photo by dtra (Flickr CC)
If you were a kid in the 70s or 80s you might remember those gaudy, velvety posters of rock bands that glowed in the dark with the aid of a “black light”. I didn’t smoke pot or anything (I was 11 for God’s sake) but I had a black light Led Zeppelin poster on the wall under my loft bed next to my beanbag chair. I’d sit there, in the dark and listening to my Walkman, gazing in wonder. Why did my black light make it glow?
Now they’ve done it with cats.
It’s all in the interest of HIV/AIDS research, apparently. Scientists have genetically modified kittens with genes from fluorescent jellyfish, making them glow green under UV light. Like my Led Zep poster.
It’s a story with everything: animal testing, genetic modification, AIDS and glowing cats. Read more in the Guardian.
Next we’re off to Malaysia, where a smoking orangutan is being treated for tobacco addiction. Well, that may not be entirely accurate, but the 20-year old ape was recently rescued (along with another orangutan) from a zoo in the Southeast Asian country, where it was kept in ‘deplorable’ conditions and encouraged to take up smoking.
Shirley is now smoke-free and awaiting a new life at a wildlife sanctuary on the island of Borneo where she won’t have to suffer ignorant gawkers throwing lit cigarettes at her.
Read more on the BBC News website.
Finally there is the drunken moose in Sweden who got stuck in a tree after eating fermented apples. Check out the following ITN News report for more on that story.