BIOLUMINESCENT PETS: Glowing creatures that light up your life

BIOTECHNOLGY is a fascinating field. It has so much to offer society. It is not inaccurate to say that it will inevitably be the salvation of our planet. Advocates can immediately point to its beneficial uses in agriculture and the production of eco-friendly fuels.

However, it seems that a very fine line is crossed when science begins to toy with nature. In fact, it is almost impossible to utter the term “genetic engineering” without raising several ethical questions and rallying its opponents.

The world today would be a very different place if science was unregulated. In many instances, control over its application is necessary for there is such a thing as mad scientists who will stop at nothing to test their latest scientific experiments. However, the more level-headed scientists become frustrated when practical and theoretically beneficial applications are simply dismissed on ethical grounds.

Bioluminescent biotechnology is one seemingly innocent branch of science that has brought some interesting ideas to the table. Bio-geneticists in this field have spoken about glowing trees that light up highways, agricultural crops that glow when they need watering, and even bioluminescent methods of detecting dodgy meats and other foods. Yet the real controversy arose when they began speaking about bioluminescent pets.

Bioluminescent pets: GloFish sparks debate

Pet stores in the United States have been under the spotlight since 2004 over the sale of genetically-modified fish that glow in the dark. Sold under the name GloFish, these creatures carry a lofty claim to fame: they are the nation’s first officially sanctioned genetically-modified pet, and scientists say that they won’t be the last.

The GloFish is a Zebra Danio that is made to glow red by the insertion of a gene found in sea coral. Naturally black and white, the new GloFish has gone from curiosity to a focal point in the debate over biotechnology and bioluminescent pets.

There are valid points to be made on both sides of the debate. The central ethical concern centers on the idea of altering the genetic make-up of an animal when there’s no purpose besides our own pleasure. However, most bio-geneticists will argue that this has already been occurring for years.

Bioluminescent Pets: The Eighth Day

The pet industry is in many ways a peculiar venue for such a heated debate over the wisdom of genetic modification. The whole notion of a pet, after all, is based on generations upon generations of selective breeding aimed at drawing out certain characteristics that make animals more suitable companions.

Think about dog breeding and all the breeds of dog that wouldn’t be around without human interference. These pooches may not glow in the dark, but the fact that their genes were somehow manipulated can still be used in favour of genetic engineering.

The scary part is that geneticists could very well create an alien-looking, glow-in-the-dark dog. They’ve done it with mice and fish — the latter being the more popular. In fact, the GloFish has absolutely opened the floodgates to a whole new pet trade in genetically engineered animals.

Bioluminescent pets: Upsetting the natural balance of the wild

People who are opposed to the idea may also bring up the risk of unregulated gene-altered or bioluminescent pets upsetting the natural balance of nature and the wild. However, the idea of a rogue GloFish escaping its aquarium and spawning an army of mutant glow-fish in the wild that ultimately wipe out other species of fish, does not presently have a lot of backing.

Yet the question remains: How will a glowing fish benefit society? What’s interesting is that the GloFish was not originally engineered to be a pet. In fact, its creation was rather strange. According to a Washington Post article:

"... glowing fish of a related species were originally developed in a Singapore laboratory for use as a modern-day canary in a coal mine. The fish were supposed to indicate, by glowing, if a given body of water is polluted."

Although this practical use of glowing fish failed, there still seems to be more weight on the side of the debate that argues that genetic modification of animals in general can be advantageous to both people and pets. Researchers are already at work trying to create a cat that won’t aggravate its owner’s allergies. Other possible creations include a dog that isn’t as susceptible to hip dysplasia - an ailment common among German shepherds and Labradors that is associated with over-breeding.

Proposed applications of engineered bioluminescence

Some other proposed applications of engineered bioluminescence include:

• Detecting bacterial species in suspicious corpses.
• Novelty pets that bioluminesce (rabbits, mice, fish etc.)
• Agricultural crops and domestic plants that luminesce when they need watering.
• Bio-identifiers for escaped convicts and mental patients.
• Glowing trees to line highways, thus saving on government electricity bills.
• Christmas trees that do not need lights, reducing danger from electrical fires.
• New methods for detecting bacterial contamination of meats and other foods.

