Mice given human speech gene

Man, science is so cool. Stuff like this is why I’m a geneticist. The FOXP2 gene is considered the “language gene” in humans. People who have nonfunctional versions of the gene have a hard time controlling the fine movements in the face needed for forming words, and their areas of the brain associated with language are less active. FOXP2 is found throughout the animal kingdom and is associated with vocalization and song learning. It is also highly conserved – except in humans. While mice and chimpanzees have the same version of the gene, humans have two non synonymous mutations – that is, two different amino acids.

So what did these scientists do? They stuck the human version of FOXP2 into mice to see what would happen. No, the mice didn’t start talking like Mickey, but they showed changes in brain structure that is associated with human speech and had different ultrasonic vocalizations. Unfortunately we’re not fluent in Mouseish, so we don’t know if these mouse pups are suddenly speaking at a Shakespearean level, but it’s still pretty neat.

This is especially exciting because we kept coming back to this topic in my Eukaryotic genetics class. Our professor was telling us the above information about FOXP2. “What if you put a human FOXP2 in a chimpanzee?” a student asked. “I wonder what would happen.” Half of the class’s eyes twinkled with mad scientist glee (the half that will be researchers, not med students I assume). Our professor sort of laughed nervously. “I don’t know, have fun getting an ethics committee to accept that.” I turned to one of my friends and mouthed, presumably with an evil grin, “I’m gonna do it!!” and it turned into a running joke for the class. She’s the one who sent me the article. We haven’t been scooped quite yet, but almost!! I better get crackin’ on my talking chimp.

Humans vs. Animals

Many parts of this image annoy me (click for bigger version), but my biggest gripe is this quote: “Humans have long considered themselves truly unique. But it turns out that the better word from ‘unique’ is ‘more advanced.'”

Sigh. No, “more advanced” isn’t the better word. In fact, it’s worse than unique. At least it’s true that we’re unique in that we have a certain combination of skills that other animals don’t have, though I’d still argue all animals are unique. But viewing humans as more advanced than the rest of the animal kingdom is a fallacy. It goes back to the Scala Naturae, or the Great Chain of Being. This was the idea that everything in the universe could be ranked in order of how perfect or advanced it was, with God at the top and amoebas and dirt at the bottom. Mammals are better than birds, hawks are better than pigeons, trees that bear fruit we eat are better than ones we don’t, etc.

But that’s not how things work. Through evolution, everything has had the same amount of time on this planet to evolve. Bacteria are just as adapted to their environment as a tree or a tiger or a human. While they’re less complex, I wouldn’t say they’re less advanced. Advanced implies that there’s some end goal in mind that we’re comparing them to, usually the wonderful Homo sapeins. Think of it this way. What if other animals considered themselves the most advanced, and were comparing us to them?

Dolphins: They can only hold their breath for a couple minutes? And they can’t echolocate? Ha! Even bats can do that!

Ducks: They can’t sleep with one half of their brain at a time? But what if a predator wants to come and eat them in the middle of the night! How will they escape if they don’t keep one eye open? Man, they are goners!

Swallow: Humans can’t instinctively migrate thousands of miles to a place they’ve never been before? They need maps and GPS, and they still get lost trying to find the Walmart that’s 15 minutes away? Wow, just wow.

Clark’s nutcracker: I can remember where I stored thousands of seeds across a 15 mile area over the winter, and you can’t even find your car keys. Humans.

Thermus aquaticus: A toasty 160 degrees F is the perfect temperature for me. You start breaking a sweat at 90?! What a bunch of pansies!

Yeah, we wouldn’t fare too well (and I could probably keep going with this list forever). There are plenty of things animals do better than us, but we don’t view those traits as important because we don’t necessarily need them. The environment we evolved in is different than that of a Clark’s nutcracker, so we don’t need that awesome of a memory. It goes both ways – Clark’s nutcrackers don’t need to have language or build fires or have long distance stamina. That doesn’t make them less advanced – they just had different evolutionary needs.

I still think humans are special – we can’t deny that we have certain traits not seen anywhere else in the animal kingdom, or the fact that we’ve actually developed civilization (minor point). But as a biologist, I see all creatures as special with their unique adaptation for their environment. We shouldn’t judge them by human standards.

