Hands off those genes

Here’s an annoying case of political correctness run amuck.

…the Human Genome Organisation (HUGO) Gene Nomenclature Committee…is renaming a number of genes that have potentially offensive or embarrassing names.

The shortlist of 10 genes - including radical fringe, lunatic fringe and, bizarrely, Indian hedgehog – was compiled in response to physicians’ worries about “inappropriate, demeaning and pejorative” names.

The problem arose because most of the genes were initially discovered in fruitflies, and their names were then transferred to the human versions of the genes, which were discovered later…when applied to the human versions of the genes, many of these names become uncomfortable.

While no one wants to curtail the creativity of fruitfly geneticists, it will be important to ensure that, in the future, no joky names are adopted for human genes where they might cause offence. Other quirky names in the fruitfly genome include headcase and mothers against decapentaplegia (MAD).

Darn prissy physicians. They’ve got no sense of humor. Will they try to rename one-eyed pinhead next? How about half baked? The zebrafish geneticists are just as amusing, you know.

I’d like to know what the physicians are concerned about, anyway. It’s not as if they’re going to be informing patients that their illness is caused by a broken frizzled gene, nor is it going to be somehow better or easier if they rename it “Wnt Receptor X-17” or something similarly dry and empty. I hope whoever started this knows a good proctologist who can do a stick-ectomy.

And seriously, there ought to be something like the priority rules of taxonomy to prevent random gomers from running around changing names just because they don’t like them.

TBogg reads Lileks so I don’t have to

Really. We Minnesotans are so uncivil that we never read Lileks, we leave that to foreigners with more tolerance for twee jingo. Out here, we see that face in the Star Tribune and we say “Gah, #%$$&!” (or other such un-mild, un-Minnesotan phrases), and turn the page to the comics section…where we mutter other unholy terms of exasperation at Mallard Fillmore. (How the hell did that mindless, unfunny loon* end up in our newspaper?)

*Whether I’m referring to Lileks or the cartoon duck is left as an exercise for the reader.)

Big event in Colorado Springs!

Brian Flemming points out that Ted Haggard insists the biblical word on homosexuality is simple, and that the Bible says “They must be put to death.”

I’m not really into throwing rocks at people, but maybe I’d be willing to run the fried foods onna stick concession.

Slacktivist offers a rather more realistic prediction of what to expect.

All that language — forgiveness, deliverance, confession, repentance — really means here only that Haggard needs to go back to living a lie. If he agrees to live that lie, and with clenched teeth to continue proclaiming that others must join in living that lie, then Haggard will be “accepted” back “into fellowship.”

Well, heck. We won’t be able to sell tickets to that.

South Park missed an opportunity

Eh, I don’t think I really believe this, but since South Park thinks its funny to portray Richard Dawkins as a tasteless sodomite, it seems only fair to mention that the joke might have stung more if it had been applied to Ted Haggard.

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A gay man and admitted male escort claims he has had an ongoing sexual relationship with a well-known Evangelical pastor from Colorado Springs.

So far, it’s nothing but innuendo and accusation, though. I have to say that even if it were true, it would not be a reason to oppose Haggard, and I’d actually be rather disappointed—it would immediately move the debate from the substance of the danger of evangelical nonsense to wailing about hypocrisy and homosexuality, exactly the kind of complaint that plays right into the hands of the sanctimonious Religious Right.

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Besides, look at that face. He reminds me of that horndog, Steve Stifler.

Gum disintegration syndrome

Here’s a weird and trivial phenomenon to consider: gum disintegration syndrome.

I’m not much of a gum-chewer, and never have been…but I remember gum from when I was a kid, and you could chew and chew and maintain a flavorless wad for a long time. Recently, I thought I’d try gum as an appetite suppressant, and I got some of the sugarless stuff. To my surprise, I’d chew on it for a few minutes, and shortly I’d feel it losing its texture and getting runny, and then it would dissolve into small fragments that I’d just swallow. I thought it was those dang cheap confectionery companies, that the formulas for gum base had changed since I was a kid, or maybe it was the sugarless kind that was just different. I tried a couple of different brands—same result. I would have abandoned it there and chalked it up to yet another example of the evils of creeping capitalism and Things Were Better in the Good Old Days, but I mentioned it to my wife, who thought I was nuts. She’s been dipping into my gum, and noticed no difference—it lasts as long as she wants to chew it.

Weird. My wife sent me this Straight Dope article on it, but it’s not very helpful. There’s some speculation that it’s a result of secretions during arousal (unlikely in my case; I can be reading, or driving the car, and it happens…unless perhaps I have a remarkable libido) or temperature (I tried taking the gum out every once in a while to cool, but no difference, it still breaks down. Besides, my body temperature isn’t unusual enough that my doctor has noticed.) At this point it’s simply a mystery. Maybe I’ve acquired some novel new digestive enzymes, but I don’t think I’ve been in any teleporter accidents—if I graduate from dissolving Wrigley’s to novel ways of eating donuts, I’ll let you know.

I’m not concerned about it*—maybe it’s just as well this is a vice I won’t be pursuing—but now I’m curious. Anyone else have the power to reduce gum to soup? Does it only happen in moments of passion? Details!

*Although…if everyone gets a mutant superpower in their life, and mine is the ability to digest gum instead of acquiring laser eyeballs or telepathy or super-regeneration, I’m going to feel ripped off.

Definitely not safe for work

A reader sent me a link to a site I hesitate to reference, just because I know some people will be aghast at the exposed mammalian flesh and weird exploitation of women…but it’s got tentacles everywhere, and molluscs, and even a few arthropods and a giant salamander. The title, Tentacles of Desire, and the list of organisms tells you what it’s all about. If you’re easily offended or squeamish about slime or freaked out by perverse fetishes, don’t go there!

Otherwise, though, just consider it a celebration of biodiversity.

Spirit of the season

As everyone knows (or should know), October is the month named in honor of the octopus, and we’re supposed to celebrate cephalopods every day. It culminates in the great festival of Octoween, when all the good children who keep molluscs in their heart are rewarded with sushi, while all the wicked children who think eight or ten arms are too many get surprised by tentacles rising up from the ground to snatch them away to a pelagic doom.*

Whoever carved this is going to get a whole bucket of tako.

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*Don’t you dare criticize my mythology!