So will (or should) biotechnology be left to genetically modify our future pets? It seems that this is already the case. Whether they will be bioluminescent remains a question of personal taste and will ultimately be left to public demand. There will always be a market for the bizarre. Would I ever add a GloFish to my aquarium? Sure. You can get them in the U.S. for $5.

Related posts:

• Exotic animals: to pet or not to pet?
• A beginners guide to keeping tropical fish

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GENERAL KNOWLEDGE: DID YOU KNOW …

General knowledge enhancers: Entertainment:

1. The first couple ever to be shown in bed together on
   prime-time television were Fred and Wilma Flintstone.
2. Barbie's measurements if she were life size: 39-23-33 (she would topple over)
3. Donald Duck comics were banned from Finland because he doesn't wear pants.
4. In 1980, a Las Vegas hospital suspended workers for betting on when patients would die.
5. Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history:
   Spades       -    King David
   Clubs          -    Alexander the Great
   Hearts        -    Charlemagne
   Diamonds -    Julius Caesar

General knowledge enhancers: Food & drink:

• Coca-Cola was originally green.
• Every time you lick a stamp, you're consuming 1/10 of a calorie.
• Nearly all lipstick contains fish scales. Yeech...
• A Saudi Arabian woman can get a divorce if her husband doesn't give her coffee.
• Bubble gum contains rubber.
• Most cows give more milk when they listen to music.
• Research indicates that mosquitoes are attracted to people who have recently eaten bananas.

General knowledge enhancers: Numbers:

1. Every day more money is printed for Monopoly than the US Treasury.
2. 111,111,111 x 111,111,111
   = 12,345,678,987,654,321
3. A 'jiffy' is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.
4. All the numbers on a roulette table add up to 666.

General knowledge enhancers: Language:

• The Hawaiian alphabet has 12 letters.
• Men can read smaller print than women; women can hear better.
• First novel ever written on a typewriter: Tom Sawyer.
• "I am." is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.
• The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law which stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb. (Read about the origins of more English phrases here).

General knowledge enhancers: People:

1. Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.
2. The world's youngest parents were 8 and 9 and lived in China in 1910.
3. The youngest pope was 11 years old.
4. The most popular first name in the world is Muhammad.

General knowledge enhancers: Famous people:

• Thomas Edison was afraid of the dark.
• Einstein couldn't speak fluently when he was nine. His parents thought he might be retarded.
• Every time Beethoven sat down to write music, he poured iced water over his head. And he was rather deaf.
• Sigmund Freud had a morbid fear of ferns.

General knowledge enhancers: History:

1. If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in battle; if the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.
2. Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, John Hancock and Charles Thomson. Most of the rest signed on August 2, but the last signature wasn't added until 5 years later.

General knowledge enhancers: Vehicles:

The name Jeep came from the abbreviation used in the army for the "General Purpose" vehicle, G.P.

The cruise liner, Queen Elizabeth II, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.

City with the most Rolls Royce's per capita: Hong Kong.

In Tokyo, a bicycle is faster than a car for most trips of less than 50 minutes.

Now you know everything :-)

• Want to learn more? Check out my Quite Interesting page. It's 100% free!

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MOTHERS DAY: A brief history of Mothers Day

LIKE Valentines Day, Mothers Day has sadly become another blatantly commercialized holiday (which isn’t even a holiday) where gift stores capitalize on another opportunity to sell cheap crap to children to give to their mothers to show their love and appreciation for them.

I always used to write my mother dearest a poem on Mothers Day, and perhaps bring her a special instant cuppucinno in bed. That’s not because I’m cheap, but rather because it's something more personal. It is also something that my mother appreciates more than some plastic or edible gift that the dog would end up chocking on if the opportunity presented itself.