Star Trek & Angels and Demons

I hadn’t seen a movie in theaters in ages, but I actually saw two today! Two different groups of friends wanted to go at different times. Hooray. The first one was Star Trek, so now all my geeky friends can finally stop bugging me to see it. I really liked it, but keep in mind I’ve never seen a second of old Star Trek episodes or movies before seeing this one. The extent of my knowledge was basically:

-Spock is supposed to be logical
-Klingons are angry and have their own language that uber-geeks learn
-The phrase “beam me up Scotty”
-The silly hand salute thing that’s hard to do
-Trekkies like to go around screaming “KHHAAAANNN” for reasons I do not understand

Now that I’ve offended every Trekkie out there… *ahem* I’m sure someone who’s expecting something in particular has their gripes with the film. I know I’m uber nitpicky when it comes to Harry Potter. But, as a Star Trek n00b, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie from an entertainment point of view. Though I have to admit, I was oddly unnerved by how sexy Zachary Quinto’s Spock was. Not quite sure I’m supposed to be having those feelings about Spock, but yum. Oh, and who else thought every time Spock got annoyed he was going to start slicing peoples heads open and stealing their powers?

Noooo, not teh kitteh! Why do you need nine lives when you can never die?!?!

I also saw Angels and Demons, which I thought was pretty good. Definitely better than the DaVinci Code, but that’s not saying much. Now, I know people like to harp on Dan Brown, but I genuinely enjoy his novels. He’s no Shakespeare, but his plots are entertaining page turners so you can stfu if you think I’m dumb for liking them. Anyway, like I said the movie was pretty good – probably helped that I read the book years ago, so I didn’t remember it well enough to be super critical. Tried not to cringe too much at all the antimatter stupidity and told myself to suspend disbelief for a bit. I really liked the idea that God sent an atheist intellectual professor (Langdon) to save all of Catholicism – how ironic.

The one thing that bugged me was that it seemed to have a big “Science and religion are compatible, and when you think they’re not, that’s when you have problems!” message. It’s not that I just disagree with this – but the very premise of the movie seemed to disagree with it. I mean, it was anti-science Catholics versus pro-science Catholics (the Illuminati), not versus atheistic scientists. Heck, the two irreligious characters are the only ones not murdering and blowing things up – they’re actually saving the day. Maybe people will get that message out of the movie instead of the one the film trying to jam down their throat.

Oh academia

One final down, four to go! Though this morning’s was one of my easiest of the bunch – Evolution of Behavior. One of my favorite classes ever, so no need to really study, plus I only needed a 65% on the final for an A…heh. Wish I could say that about Physics. One of the amazing professors I do research for (it’s a joint research project) teaches that class, and after I turned in my exam he was whispering some questions about how the project is going. Which led to this exchange:

Prof W: Have you read this book? *motions to an ancient looking book he was reading during the final called Rodent Reproduction*
Me: …Uh, no.
Prof W: Oh, well it looks like they don’t mention anything about [part of our research] here either, so [etc etc more research talk blog readers don’t care about]

…This is what I simultaneously love and fear about academia. I love how there was even a remote enough chance in his mind that a lowly undergraduate like myself just happened to peruse some forty year tome on rodent reproduction, of all topics, that he would actually ask me. Okay, I have been trying to find some literature on our research, so maybe he thought I may have seen that book, but still. I get this all the time from professors, especially the “Have you read the paper by SoandSo on Obscure Research Topic?” Even if I have, by some stroke of luck, I usually can’t remember the names of the authors. I consider it a success if I remember the key points from the paper at all!

Though I know realistically it’s not expected of me to know all this stuff as an undergrad. Prof D, my main professor and official “boss,” even said that he really enjoys working with me (I’m his first long-term undergraduate researcher) because he doesn’t expect me to really know anything. So when I don’t, he’s pretty relaxed about it and helps me out, but when I do, he’s pleasantly surprised. I think I give myself too hard of a time because I’m constantly comparing myself to grad students instead of other undergrads.

As fabulously awesome as I may be, I still have a long way to go before I develop that professor-worthy memory. I know it’ll probably happen without me even noticing it. When I was doing field work with Prof W a couple of summers ago, I was amazed at how he knew the common name, scientific name, and natural history of basically every fricking plant and animal out in the desert. I didn’t even realize dung beetles were in Arizona; I thought they were some exotic insect out in Africa or Asia or something (sheltered Indiana girl!). I asked him how in the world he knew all the stuff, and he just laughed sort of sheepishly. “You don’t try to remember it – you just pick it up after a while.” At the time I thought this sounded insane, but now that I can recognize exactly what bird singing is waking me up in the morning, I know it’s happening.

Oh, and the chickadees need to simmer the fuck down in the morning. I wish there was a “fee bee fee hey no one’s trying to take your territory and Jen’s trying to sleep” call.

