Jewelry News
Seahorses To Be Believed
Jewelry.com, 01/22/2008
Golden phones, chairs, T.Vs, even toilets, you'd think everything that could be gilded has been - but that isn't the case. For those who simply must have the ultimate in everything a college in Vietnam has come up with a genetically modified animal that is a living, swimming bling baby.
Vietnam's National University's College of Science has created genetically engineered seahorses made of gold. At their current age of under two weeks, 108 striped, glittering seahorses are still only about the size of matchsticks, but as they grow older, so will their value. They may still be tiny, but are well worth their weight in gold.
"Gene GFP, a light-emitting gene extracted from jellyfish, was combined with tiny grains of gold. Then these grains of gold were injected into sea horse egg cells. The gold mixed with the jellyfish genes was incorporated into the cells of the sea horses, which glittered when they came into being," the school's head of animal physiology said.
We truly shudder to think what's next. A golden retriever?