So rather than rush off and buy mommy some cheap Mothers Day gift that says “I love you mom”, rather tell her yourself. After all, everyday should be Mothers Day, and everyone should let their moms know how much they are appreciated and loved. I've had a mother for years now, so I know what I'm talking about.

Or you could present her with this: A brief history of Mothers Day, accompanied by coffee (or breakfast) in bed. (The disappointed dog will get over not having a new chew-toy over time).

A brief history of Mothers Day

The Mothers Day holiday was created by Anna Jarvis as a day for each family to honour its mother. It is now celebrated on various days in many places around the world, and takes place in South Africa on a Sunday in mid May.

This holiday is relatively modern, being created at the start of the 20th Century. It should not be confused with the early pagan and Christian traditions honouring mothers, or with the 16th Century celebration of Mothering Sunday, which is also known as Mothers Day in the UK.

A couple of years after being established, Anna became increasingly pissed off over the commercialization of Mothers Day, saying: "I wanted it to be a day of sentiment, not profit." She opposed the selling of flowers and also the use of greeting cards - dismissing them as "a poor excuse for the letter you are too lazy to write."

Anna Jarvis never had any children of her own, and died in 1948, blind and penniless. She was buried next to her mother in a cemetery in Philadelphia.

And that, I can promise you, will be truly appreciated (as sad as it is); because knowledge is the best gift that you can offer anyone, besides a winning lottery ticket or a free trip to the Seychelles.

Happy Mothers Day Mom.
I love and appreciate you more than you know.

Love, your favourite son
Galen xxxx

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QWERTY LAYOUT: The evolution of the QWERTY keyboard

STARING blankly at my keyboard the other day (as one does) I began pondering over the arrangement of the keys. “What’s up with that?” I heard the comedian within me say. I set forth on a cyber-galactic journey to discovery why my keyboard’s layout looks the way it does…

A brief history lesson

In the early days of the typewriter way-back-when (1860) the letters were initially arranged from A-Z along a metal bar. However, as the speed of typists increased, they found that particular ‘type bars’ would jam together. This created several complications, personal distress and making quite a mess of typed documents altogether.

One keen mind (American inventor Christopher Sholes) suggested that the most commonly used letters be equally spaced to reduce jams and increase typing speed and efficiency. Quite taken with Mr Sholes’ insightful idea, manufacturers gradually rearranged the layout of letters until fewer and fewer jams occurred.

A final rearrangement of the keys introduced the word QWERTY (made up of the first 6 letters along the top row of a keyboard). This has become the most commonly used, modern-day keyboard layout that we enjoy and love and take completely for granted today.

QWERTY and its opponents

QWERTY was patented by Mr Sholes in 1874 and fast became the most popular keyboard layout on English-language computers and typewriter keyboards. It managed to dominate the market after being sold to Remington and whence it became mass-produced in the U.S.

The QWERTY layout wasn’t without it opponents however. The early Blickensderfer's "Ideal" keyboard (1893) was non- QWERTY, instead having the sequence "DHIATENSOR" in the home row. These 10 letters are capable of composing 70% of the words in the English language yet were also met with the problem of clashing type bars when used speedily on a typewriter.

Quick & Qwerty Facts

• Gradual adjustments to the QWERTY layout occurred over a period of several years. One particularly interesting adjustment included placing the "R" key in the place previously allotted to the period mark. This enabled typewriter salesmen to impress customers by pecking out the brand name "TYPEWRITER" using one row of keys. This was also the longest word in the English language that could be typed using only the top row of a keyboard until the word "proterotype" came into existence.
• Evidence of the original alphabetical layout of typewriters remains in the second row of a modern-day keyboard, with the letters F-L in alphabetical order (i.e. FGHJKL) - with the exception of the ‘I’ key, which was moved for type-bar jamming reasons.
• The ‘W’ and ‘E’ keys were swapped around as the naughty (middle) finger is stronger than the ring finger and ‘E’ is the most commonly used letter in the English language.
• Far more words can be spelled/typed using the left hand (i.e. the left-hand side of a keyboard) than the right hand. In fact, thousands of English words can be spelled using only the left hand, while only a couple of hundred words can be typed using the right. This is helpful for left-handed people, however, the combined use of a mouse makes up for the typing advantage of any lefties.

