Oh, deer!
Several years ago, I heard that my cousin Bruna back in Chicago had been unfortunate enough, while driving, to be a participant of in a mutually unintended rendezvous with a deer. I made it a point to tease her on my next trip home about being "Bruna the Deerslayer."
I am too good a Lutheran to suggest that it was by divine retribution that soon after my return to Iowa my own automobile had the front of its passenger side caved in by the attack of a stealth deer, which emerged from a roadside ditch and tried to cross the road at exactly the wrong place and the wrong moment for both of us.
Thanks to the wonders of modern science, however, a way has been found to avoid such mishaps. The blog of the "Annals of Improbable Research" reports that a way has been found, by splicing certain genes from a certain jellyfish into the genome of deer, to produce a deer which glows in the dark.
The extra gene affects the deer- who appears perfectly normal in the daylight- in no other way.
While it would not have helped in my case (the deer relied on stealth rather than camouflage), this scientific advance could prevent 500,000 accidents a year, as well as saving 200 human lives and the lives of who knows how many deer annually.
A comparison of the nocturnal appearance of normal deer with those of the genetically altered deer can be seen here.
I am too good a Lutheran to suggest that it was by divine retribution that soon after my return to Iowa my own automobile had the front of its passenger side caved in by the attack of a stealth deer, which emerged from a roadside ditch and tried to cross the road at exactly the wrong place and the wrong moment for both of us.
Thanks to the wonders of modern science, however, a way has been found to avoid such mishaps. The blog of the "Annals of Improbable Research" reports that a way has been found, by splicing certain genes from a certain jellyfish into the genome of deer, to produce a deer which glows in the dark.
The extra gene affects the deer- who appears perfectly normal in the daylight- in no other way.
While it would not have helped in my case (the deer relied on stealth rather than camouflage), this scientific advance could prevent 500,000 accidents a year, as well as saving 200 human lives and the lives of who knows how many deer annually.
A comparison of the nocturnal appearance of normal deer with those of the genetically altered deer can be seen here.
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