Alba became the centerpiece of an art concept that Kac called “GFP Bunny,” which involved other components as well, such as a public discourse about “ the cultural and ethical implications of genetic engineering.”

Her name was Alba, and her verdure came from a protein called green fluorescent protein, or GFP, encoded by a gene that had been inserted at the rabbit’s zygote stage. In 2000, self-described transgenic artist Eduardo Kac introduced the world to a real albino rabbit that glowed green under blue lighting conditions. Even in Snowman’s boyhood there were luminous green rabbits, though they weren’t this big and they hadn’t yet slipped their cages and bred with the wild populations, and becomes a nuisance.-from Oryx and Crake, chapter 5 In the half-light the rabbit looks soft and almost translucent, like a piece of Turkish delight as if you could suck off its fur like sugar. It glows in the dusk, a greenish glow filched from the iridicytes of a deep-sea jellyfish in some long-ago experiment. Can you think of any more? Eduardo Kac’s “GFP Bunny.” Credit: Chrystelle Fontaine Green Glowing BunniesĪcross the clearing to the south comes a rabbit, hopping, listening, pausing to nibble at the grass with its gigantic teeth. Her attention to detail got us wondering: What research might have inspired her? And how on-point were her scientific speculations? We picked a few concepts from the book that appear to be rooted in reality or that seemed particularly prescient.

Indeed, as Atwood indicated in a 2004 interview on Science Friday, her scientific research for the story was extensive, filling up two big storage boxes in her cellar. Author Margaret Atwood prefers the term “speculative fiction”-she says the things she writes about depict a plausible version of the future. Don’t call the novel Oryx and Crake a work of sci-fi.

Margaret atwood oryx