Milky cows, red tomatoes and human pigs.

• Position: Genetic technology

Take an eerie bit of Frankenstein, mix liberally with a dash of The Andromeda Strain or The Stand.

What you get is most folks' nightmares about the mixing and matching that is occurring in genetics laboratories around the world.

Outside fiction, genetics has gained its most recent prominence from the federal Human Genome Project, started by Congress in 1989 as a 15-year study to map and identify human genes. But genetic testing has been around since the '60s when it was used to identify newborns with phenylketonuria (PKU), an inherited metabolic disease that, untreated, can lead to severe mental retardation.

Actually, it all really began in the mid-1800s with a monk named Mendel and his peas (wrinkled, smooth, green and yellow), but the flamework for the amazing scientific leaps of today came together in 1953 when scientists discovered that the mysteries of life were intertwined in the microscopic strands of a spiraling double helix of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) that form the 23 matched chromosomes of the human body.

The technology exploded from there. With advances in technology and biochemistry giving them more powerful microscopes and greater insights, scientists began mapping the genes--the 100,000 or so fragments of DNA strung like little beads up and down those chromosomes that tell our cells what to do and how to behave. Chemical messengers that race from cell to cell, genes can become broken, mutated or simply relay faulty information for reasons unknown that results in a variety of disorders--from cancer to some types of diabetes to cystic fibrosis to hemophilia to muscular dystrophy.

Those same genes can not only be measured, dyed, isolated and identified--they can be diced, spliced, split, mutated and generally messed with by man.

As if potential genetic screening of humans by insurers and employers was not enough of a headache for state law-makers--the crop of transgenic critters, spliced genes and altered plants have provided new dilemmas.

Just ask Wisconsin.

The dairy state has been facing a major uproar over the use of recombinant bovine somatotropin--rBST for short--a genetically engineered version of a cow's hormone that regulates the amount of milk she produces. By inserting that gene in bacteria and growing it in vast vats--much like you'd brew beer--Monsanto Company has been able to create enough rBST to sell to farmers by the dose. The marketing focus is that it can increase milk production up to 20 percent.

Even...