I thank Dr. Tsien for his response to my article on GFP. I do
recognize his arguement and acknowledge that throught out the
Bio/Technology paper, authors refer only to the 'red-shifted'
mutants. However, the article I wrote on GFP for the News Report
that I reproduced in this newsgroup was really intended for a very
broad audience. Considering that most people who read this may not
be molecular biologists, I deliberately chose to avoid arcane
scientific details of the emission spectra and thus used a little
bit of journalistic freedom. For most lay people people, if they see
a red colored bacterial cell, it is still red color. I am sure if
I were to write a review aimed at molecular biologists, I would use
a more precise terminology. As scientists, we must recognize the
importance of precise language, but for journalists the goal is to
make sure the readers understand what they are reading.
