A florescent cat sounds like something imaginary, maybe out of Star Trek, but apparently it is not.

Science can do wonderous things these days.

For example, the so-called Spider Goat. Researchers integrated spider DNA into goat embryos, and there you have it, a spider goat.

The glow-in-the-dark cat was also created in the name of science. The first American florescent cat was Mr. Green Genes. When viewed under ultraviolet light (UV), one sees eyes, gums and a tongue glowing a vivid lime green. This experiment was conducted in New Orleans at the Audobon Center for Research of Endangers Species.

Hard to believe that there could be such a thing as a florescent cat!

Florescence connotes luminescence. For the term florescence we have Irish scientist Sir George Gabriel Stokes to thank.

In 1852 he described the experience of florescence as seen in flourospar and uranium glass in a paper on the wavelength of light. In florescence, UV radiation is converted from invisible into wavelengths that are longer and visible.

The florescent cat must surely be a monumental step in research science that Sir Stokes might never have imagined when he first described the luminescence of florescent objects back in 1852.