Glowing rodents foreshadow….glowing humans.

When I was little I was always wishing for some distinguishing feature that I often found so cool and exciting in the animal world. Example: for the longest time I had a fascination with tails. Animals were cool and had tails therefore I wanted a tail. But I’ve since grown up and realized such a wish is silly. No sir. I’ve graduated to more technological things — hello glowing humans.

Ok, so in all honesty, glowing humans aren’t here yet but glowing Prairie Vole’s are. Thanks to the uber smart individuals at Yerkes National Primate Research Center at Emory University, the iron shroud surrounding pair bonding (deep science stuff = Google it) has been lifted a little higher today. The real aim is to make lab created genetic mutations and other scientific alterations easier, more clear, and to gain an overall better understanding of how the human body works. In the example above however, making stuff glow is a close second I’ll settle for. To achieve the glowing little guys you see above, scientists injected a particular gene from a jellyfish. As the prairie voles grew, so did their luminescence. Even more trippy is that the glowing gene was passed on to the prairie vole’s children. Awesome!

I’m all for the advancement of science, especially health science. But at the end of the day (today anyway) I’m simply dumbfounded with glowing rodents. I’d love a couple of my own. Of course, I’d really like to glow myself — without the need to lick a nuclear reactor’s control rod of course.

Science Daily

Author: Mike Norris

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Gadget lover, smartphone collector, and beer connoisseur. I've been writing about gadgets for three years now and loving every minute of it. Outside of the digital landscape, I enjoy being active outdoors. I'm always up for a good conversation, so feel free to drop me a line!