SEE THROUGH POLITICIANS NEXT?
September 28, 2007?—For high school students everywhere, this revealing amphibian may be a cut above regular frogs.
That's because the see-through frog does not require dissection to see its organs, blood vessels, and eggs.
Masayuki Sumida, a professor at the Institute for Amphibian Biology at Japan's Hiroshima University, bred the frog to be a humane learning tool.
''You can watch organs of the same frog over its entire life, as you don't have to dissect it,'' Sumida told the news agency Agence France-Presse. The scientist announced his research last week at an academic meeting.
Dissecting animals for science has sparked controversies worldwide, even prompting some companies to create computer simulations as cruelty-free alternatives.
Researchers bred the sheer creature?—a type of Japanese brown frog?—for two recessive genes that make it pale.
Though not yet patented, the frog is the first four-legged, see-through animal to be bred by scientists. Some fish species are also clear.
Only 1 in 16 frogs end up see-through, and Sumida's team has not yet figured out how to pass on the transparent trait to offspring.
?—Christine Dell'Amore
September 28, 2007?—For high school students everywhere, this revealing amphibian may be a cut above regular frogs.
That's because the see-through frog does not require dissection to see its organs, blood vessels, and eggs.
Masayuki Sumida, a professor at the Institute for Amphibian Biology at Japan's Hiroshima University, bred the frog to be a humane learning tool.
''You can watch organs of the same frog over its entire life, as you don't have to dissect it,'' Sumida told the news agency Agence France-Presse. The scientist announced his research last week at an academic meeting.
Dissecting animals for science has sparked controversies worldwide, even prompting some companies to create computer simulations as cruelty-free alternatives.
Researchers bred the sheer creature?—a type of Japanese brown frog?—for two recessive genes that make it pale.
Though not yet patented, the frog is the first four-legged, see-through animal to be bred by scientists. Some fish species are also clear.
Only 1 in 16 frogs end up see-through, and Sumida's team has not yet figured out how to pass on the transparent trait to offspring.
?—Christine Dell'Amore
