Fluorescent Cats

Just in from South Korea, cloned cats that glow red when exposed to ultraviolet light.

Here's the story from National Geographic News.

Fluorescent Cats

No, these are not cats who ate your glow sticks.

According to scientists in South Korea, the animal on the right is among the first cats cloned to have red fluorescence protein (RFP) genes. The one on the left is an unaltered kitty seen under ultraviolet light.

"Glowing" RFP genes are scientific tools used by researchers to mark changes made in an organism's genome. A team led by Kong Il-keun, a cloning expert at Gyeongsang National University, says it created the cats in the hope of using altered felines to develop treatments for human genetic diseases.

Earlier this year an international team of scientists mapped the first "rough draft" of the domestic cat genome, noting at the time that the genetic similarities between cats and people make the common feline a good model for medical studies.