The evolution of penises

Or whangs, if you’d prefer.

There’s a scientifically interesting and delightfully anti-arousing article over at Scientific American with an overview of why human penises are how they are. Even if you think evolutionary psychology is a load of arm chair philosophizing bunk (which it sometimes is), you can at least extract some immature giggles from this one. And honestly, he does a decent job at pointing out some of the drawbacks and limitations of evo psych. But wait, these researchers actually did an experiment on the “semen displacement hypothesis” instead of just sitting around and thinking!

“The researchers selected several sets of prosthetic genitals from erotic novelty stores, including a realistic latex vagina sold as a masturbation pal for lonely straight men and tied off at one end to prevent leakage, and three artificial phalluses. The first latex phallus was 6.1 inches long and 1.3 inches in diameter with a coronal ridge extending approximately .20 inches from the shaft. The second phallus was the same length, but its coronal ridge extended only .12 inches from the shaft. Finally, the third phallus matched the other two in length, but lacked a coronal ridge entirely. In other words, whereas the first two phalluses closely resembled an actual human penis, varying only in the coronal ridge properties, the third (the control phallus) was the bland and headless horseman of the bunch.”

“Hey honey, how is grad school going? Research okay?” “Uh…yeah, it’s great, Mom.” “Do anything interesting today? What exactly are you studying again?” “Um…human…behavior. Yeah.” “That’s nice sweetie. So when you’re a doctor you can write us prescriptions, right?” “…I’m not going to be that kind of doctor, Mom.”

And then he proceeds to jump off a bridge.

Anyway, it gets better:

“Next, the authors borrowed a recipe for simulated semen from another evolutionary psychologist, Todd Shackleford from Florida Atlantic University, and created several batches of seminal fluid. The recipe “consisted of .08 cups of sifted, white, unbleached flour mixed with 1.06 cups of water. This mixture was brought to a boil, simmered for 15 minutes while being stirred, and allowed to cool.””

What did I learn during my PhD? How to make fake semen! Comes in handy more often than you’d think!

“In a controlled series of “displacement trials,” the vagina was then loaded with semen, the phalluses were inserted at varying depths (to simulate thrusting) and removed, whereupon the latex orifice was examined to determine how much semen had been displaced from it. As predicted, the two phalluses with the coronal ridges displaced significantly more semen from the vagina (each removed 91 percent) than the “headless” control (35.3 percent). Additionally, the further that the phalluses were inserted—that is to say, the deeper the thrust—the more semen was displaced. When the phallus with the more impressive coronal ridge was inserted three fourths of the way into the vagina, it removed only a third of the semen, whereas it removed nearly all of the semen when inserted completely. Shallow thrusting, simulated by the researchers inserting the artificial phallus halfway or less into the artificial vagina, failed to displace any semen at all. So if you want advice that’ll give you a leg up in the evolutionary arms race, don’t go West, young man—go deep.”

Indeed, sir. Indeed.

Seriously, the idea of a bunch of grad students pumping together two sex toys filled with flour semen paste is the most ridiculous image in my mind. There’s no way any human being could have done this with a straight face. I would like to see a psychological study on just how fucking awkward and hilarious that situation must have been.

I’m not sure if I would be overjoyed or mortified if my job as a grad student was to pick out suitable sex toys and then see which scoop out fake semen best. It would sure make a good bar story, at least. I’d have all the guys.

Why don’t astronauts float away on the moon? Heavy boots, of course!

If you’re not facepalming, you should review your introductory physics book. Either way, there’s an excellent summary about this particular question that really shows how little the average person understands basic scientific principles. Here’s the introduction:

“About 6-7 years ago, I was in a philosophy class at the University of Wisconsin, Madison (good science/engineering school) and the teaching assistant was explaining Descartes.

He was trying to show how things don’t always happen the way we think they will and explained that, while a pen always falls when you drop it on Earth, it would just float away if you let go of it on the Moon. My jaw dropped a little. I blurted “What?!” Looking around the room, I saw that only my friend Mark and one other student looked confused by the TA’s statement. The other 17 people just looked at me like “What’s your problem?” “But a pen would fall if you dropped it on the Moon, just more slowly.” I protested.

“No it wouldn’t.” the TA explained calmly, “because you’re too far away from the Earth’s gravity.” Think. Think. Aha! “You saw the APOLLO astronauts walking around on the Moon, didn’t you?”

I countered, “why didn’t they float away?”

