Pet Engineering

I read this morning that scientists have made puppies that glow in the dark. This follows the glowing fish, pigs, cows and lambs from a few years back in a string of pet experiments that scientists have conducted. It all goes back to my idea that science is at its most bold, but least ethical, when it is primarily motivated by money and not in improving the human condition.

Cloning glowing puppies is clearly a violation of nature. And worse, I see no possible way this could advance the well-being of the human population. Scientists have already proven they could put RFP (red fluorescent protein) and GFP (green fluorescent protein) in several mammals; there really wasn't anything amazing done here.

But the idea that people might pay exorbitant amounts of money for bizarre pets surely must have driven this research. Which leads me to my own bold, unethical science experiment to be done on dogs that would yield millions in revenue: PermaPups

Someone (who understands that I own the intellectual property rights to this idea) should take puppy embryos and genetically engineer them so that when they get to be 10-week-old puppies, they stop growing. Voila! PermaPups, the cutest, cuddliest form of human-friendly life on this planet. So many dog owners buy a cute puppy at the pet store...but a few months later when that adorable little pup has matured into a rebellious young adult, and requires training and patience...the owner stops loving it so much. But what if that same person could have that puppy they love...forever?! Surely they'd treat that puppy wonderfully. And the puppy gets to live in blissful youth forever, free to do all the fun puppy things, never bothered by puberty or going into heat, or getting spayed or neutered. Never cursed with old, bad hips, or a decaying mind.

You might laugh and say that PermaPups are unrealistic. Well consider the glowing puppies of the story above. Was it so unbelievable ten years ago that someone would invent a cadre of glowing dogs, lambs, etc? Scientists simply inserted the RFP gene into the dog embryos and nature did the rest.
So for example take the lobster. Lobsters are basically believed to be immortal. They simply grow and live and grow and live until they are caught by fisherman or eaten by a predator. Some lobsters are believed to be hundreds of years old. Would it be so hard to isolate the gene (or genes) that lobsters use to guarantee their longevity, and place them in the dog gene code in place of the part of the dog gene that causes puberty to start? If that worked, keeping your puppy a puppy forever would (seemingly) be a cinch!

Anyway, what I am proposing, though intriguing, is unethical. It is unethical to force a creature to remain an adolescent forever. It was (is?) unethical for the Catholic Church to castrate boys to keep their vocal chords from maturing. It is unethical to genetically engineer dogs with weird traits, just to prove they could.

Seemingly, our society is confronted more and more with scientists who attempt a thing just to see if they could, not considering if they actually should.


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