary; What is the limit??

We will never know the limit until we reach it, but I doubt that we're anywhere near it. And the pet market just opened up too now. Next thing we will have are centaurs on the market. Hey, don't judge it! It's not that far fetched anymore!

How would you know if you reached the limit if you ever did?

You wouldn't and that's the scary part. Some people may say, "you know, this has gotten out of hand", but no one will ever know. This is the trouble with genetic engineering.

I dont think too much is possible beyond what already exists in nature new combinations yes and maybe some "improvements" like soldiers with cats eyes to see better at night and maybe faster reflexes from some species of spiders. What you wont get is something like super man or almost any other super hero. I think for now we are limited to mostly parlor tricks like glowing fish the enhanced vision thing would require a much deeper understanding of DNA and further decoding of other species DNA also. I think that darwins law is important here if a mutation works better then the original and takes over thats just evolution. Mutations ocure almost every day due to cosmic rays changing our DNA and almost every plant and animal besides that there is also environmental conditions that couse change. So weather we couse change or the environment does it wont matter in the end it will be nature that desides if it stays or goes the way of the Dodo.

Heheheh but dont you just love the chaos of it all here in Florida there is this bug called the Love bug some scientist made it to try and controll the mosquito population. Well they didnt work and they bred in the billions and there was clouds of them you would drive through and ruin your paint. Well for the last 3 years there have been less and less of them as the local species discover that they are not poisonous and are tasty (I think they will be gone soon) Anyway that was man making a mistake and nature is taking it out of the pot so to speak. I think if they do alow for unlimited genetic experimentation that they will find that nature has the final say in what goes '

*Playing devils advocate here* lol heheheh

Nature's final say is going to be throwing an asteroid at us lol.

Inkman's wandering around the room here and saw me reading this post. He's like, oh, nice, evolution. Another one of your Scientific posts?

Anyway, he says get back on topic. I'm in the process of starting a topic about evolution and stuff (Thanks for the ideas )

But I don't think it is the human's right to play god. We should let mother nature play the evolution card, damaging solar rays or just meiosis. And I don't think everyone will stop playing around as soon as somebody says "too far". There will always be a black market for this kind of stuff. There will be no end until we don't ever find another step to go. Like now, this glofish thing opened up a whole new market, a whole new playingfield for people to go nuts in. I think this is the sort of thing that should be left alone. I mean, just transferring organisms out of their natural habitat, like what they did with the fishtank algae, is bad enough. That algae has pretty much taken over the Meditteranean and now they have to bring in some other bacteria to counter it. It's disturbing the whole natural ecosystem there. Just from one marine institution who didn't realize that the algae they'd dumped into the sea was dangerous. Now I know that that isn't really all this gene stuff, but look what happens when people think it's alright to take things in their hands. It goes out of control.

We don't yet know the consequences of creating organisms such as this glofish. Maybe this one is harmless, but will the next be?

lol..had to be Singapore. Having lived there I gotta say its not surprising. But glowing fish? that is freaking useless. Why dont the use genetics to save ppl from diseases and such instead of making new toys for man?

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OKay i havent been on this topic til now so I chose to reply to the first entry with the headline about it. But my comment here is strictly backing up what Linx said, she is right, and as far as genetics go, she knows a whole <<removed>> more than me. I always sucked at science and she was good at it. So im saying she ought to know hehe

Now, now, watch the language

- bangbang023

Hi, new here and just reading this post. These fish were not just made for the enjoyment and entertainment of humans...they aren't just toys. The fish were created to help scientist detect poluted areas for water. They have a genetic "switch" as it were, to fluoresece when they are in the presence of heavy metals and toxins, which as you know are harmful to nature.

Now, is this the right thing to do to fish...who knows. But as someone said earlier...nature will take it out if it isn't supposed to be here. Nature is funny like that, she doesn't like it, she gets rid of it. As for an asteroid coming to us, well, after everything else we humans have done to screw up the earth, don't you think she would have sent it by now?

Hey everyone,

Sorry, old topic I know, I remember back in the day in high-school, in Bio11 we were told of this hamster (I believe it was a hamster) that had its genes spliced with jellyfish DNA and it resulted in the same thing, a glow in the dark hamster. Kinda Neat, just like a radioactive pet.