Behavioral genetics
If you guys learn anything about me this semester it will undoubtedly be that I am a huge nerd. I am not kidding. After learning about elephant shrews sharing a common ancestor with actual multi ton elephants I spent almost a half hour researching how exactly scientists first discovered this craziness until realized I had actual homework due and stopped.
Being the nerd that I am, I like to know what I'll be learning about before I begin reading. I find reading the chapter summaries before and after helps me to pick out the major ideas, and also is pretty good for reading comprehension (although I don't recommend this for novels.) One of the first things that really stuck out to me wasn't mentioned until the bottom of the first paragraph, but I was so curious I skipped right ahead to it in the chapter and read it first. I know, I'm awful. The knockout technique sounded so science fiction I just couldn't help it. It said "a single gene is rendered nonfunctional" and my brain said HOW!? (And yes, it is worthy of using an interrobang.) Apparently, it is a way of studying how an animal will act with or without a specific gene. Researchers don't exactly remove the gene, but rather add extra DNA to kind of stop it from working. They also add extra marker genes, messing with fur color or something easily identifiable so they can see that pink Jerry is the knockout mouse without having to guess based on consistently seeing him over in the corner hoarding all the boxing equipment.
Mice aren't the only animals lucky enough to have their genes played with in the name of science. Researchers also did a study on behavioral differences between yellow and wild type fruit flies where they found that wild type fruit flies reproduced much easier in the wild because yellow flies exhibited less courtship behaviors. But if the lady flies wanted licked so bad maybe they should have taken them out drinking first.
Speaking of shy animals, researchers did a study attempting to identify if some stream side salamander larvae were more active regardless of predators present, or if they have more flexible behaviors. The researchers found salamanders tended to exhibit more bold behaviors when raised in low risk environments, spending about 75% of time feeding in the control group versus only 40% in the danger condition. However, they did find that shy salamanders acted more shy all the time, compared to bold ones suggesting that genetics plays a role in creating more bold and shy fish regardless of the condition, but that environment can certainly enhance the genes expressed.
Being the nerd that I am, I like to know what I'll be learning about before I begin reading. I find reading the chapter summaries before and after helps me to pick out the major ideas, and also is pretty good for reading comprehension (although I don't recommend this for novels.) One of the first things that really stuck out to me wasn't mentioned until the bottom of the first paragraph, but I was so curious I skipped right ahead to it in the chapter and read it first. I know, I'm awful. The knockout technique sounded so science fiction I just couldn't help it. It said "a single gene is rendered nonfunctional" and my brain said HOW!? (And yes, it is worthy of using an interrobang.) Apparently, it is a way of studying how an animal will act with or without a specific gene. Researchers don't exactly remove the gene, but rather add extra DNA to kind of stop it from working. They also add extra marker genes, messing with fur color or something easily identifiable so they can see that pink Jerry is the knockout mouse without having to guess based on consistently seeing him over in the corner hoarding all the boxing equipment.Mice aren't the only animals lucky enough to have their genes played with in the name of science. Researchers also did a study on behavioral differences between yellow and wild type fruit flies where they found that wild type fruit flies reproduced much easier in the wild because yellow flies exhibited less courtship behaviors. But if the lady flies wanted licked so bad maybe they should have taken them out drinking first.
Speaking of shy animals, researchers did a study attempting to identify if some stream side salamander larvae were more active regardless of predators present, or if they have more flexible behaviors. The researchers found salamanders tended to exhibit more bold behaviors when raised in low risk environments, spending about 75% of time feeding in the control group versus only 40% in the danger condition. However, they did find that shy salamanders acted more shy all the time, compared to bold ones suggesting that genetics plays a role in creating more bold and shy fish regardless of the condition, but that environment can certainly enhance the genes expressed.
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ReplyDeleteI was also super interested in the knockout technique that scientists use to study how genes work. It reminded me of the stereotaxic surgery that scientists did to rodents to figure out how areas of the brain work. It makes me wonder if these techniques will ever be used experimentally in humans to study disease. We test mice because the results usually translate over to humans pretty easily but not always. Humans mess with a lot of animals, but would we be willing to mess with ourselves?
That knockout technique was pretty interesting.From what I got out of it was that they wiped out the fear in the mice by altering a specific gene. As a result the mice didnt care whether or not they were in the light. It's like they were on xanax. Anyway it made me think, if a mouse did have an altered gene like this in a natural environment they would probably die a lot sooner, therefore it would be highly unlikely for mice to inherit an altered gene.
ReplyDeleteWow this was very interesting and informative!I unfortunately know next to nothing about genetics and things of the such. So, the whole "knockout technique is something I've never heard of. And, your section about shy vs bold animals was intriguing because environment seems to play such a huge role!
ReplyDeleteI wonder if the elephant shrew being related to the elephant was the cause of the common myth that elephants are afraid of mice (mice and shrews are not the same thing, but pretty similar). Just a thought! I'm glad you mentioned the knockout technique. That's one concept that took some time to process.
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