“Because they were wearing heavy boots.” he responded, as if this made perfect sense (remember, this is a Philosophy TA who’s had plenty of logic classes).”

I had a similar experience when I was taking Sex, Gender, and Sexology my freshman year. It was a graduate level class offered through the Health and Kinesiology department. I’m pretty sure I was the only freshman foolish enough to take a grad level class, but it sounded so awesome that I couldn’t resist (and it was). I was also the only biologist in the class of 70 people – most people were in psychology, sociology, anthropology, or history.

We were talking about the possible biological causes of homosexuality, and our professor mentioned how there is probably a genetic component. One of the outspoken anthropology PhD students raised her hand.

“Well that’s obviously wrong,” she said. “A gene is either on or off, and we know people aren’t either straight or gay. There’s a continuum.”

A shot up my hand. “Um, that’s not how genetics works. You can have multiple genes effecting one trait, or different levels of regulation. That’s how you can get continuous traits like height or skin color. You’re not just tall or short.”

Her friend smiled and gave her the You Just Got Owned By a Freshman look.

Add this to my friend’s Anthropology TA who was convinced DNA was made up of proteins, and you can see why my opinion of Anthropology is a little shaky.

Why don't astronauts float away on the moon? Heavy boots, of course!

If you’re not facepalming, you should review your introductory physics book. Either way, there’s an excellent summary about this particular question that really shows how little the average person understands basic scientific principles. Here’s the introduction:

“About 6-7 years ago, I was in a philosophy class at the University of Wisconsin, Madison (good science/engineering school) and the teaching assistant was explaining Descartes.

He was trying to show how things don’t always happen the way we think they will and explained that, while a pen always falls when you drop it on Earth, it would just float away if you let go of it on the Moon. My jaw dropped a little. I blurted “What?!” Looking around the room, I saw that only my friend Mark and one other student looked confused by the TA’s statement. The other 17 people just looked at me like “What’s your problem?” “But a pen would fall if you dropped it on the Moon, just more slowly.” I protested.

“No it wouldn’t.” the TA explained calmly, “because you’re too far away from the Earth’s gravity.” Think. Think. Aha! “You saw the APOLLO astronauts walking around on the Moon, didn’t you?”

I countered, “why didn’t they float away?”

“Because they were wearing heavy boots.” he responded, as if this made perfect sense (remember, this is a Philosophy TA who’s had plenty of logic classes).”

I had a similar experience when I was taking Sex, Gender, and Sexology my freshman year. It was a graduate level class offered through the Health and Kinesiology department. I’m pretty sure I was the only freshman foolish enough to take a grad level class, but it sounded so awesome that I couldn’t resist (and it was). I was also the only biologist in the class of 70 people – most people were in psychology, sociology, anthropology, or history.

We were talking about the possible biological causes of homosexuality, and our professor mentioned how there is probably a genetic component. One of the outspoken anthropology PhD students raised her hand.

“Well that’s obviously wrong,” she said. “A gene is either on or off, and we know people aren’t either straight or gay. There’s a continuum.”

A shot up my hand. “Um, that’s not how genetics works. You can have multiple genes effecting one trait, or different levels of regulation. That’s how you can get continuous traits like height or skin color. You’re not just tall or short.”

Her friend smiled and gave her the You Just Got Owned By a Freshman look.

Add this to my friend’s Anthropology TA who was convinced DNA was made up of proteins, and you can see why my opinion of Anthropology is a little shaky.

A BS in Biology without Evolution

If you are at least vaguely aware of the Evolution/Creationism debate, you know there’s a lot of things wrong with biology education in the United States. You have rallying cries to “teach the controversy” (which doesn’t exist), but thankfully those are being shot down more and more often. There are some students who will never even hear the word “evolution” throughout high school. I know in my high school freshman biology class, which every student had to take, we never mentioned the topic. Once I got to AP Bio my senior year, we covered it well, but that’s only 50 students out of a school of 1400 – and those are the ones who are actually interested in biology, so they have a better chance of accepting evolution anyway! Why aren’t we teaching it when we have the chance to reach everyone?

Well, even when dealing with Biology majors in college, we fail at that.

Now, I’m sure some universities do a great job at teaching evolution to their Bio majors. Obviously since I’ve only attended Purdue, that’s the one example I have – but I’m sure their craptacular methods apply to other universities. It’s especially disappointing since Purdue likes to tout itself as this big Engineering/Science Research I University, yet it can’t even convince all of its Bio majors to accept evolution, not to mention other science programs here.

