Glowing cat! Who could have ever thought that it could ever be possible! The Poeschla and his colleagues found out that FIV(Feline Immunodeficiency Virus) can be cured and has bean, but only in the rhesus monkeys. Rhesus monkeys can fight off the infection because their cells contain a special protein that cats don’t have. Proteins are the workers inside a cell, and each protein has its own to-do list. One of the jobs of the special monkey protein is to stop viruses from infecting it. The scientists said that if cats had this protein, FIV wouldn’t be able to infect cats. FIV is very similar to AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome). If they can find acure for FIVthey can find a cure for AIDS. A virus (like FIV and HIV (Human Immune Deficiency)) is a tiny particle that finds and attacks cells in the body. It has a set of instructions, called genes, for how to reproduce and attack the virus. A virus’s only job is to make more of itself so that it can shut down the body faster, and it can reproduce only if it attacks and invades cells. When a virus attacks a cell, it injects its genes inside the nucleus, and it hijacks the cell, and then creates new viruses. The new viruses then go attack other cells in the body. When they started testing the gene modified eggs into the cat, three baby kittens were born, and they glowed in the dark, that for them, was a success.
Reflection:
I chose this article because it was very funny and unusual to me. What grabbed my attention was the picture of the glowing cat. I thought to myself, why is that cat glowing? Well, I was so interested in it that I decided to read the article and find out. I found it while looking at the Science News for kids site and was just skimming through the articles when I came to this one that seamed interesting and was screaming, READ ME, READ ME, READ ME!!!!!!!!! I also thought that this was very interesting because it was a glowing CAT! How many times do you get to see a glowing cat!?!?!
