In the Guangdong Province of Southern China, ten glow-in-the-dark piglets were born this year as a result of an experiment at the South China Agriculture University.
According to Tracktec, scientists at the school created the transgenic pigs by injecting a fluorescent protein from jellyfish DNA into pig embryos.
Dr. Stefan Moisyadi, a bioscientist at the University of Hawaii medical school's Institute for Biogenesis Research (IBR) said the animals were not hurt by the fluorescent protein and are expected to have the same life span as other pigs.
"The green is only a marker to show that it's working easily," he said.
The scientists behind the experiment hope that by showing that foreign genetic material can be incorporated from one animal to an entirely different animal, they will be able to develop cheaper drugs for humans. According to the Mirror, the ultimate goal of the research is "to introduce beneficial genes into larger animals to create cheaper and more efficient medicines."
Watch a video of the scientists demonstrating their glow-in-the-dark piglet research.
This is not the first time scientists have made animals translucent. There have been glow-in-the-dark fish, rats, insects, and even cats, Scientific American reports.