What’s the problem? The only time evolution is taught in a class required by all Bio sub disciplines is BIOL 121. That’s the introductory class you take the fall of your freshman year, and a whooping four class periods (that’s less than 3.5 hours) are devoted to evolution. While it’s explained well, it’s still so cursory that I knew more about evolution just because I was a nerd and perused Talk Origins in high school.

Other required biology classes will briefly mention evolution, but not in a way that teaches it to a class. You can see some students rolling their eyes when a professor says something like “You can see how this could have evolved.” I’ve had multiple students – some in the very top of the program – tell me that biology courses at Purdue have actually strengthened their faith in God and creationism. They claim that learning all the complexities of biology prove God had to have a hand in it (and then my brain subsequently explodes after hearing “Irreducibly Complex” for the bajillionth time).

Most of the Bio majors allow you to choose the official Evolution class (BIOL 580) as an elective, but that’s only one of your choices out of maybe 20 to 30. And if you don’t accept evolution, how likely are you to take a graduate level class about it? I think the scariest realization pops up when you look at two Bio majors in particular:

Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology:
You think this would be evolution-crazy since, you know, it’s the Evolution degree, right? Well, not so much. You’re required to take 580-Evolution, but that’s all. The only two other evolution related classes are Evolution of Behavior and Sex & Evolution, but you can pick your classes such that you don’t have to take those. They’re just suggestions. They don’t even include any of the human evolution courses offered through anthropology as options for your degree…and past that, I don’t think there are really any other evolution courses at Purdue. I don’t know about you, but it’s a little unnerving that someone can get a degree with “Evolution” in the title after only taking one class.

Biology Education:
This, however, is the scariest of the two. You’d think with all our educational woes we’d desperately try to train a new generation of Biology educators who could properly teach evolution. Well, we don’t. Evolution is one of 47 electives a Bio Ed major can choose, and even though there’s an Education course specifically about teaching Evolution, they’re not required to take it. It’s not even listed as a biology elective – it would just be a general elective if you had any free time (haha, free time! What a ridiculous idea). I would think this is pretty damn important for a future biology teacher to know.

I guess this explains how you can still get rogue creationist teachers who feel that it’s their duty to sabotage teaching evolution with their own beliefs, even when the curriculum is pro-evolution. You can graduate from many places with a degree in Biology and still not even have an elementary grasp of evolution. This is a Serious Problem. All the biologists and scientists who lament about our country’s rejection of evolution need to put the education of Average Joe on hold for a bit and start worrying about students. Professors especially need to speak up. Now, they’re not the blame – the professors who do teach evolution do a great job, and curricula are riddled with bureaucratic bullshit. But they’re our best hope for having some say in the matter. So to any biology professors out there, please fight to ensure all biology majors take at least one comprehensive course in evolution. Even if most of them are bound for med school, we can’t hope to educate the public until we educate our own kind first.

Mmm, nerds

Dilbert explains it all:
Though I have to say, I’m having a horrible track record with all the computer nerds I’ve dated. I hate to propagate the stereotype, but they’ve all had the emotional capacity of a nematode. Next time I’m aiming for a biologist.

Speaking of nerdiness, here are the classes I’m taking next semester:
– Senior Seminar in Genetics (One hour a week of discussing genetics. Woo?)
– Sex & Evolution (I’ve been dying to take this class since I got here, but it’s only offered every other year. I’m psyched! Why do we have sex? Why do (most) species have two sexes? Weeeee!)
– General Physics 2 (Oh god, so close to being done…Sorry for all you physicists, but it’s just not my thing. Now, if it was Elegant Universe kind of theoretical wacky physics, I’d be all in. But I hate doing nothing but math filled with trick questions, bah!)
– Population Genetics (This may be a mistake. I’m taking this as my “fun” elective…yeah, a 500 level graduate course. Oh boy.)
– Senior Biology Labs (Protein Expression and DNA Sequencing. Still waiting to hear back if I can get out of DNA sequencing, since I just spent a summer doing an independent research project where I was sequencing. I’ll be sad if I have to do it all over again.)
– Honors Thesis Research (Still have to pick my topic with my advisor…there are too many ideas floating around now!)

The masochistic part of me still wanted to TA one of the intro biology labs to get some teaching experience before grad school, but looking at my schedule, that may be a bad idea. I guess it really depends if I get out of that one lab or not. I could still TA in the spring, but I’d sort of like to be able to put teaching experience on my resume for when I’m applying. Any thoughts? Other than the fact that I’m a giant nerd?