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Genetic Linkage

From Doodle Dogs to COVID: On the Meaning of Wild Type

Zeke, shown here retrieving a stick from the surf at Lambert's Cove, Martha's Vineyard, is an aussiedoodle – a cross between an Australian shepherd and a poodle. I did an informal survey there over the course of a week, and estimated that approximately 70 percent of the dogs on the beach harbored poodle genes.

 

Diverse doodles share the trademark tight curly fur, but vary in size, color, head shape, and behavioral and other traits. Several websites list 50+ variations on the poodle hybrid theme, including the bassetoodle, bernedoodle, chipoo, doxiepoo, Irish doodle, poochon, rottle, and shihpoo.

 

Why poodles? The breed evokes such effusive descriptions as "confident yet affectionate, but also active and deceivingly athletic. What's not to like about the dignified and elegant Poodle?" The mixes are deemed highly intelligent, although I can't imagine any of my cats chasing a stick, let alone retrieving it.

 

Perhaps I was witnessing a biased sampling, and the doodles simply have a combination of gene variants that somehow makes them love running in the sand. I watched, transfixed, as a goldendoodle followed a seabird far out into the surf, upsetting the human observers and revealing a superior avian intelligence.

 

To continue reading, go to DNA Science, where this post first appeared.

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Y Chromosome Loss Linked to Hiked Heart Disease Risk: The Human Y Isn’t Useless After All

I've never been fond of the human Y chromosome. Yes, the all-important SRY gene sets the early embryo on a path towards maleness, but the rest? Mostly DNA borrowed from a long-ago X, peppered with eight long palindromes.

 

"The Y is a pathetic little chromosome with lots of junk. It is gene-poor, prone to deletion, and useless. You can lack a Y and not be dead, just female," Jennifer Marshall Graves told me years ago when I defiled the Y in The Scientist. She's professor emeritus of Australian National University, an evolutionary geneticist who works on kangaroos, platypus, Tasmanian devils, and various dragon lizards.

 

But men missing the Y in some of their white blood cells face heightened health risks. That was a mere association a few years ago, but now appears to be causal, according to results of an investigation in Science from researchers at Uppsala University. The research combines clues from mouse studies and epidemiological data from the UK Biobank.

 

To continue reading go to DNA Science, where this post first appeared.

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Repealing Roe: A View from a Long-time Biology Textbook Author

The Supreme Court justices who dismantled Roe v Wade in Dobbs v Jackson Woman's Health Organization should have taken a refresher course in Bio 101. Their decision is devoid of anything even hinting at modern medical science.

 

The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology today released a joint statement from more than 75 health care organizations "in opposition to legislative interference" with women's health care. They conclude:

 

"Abortion care is safe and essential reproductive health care. Keeping the patient–clinician relationship safe and private is essential not only to quality individualized care but also to the fabric of our communities and the integrity of our health care infrastructure. As leading medical and health care organizations dedicated to patient care and public health, we condemn this and all interference in the patient–clinician relationship."

 

I couldn't agree more.

 

To continue reading, go to DNA Science, where this post first appeared.

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Jurassic World: Dominion Bashes Biotech

If a new Planet of the Apes or Jurassic Park film comes out, I'm going to go see it. The latest, Jurassic World:Dominion, didn't disappoint.

 

A Plague of Locusts

 

The science is mostly accurate, the bioethics message obvious, and the plot adheres to Isaac Asimov's "change one thing" rule for science fiction. In the world of Jurassic Park, that lone variable is time. We just have to accept that a "titanosaur" like Argentinosaurus somehow grew and developed from a lab-nurtured baby to a 130-foot-tall and 110-ton adult in a few years.

 

The official summary from IMDb for the new film is vague and continues the impossibly-rapid-growth theme:

Four years after the destruction of Isla Nublar, dinosaurs now live–and hunt–alongside humans all over the world. This fragile balance will reshape the future and determine, once and for all, whether human beings are to remain the apex predators on a planet they now share with history's most fearsome creatures in a new Era.

 

Four years? Animals radiating around the world? Even rats or rabbits couldn't do that. And the film is actually more about insects.

 

To continue reading, go to DNA Science, where this post first appeared.

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