GFP Bunny
 

http://www.ekac.org/albagreen.jpeg

This is a picture of Alba, the genetically engineered albino bunny with a Green Flourescent Protein.

GFP Bunny is a living work of modern art created in the year 2000.

Alba, the green fluorescent bunny, is an albino rabbit. This means that, since she has no skin pigment, under ordinary environmental conditions she is completely white with pink eyes. Alba is not green all the time. She only glows when illuminated with the correct light. When (and only when) illuminated with blue light (maximum excitation at 488 nm), she glows with a bright green light (maximum emission at 509 nm). She was created with EGFP, an enhanced version (i.e., a synthetic mutation) of the original wild-type green fluorescent gene found in the jellyfish Aequorea Victoria. EGFP gives about two orders of magnitude greater fluorescence in mammalian cells (including human cells) than the original jellyfish gene.

Read more about it at: http://www.ekac.org/gfpbunny.html

As we enter the year 2002, perhaps this is a good time and place for a broader discussion of the human genome project.

Begun in 1990, the U.S. Human Genome Project is a 13-year effort coordinated by the Department of Energy and the National Institutes of Health. The project originally was planned to last 15 years, but effective resource and technological advances have accelerated the expected completion date to 2003.

http://www.ornl.gov/hgmis/

oh man, that is seriously fucked up

Dude, wouldn't it be cool to genetically engineer your kid to glow green in blue light?

Umm ... why? I suppose it would be an easy way to find yours at a party if you're waiting outside, at the agreed time, in the freezing rain, waiting to give them a ride home.

But other than that ...

I think it'd be cruel to the child. Kinda like naming your child "Dweezil".

or Eduardo Kac.

http://www.ekac.org/gfpb1.jpeg

The scary thing is, that's last year's wallpaper ... and THIS ARTIST is screwing with God's white bunny!?

Or Ahmet, or Moon Unit. Although Diva is a cool name. :)

Hey, forget about the kid glowing in blue light. Set it up so that you can push a button and the kid glows instantly. Use it as a weapon of control. ;)

Dateline: 2065
 

This is sick.

Sickness notwithstanding, a fun long-term experiment:

1. Engineer blue-light-emitting predators (coyote, fox, wolf, etc).
2. Release rabbit into the wild.
3. Release predator into the wild.

See what happens...

Should've not named the Bunny "Alba" - Should have been "galbinus".


This is pretty sick. You've all heard if the cannucks who turned on the spider's weave gene in sheep. Now some poor sheep can generate fine thread through its mammary glands. The real scary thing is that this gene probably is present in Humans (due to the fact that humans have 'mams' too)....


Unfortunatly, I can envision people in the future saying "Honey..please don't knit me that sweater., you've done enough this month..."

im generally all about animal rights and not testing on animals and whatnot...although i am pretty rational about my views. if you can cure cancer by testing on a bunny, fine. testing cosmetics and shampoo on cats and whatnot...bad.

however, i have to wonder...what good does this particular "art project" do for the world, other than letting us have something to waste our day away talking about? does the artist know any of the long term effects making this bunny glow will have on it? i cant imagine that it and its offspring will live long normal lives like their non-glowing counterparts. but i dont know. this is why i ask.

Man engineered the Chihuahua. Next to that and the Teacup Poodle, the glowing rabbit is tame.

wow. a glowing bunny. watch my eyes light up as i...

read watership down.

it's given me a new respect for rabbits. i almost feel bad about hitting the one in the car on perry road when it ran out and we didn't have time to swerve.

okay, i feel bad.

back to the glowing bunny. stupid. amusing to a certain extent, but stupid. why you'd want to do such a thing? publicity.

come on, "art"? you all read the IoTD with the guy who had the empty room with lights...give me a break. i'd rather look at van Gogh or michelangelo.

101 uses for a glow-in-the-dark rabbit, part 1 of a series...
 

OK recall if you will the venerable Cyalume lightstick. You've seen 'em. Produced as a general-use light source for industry, 99% of them (I made that figure up but I bet it's close) get used as fashion accessories at raves. The manufacturer had no idea that would happen, but now ships millions of the things each year and is happy as a pig in mud about it.

Now enter the glowing rabbit. Originally a scientific demonstration of how far one can go in meddling with genes (a rabbit and a JELLYFISH??), I see a future in them as...

E-TOYS.

No, not the kind you buy on the Internet, I mean for use at the same all-night dance extravaganzas where they use the glow sticks. You see, the dancers get all hopped up on...Mountain Dew I think...ahem...and just *love* to cuddle soft things like cats, each other, total strangers etc.

I bet these glowing rabbits would be a complete HIT on the rave scene, and could make someone a fortune.

okay, i'm not totally for this point of view, animal-rights activist...but look at it this way.

how is a human to say how another animal should be touched or played with? sure they're domestic rabbits, but they aren't toys. they have their own feelings. it's ridiculous to think that animals don't have emotions like human beings do.

i sort of feel bad keeping my rats...but they are domestic and i do give them lots of love, playtime, and entertainment. at least i'm not making them glow.

im seing this idea turn into an "of mice and men" moment... giving people who are incapable of taking care of animals pets is cruel.

i really dont think that i would support (or that any sort of animal rights legislation would either) breeding animals for a bunch of kids who are tripping on godknowswhat's amusement.