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Honolulu Lite Charles Memminger |
Texas beats
the lights out
of our fishA Texas company has beat Hawaii to the perch, coming up with a tropical household fish that glows in the dark.
I've said before that Hawaii should be in the forefront of scientific breakthroughs involving anything along the fish line. We have more fish living around us than any state in the country, and if a fish is going to glow or do anything else helpful or amusing, it ought to be one of our fish.
The so-called GloFish actually were developed in Singapore by scientists who found they could turn the normally black-and-silver zebra fish green or red by inserting jellyfish or sea anemone genes.
The best Hawaii scientists could come up with are genetically altered green mice, whose marketing potential is limited to people who want mice and green ones, at that. Pink bunny rabbits would probably have been a better seller, especially at Easter. There might even be a market for purple nenes or chartreuse mongooses, something tourists might get a kick out of.
Glowing fish would be a natural, or an unnatural, actually, for Hawaii. Imagine how much fun Hanauma Bay would be at night if filled with glowing fish.
It might be a good idea to develop glowing sharks so that they couldn't sneak up on surfers and swimmers at dusk or dawn. Genetically altering sharks so they don't have any teeth would make sense from a safety point of view, but environmentalists would whine that without their teeth, sharks would become the laughingstock of the sea world, bullied by bottom feeders and mollusks.
ENVIRONMENTALISTS are complaining about the glowing zebra fish. In California, detractors call them "Frankenfish" and don't want anything to do with them.
While the Texas company marketing the fish say they are safe, critics say there is no telling what would happen if the freaky fish got loose in the wild, as many aquarium fish do. They are a little vague about what dangers little glowing fish would pose if let loose, but I suppose their constant glowing could keep the other fish up at night and make them cranky and irritable.
Researchers claim that no harm comes from eating the glowing fish, a task likely forced upon the lowest and least-liked researcher on staff. ("OK, Professor Watkins has eaten 43 of the little buggers. Turn out the lights and let's see if he glows.")
Hawaii scientists should immediately pursue research in the glowing fish field. Colored glowing sushi and sashimi could become a million-dollar industry for Honolulu.
And why stop there? What if Red Lobster restaurants actually offered red lobsters, glowing like firetruck strobes? What if you could get poke beaming like a bucket of Christmas lights? We are at the threshold of sitting down in a restaurant and being asked, "How do you want your opakapaka? Baked, sautéed or Day-Glo?"
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
Charles Memminger, winner of National Society of Newspaper Columnists awards, appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. E-mail cmemminger@starbulletin.com