Now you know everything.

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MOSQUITOES: And why you should feel no remorse when killing them!

IF you live in big (or even not so big) city, then you would have felt the scorching summer rays that seem to have a worse effect than a grade A hangover. You can’t even go to the beach these days without looking like the Abominable Sunscreen Man. We may as well be living in the Sahara desert. At least the evenings would be cooler.

Although we must protect ourselves from the Global Warming, there is a bigger nuisance that spawns during summer time. I’m talking of course about the worst creature that ever evolved - the ever so deadly (and bloody annoying) household mosquito.

Mosquitoes don't care who you are or what you've done - they simply want to get you! If mosquitoes don’t already scare you shitless, then there are some things that you need to know about them:

1. The mosquito is the deadliest animal on the planet

The mosquito is responsible for the most human deaths throughout history. It has single-handedly killed more people throughout time than war. And when I say “single-handedly” I don’t mean with its hands – but rather with its mutant-like feelers and probiscus.

Mosquitoes are estimated to transmit disease to more than 700 million people annually in Africa, South America, Central America, Mexico and much of Asia with millions of resulting deaths.

2. It is the female mosquitoes that sap your blood and life force

The male mosquitoes (the large ones) live off tree sap, and are admirably vegetarians. The girls use your blood to lay their eggs and spawn their offspring. The females will also bite you up to 20 times before they find the right blood vessel and get their fill.

3. Breath of death

The females hunt down their prey by detecting carbon dioxide in the air from up to 40 metres away. This is why they always buzz around your face the split second you try and get to sleep.

4. Mosquitoes saliva

In order to fest on a blood meal, the mosquito injects its poisonous saliva into its victims. Mosquito saliva affects vascular constriction, blood clotting, platelet aggregation, inflammation, immunity, and angiogenesis.

Mosquitoes are a vector agent that carry disease-causing viruses and parasites from person to person without catching the disease themselves.

5. The night stalker

Most species of mosquito are nocturnal, and hide in cool places during the day – waiting until nightfall to attack. They are also adept at infiltration and have been known to find their way into residences via deactivated air conditioning units.

And now for the important bit: how to get rid of the bastards!

• Mosquitoes lay their eggs in shallow water, usually in murky puddles around the garden that receive a good dose of sunlight. So step one is to roam your garden and empty all containers or other water-catching devices and turn them upside down. Or just chuck them away.
• A mosquitos favourite place to chill inside a house and plot your death is inside bedroom cupboards. Simply lock them in for the night by closing all the cupboards in your bedroom.
• A bedroom fan (preferably a ceiling fan) does wonders to keep the buggers off you while you sleep. The mosquito is a puny and weak demon-spawn that cannot compete with the powerful gush of a human-made fan.
• The household gecko and fish – man’s new best friends
  If you're not really a gecko or a fish-person now might be a good time to become one. Keeping a well-stocked, open-topped fish tank in your house is not only aesthetically pleasing, but does wonders for mosquito control. Geckos are even more effective at chowing mosquitoes throughout the night.
• If you prefer turning to science and drugs to help with your mosquito problem, there are several options here. But believe me I’ve tried them all. Probably the oldest product is Tabard – the pungent roll-on that makes your hairs fuse together. There are also those electrical plug-in jobs, but it’s hard to tell when these are used up and I’m sure it’s not good to inhale those fumes while you sleep.

The best mosquito repellent I’ve tried is the spray-version of Peaceful Sleep. It says that one shouldn’t simply spray this into the air but rather on your bod – which does make your bed-sheets pong a bit – but I’ve found it to be effective as an air-pray. You can pick up a bottle at Pick n Pay or other leading stores for about R32.

Lets all do our bit to save the fate of humankind this summer by killing as many mosquitoes as you possibly can!

Related post: 20 things you didn't know about mosquitoes

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