So they've invented see-through frogs. I must be having a menopausal limber up because the idea of a 'team of scientists' (bastards! It's always them, isn't it) deciding jointly to invent frogs with transparent skin, makes my skin crawl. Presumably these frogs will be highly susceptible to changes in heat and light which may damage their exposed internal organs. Well, I presume that's why we're not all see-through, isn't it?
And why clear frogs? Because they will not have to be dissected to be useful in experiments. Scientists can simply watch their organs, to see whether the disease they have been given is shrivelling them, or causing heart failure, or respiratory problems.
How handy – now they can avoid problems from those noisy anti-vivisection protestors. Never mind that the frogs may be suffering from life with see-through skin.
This triggers a memory of reading on the internet about the outrageous Eduardo Kac. Kac (pronounced Katz) is a Brazilian-American artist who persuaded a French laboratory to create a rabbit crossed with jellyfish genes that glows green in the dark. ‘Alba Bunny GPS’ then became an art exhibit. He wanted to get her out of the lab afterwards, but the mad scientists refused. Perhaps he wanted her in his hallway to save on lamps.
Now don’t get me wrong. I’m all in favour of avant-garde artists. And I LURVE crazy ole scientists (when they are doing something useful for the rest of the human race) but what is going on here?? After five minutes on Kac’s website, my brain hurt from trying to comprehend his ‘Plant that grows solely on light emitted by a computer triggered by art-lover’s and the unfathomable ‘bee doing a bee dance’ idea. His ideas are fantastic. And I suppose only by putting them into practise can he claim them as ART. But I felt the need to scream “Was the frog thing your idea too?”
So what is the logical conclusion of all this tampering? I feel my next sci-fi novel coming on. ... “I would like to thank my mother, Eduardo Kac and the godlike Margaret Atwood when I accept this Oscar for the screenplay of Green Rabbits and Clear Frogs: The Movie.”
Seriously, can anyone surmise where the world is going with this ‘livestock-could-eat -livestock Mad Cow theme? Will genetically tampered vermin roam the sewers of Madrid, happily glowing in the sludge? Will it be see-through babies next, to make it easier to spot when they swallow a pentop?
