Recent Biotechnology Innovation Is a Bit Fishy: A Fluorescent Pet

I've been wondering — for a long, long time — when someone would finally come out with glowing animals. Now it's happening. Recent Biotechnology Innovation Is a Bit Fishy: A Fluorescent Pet:

In the basement of a building down an alley here floats the future of bioengineered pets, and it is glowing.

In a corner, small fish flit about in a dozen aquariums. Bill Kuo, a manager at Taikong Corp., draws a thick curtain and switches on black lights over the tanks. Suddenly, the fish glow a bright green. "Imagine you come home from work, turn out the lights and look at these," Mr. Kuo says. "It's very relaxing."

I may have to start an aquarium.

I love the contrast between the US and the UK:

Word has traveled fast among aquarium enthusiasts. "If they can actually do this, it will be the greatest thing since popped corn," says Nevin Bailey, manager at Aquariumfish.net, a San Diego-based fish dealer who says customers have been asking him when they can buy glow-in-the-dark fish from Taiwan. "There's a lot of pent-up demand" for fluorescent fish in the U.S., he says, owing in part to articles about them in hobbyist magazines. Mr. Bailey, whose office is near a military base, sees a day when people will select their own color combinations. "My gosh, if they ever made one that was red, white, and blue, every Marine in the country would buy one."

The reaction in Europe, where resistance to genetic modification runs high, is different. "Fish shops in the U.K. won't touch them with a barge pole," predicts Derek Lambert, editor of Today's Fishkeeper, an enthusiasts' magazine. "There's a very strong anti-genetic-engineered-fish feeling in the U.K."

There's a very strong anti-genetic-engineered-fish feeling in the UK. I guess there's a very strong pro-genetic-engineered-fish feeling in the US.