Chinese Year of the Glow Pig

As China prepares to celebrate the Year of the Pig, they are highlighting their success in genetic engineering by showing off a glow in the dark pig.

From Reuters here:

BEIJING – Chinese scientists have successfully bred partially green fluorescent pigs which they hope will boost stem cell research, Xinhua news agency said.

A research team at the Northeast Agricultural University in Harbin managed to breed three transgenic pigs by injecting fluorescent green protein into embryonic pigs, Xinhua quoted Professor Liu Zhonghua as saying.

“The mouth, trotters and tongue of the pigs are green under ultraviolet light,” said Liu.

Genetic material from jellyfish was injected into the womb of a sow which gave birth to the three pigs 114 days later in Harbin, he said.

China celebrates the start of the Year of the Pig in February.

Now this is not the communist country of China that I usually blog about. This is Taiwan, the good capitalist China. But I guess the island nation shares its penchant for doing weird stuff with animals with their continental neighbors.

As a side note, I guess this means that my kid will be born in the year of the Pig. Will that make him a piglet? If you want to see what your Chinese Animal Birth Sign is click here.