Researchers at Korea's Gyeongsang National University have successfully cloned 'glow-in-the-dark' cats, another milestone in genetic manipulation studies. The experiment essentially are two procedures, cloning and gene splicing, done on two generations of a single cat line.

The experiment took skin cells from female cats and the nucleus from these cells removed.  A virus is then used to insert a 'glow in the dark' gene into the nucleus (the phosphorescent gene from a jellyfish) which encodes for a protein involved in bioluminescence. The nucleus with the bioluminescence gene was then inserted into an enucleated egg cell taken from the same cat and implanted the egg back into the cat who donated both the skin cells and the egg cells – essentially making the cat the surrogate mother of its own clones. The cat clones were born via Ceasarian section and glowed red under ultraviolet light.

Technology watchers believe that the day of 'glow-in-the-dark' pets is still a long way from commercial viability due to the prohibitive costs involved in the process of recombinant DNA technology and the social inertia in cloning. But until then, looking for hiding kitties will still require a flashlight.