Kittens Who Glow-in-the-Dark.

Researchers tinkering with cat genes at the Mayo Clinic have succeeded is creating glow-in-the-dark kittens whom they hope will help fight HIV/AIDS. 

Trying to come up with a genetic defense for the feline and human strains of HIV, researchers have inserted phosphorescent jellyfish proteins into unfertilized cat eggs which makes their offspring glow under UV light. The jellyfish protein is combined with an HIV resistant gene from rhesus macaques. The researchers are using the glow-in-the-dark attribute to signal if the combined set of genes and proteins are being passed down from mother to baby. The hypothesis being that: if the kid glows, the resistance was passed.

Here is where things go from cute to sad. The next phase of the experiment will be to give these little glowing cats a full exposure to feline-HIV. If the experiments worked, they will probably survive. If they didn’t work, the kittens will die.

The research will no doubt get tons of attention for being able to produce adorably fascinating glowing kittens but it will hopefully also bring attention to how often cats are used in lab experiments. 

Let me be the first to propose that the sale of glow-in-the-dark kittens should be banned. We don’t want another live turtle keychain incident on our hands.