This Glowing South Korean Beagle May Cure You with Cuteness

Wait a minute. When a cute beagle enters the picture, it’s the humans who are supposed to glow, at least figuratively. And giggle, and say “oooh” and “aaaah”, and basically fawn like silly people over the fuzzy canine. But when the dog glows, literally, you have to wonder what new kind of science fiction has now become reality. In this case, the glowing beagle is the experimental result of cloning and genetic-modification techniques employed by South Korean scientists to help find cures for such devastating diseases as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. The idea behind creating the glowing beagle is to give it the ability to artificially show symptoms of some of the nastier diseases of the 268 that dogs share with humans. Yes, it does sound a bit confusing, in that it is tough to wrap one’s mind around the idea that a dog that glows artificially when tested for a fatal human disease won’t die of that disease. Still, this is new science, and the South Korean scientists who created the dog, a female named Tegon, have only been studying her and her glowing diagnostic properties since 2009. As with anything that involves the testing of innocent animals, we hope the benefits to both animals and humans far outweigh any harm done to animal test subjects. Oh, and one other thing: Tegon’s glowing ability can be turned on or off simply by adding a specialized antibiotic to her food, or withholding it. Makes one wonder if there will soon be a market for glowing pets. (Reuters – Glowing Korean Science Beagle)