call me off topic, but I thought I'd share: this does loop back on topic.
The Great Potato Famine in Ireland was caused by genetically similar potatoes which all fell victim to a single opportunistic parasite. Commercial pesticide usage has caused untold damage to waterways, reservoirs, and the like, as well as created pesticide-resistant pathogens. There's thousands of acres of the world that are uninhabitable due to toxic levels of chemicals which will not degrade for thousands of years.
Food that stays fresher longer means cheaper, more plentiful produce- without the need for dangerous pesticides and insecticides. It also means we can avert catastrophic famines due to parasitism. Bacteria has been engineered to actually metabolize toxic wastes and clean up dump sites which would otherwise remain uninhabitable for untold thousands of years. Genetically modified bacteria are how most medical research is executed. Genetic modification can create plants which grow fruits laden with edible vaccines and medicines for poorer countries. Genetic Modification is not scary, doesn't create "mutants" (in the popular sense), and is a far cry from sci-fi writers' imaginations. It's a safe avenue of science that's overly feared, just like nuclear power.
The fluorescent danios weren't created for commercial sale, they simply ended up that way. Lots of scientific discoveries happen that way. Antabuse (an alcohol-sensative emetic that's used in treating chronic alcoholics) was discovered when petroleum factory workers became sick when drinking after work. GloFish aren't an abominable frankenstein experiment like the "painted fish." Somebody's just trying to turn a buck off some biologists' discovery (which he probably got next to nothing for).
I wouldn't buy em, but that's just because I abhor the distributor. They are capable of reproducing and surviving, but as to whether glowing danios would be able to compete in the wild... I'd very much doubt it. Hopefully we'll never find out.
