Humanity Gene Found? 231
Banana_Republican writes "Nature is reporting that that multiple copies of a mystery gene may be what makes us human. It appears that humans have multiple carbon copies of a recently discovered gene that other primates lack. In particular, one sequence not so romantically or emotionally termed 'DUF1220' was mentioned . Humans carry 212 copies of DUF1220, whereas chimps have 37 copies, and monkeys have only 30 copies. Apparently the current thinking is that this gene is responsible for coding important areas of brain function."
Duh (Score:2, Insightful)
Fantastic. Unfortunately, that seems to come from the same school of thought as my suggestion here: this gene is responsible for male pattern balding and fully erect bipedal motion.
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This post brought to you by Humans, the only organism known to make childish penis jokes. (Some Slashdotters belive DUF may be involved.)
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Duff (Score:2)
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Mmmmmm.... DUF (Score:2, Funny)
[Cue Barney Gimble's lip-rippling belch] (Score:3, Funny)
Barney [raising mug] : "I'll vouch for that! {BBBbBbbbbllllaaaabbllbbllbbllbb!!}"
Radio Shack (Score:2, Funny)
I can see the bumper stickers now... (Score:4, Funny)
Obligatory reference to super-brained chimps (Score:4, Funny)
My mistake (Score:2)
It's a common mistake (Score:3, Funny)
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Don't forget human antigenes (Score:5, Interesting)
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DUF1220 slashdot handle (Score:5, Funny)
Re:DUF1220 slashdot handle (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:DUF1220 slashdot handle (Score:4, Funny)
Next thing we'll hear (Score:2, Interesting)
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er... thats a bit of a leap (Score:5, Insightful)
TFA says that there is a gene that humans have more copies of than primates and that this gene makes a protein in the brain. They don't know what the protein does in the brain indeed they have no idea what having multiple copies of the gene does. Yet they reach the conclusion that this gene may be responsible for giving us our humanity.
All they seem to have is a weak correlation between the number of this gene and intelligence (which is arguable - I know some really dumb people) and as we've all learnt many times "Correlation does not imply causation."
IANAGS but I'd wait until there was some more evidence on offer.
Re:er... thats a bit of a leap (Score:5, Insightful)
If you RTFA (I know, I know, this is
But there are a couple of other notes I'd like to make in response to your post, which are really responses to lots of posts of this nature. First, this is not a weak correlation; 212 vs. 37 vs. 1 is a significant difference in almost any context, and yes, we've all known some really dumb people, but unless those people are severely retarded, they're still a hell of a lot smarter than the smartest chimp or monkey. Second, I really wish people would stop invoking "correlation does not imply causation" as a mantra. Yes, it's true, but it's also true that correlation implies correlation -- by which I mean that if there is a statistically significant correlation between two variables, then it is entirely reasonable to assume that there exists some connection between them, and to use this assumption as, at the very least, a basis for further investigation.
I think people are so used to misinterpretations of correlation (almost never by scientists, BTW) that they forget that it is still a powerful and useful tool. Actually, this is true of statistics in general. Yes, it's very easy to lie with statistics; it is somewhat harder, but entirely possible and fairly common, to use them to discover great truths.
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Two datapoints are not statistically significant, for correlation.
Yeah, they found a gene that is alot more common in humans than monkeys. There are probably other such genes appearing by chance. They just happened to find one. They can use it as the basis for more study. Though there aren't many conclusions that can yet be drawn.
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I'd love to get a an opinion from a someone who works in genetics.
They do claim that taken together the data from three seperate methods (BLAT http://genome.ucsc.edu/cgi-bin/hgBlat [ucsc.edu], aCGH and QPCR - I know what PCR is and I'm reading up on the others but this is not my field) they
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I think you mean "coincidence implies correlation." In other words, if two factors occur in the same place or time, it implies that they might be related somehow, even if there is no causal relationship between them. It's just as likely that the causative factor is something as yet unknown that causes both factors.
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Causation (Score:2)
Me too. What this sentence "correlation does not imply causation" really means is that we may not be really sure of which is cause and which is effect.
In this particular cause, the direction from cause to effect is *VERY* clear to me: the presence of genes is the cause of whatever effect we are observing. If we have a characteristic, being human, correlated with the presence of one particular gene, I consider it abs
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Uplift, here we come. [wikipedia.org]
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In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
There's a gene that confers some resistance... (Score:5, Interesting)
But nobody would make the mistake of saying that this gene is the gene for 'chimpness'. It's just an accident of history that SIV arose before HIV.
I learned all of this from an excellent podcast [royalsoc.ac.uk] whose name I dare not write for fear of offence...
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There is a tiny group in europe that has a mutation of a cell recptor the makes them getting HIV/AIDS more difficult.
Since it kills people after the time they can have had children, the people who are not naturally immune(if there are any) will still have their genes passed on. Basically the virus lives too long.
It's one of the MANY many unique issus that makes this virus very tough to fight.
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I don't think this can be the same thing as what Steve Jones [wikipedia.org] was discussing in the podcast [royalsoc.ac.uk]. He was specifically interested in discussing the coevolution of humans and HIV and he gave the impression that the group of resistant humans wasn't all that small. It's a great podcast BTW.
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An HIV-infected person can still breed, but they will die shortly thereafter. The person they breed with will have a much increased chance of catching and dying of the disease just a few years later.
Their children will have a good chance of catching the disease, and almost certainly dying long before they can repr
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Perhaps HIV was created using SIV, thus arising later,
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Basically the theory goes that, at one point, humans were getting their asses kicked by a plague of some kind. Some of us had a mutation where genes that rein in the immune system were knocked out. With their immune system turned up to 11, these guys survived the plague.
The downside is that our immune systems are now turned up to 11, hence all the immune system diseases like HIV and asth
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I hate science reporters (Score:5, Insightful)
"Scientists don't know what the gene does."
No, they know what the gene does, it codes for a protein. They don't know what this protein does.
Then they say that the protein is expressed all over, including the brain, so that means it may be involved in brain function.
For all they know it could be a structural protein, which is a better bet if it's expressed outside the brain.
Somehow I doubt that a single gene is responsible for humanity.
I try to be positive when I post, but what kind of morons do they have writing this stuff? And this is Nature magazine? How about some info on what sort of protein it is: Kinase? Carboxylase? Protease? How about some info on the expression levels instead of how many copies there are? There could be 1000 copies in our genome, but if the expression is low, it doesn't matter.
Guess I'll have to RTFP, where P=Paper.
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Great.... (Score:5, Funny)
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Whats the opposite of DUF? (Score:5, Funny)
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It took longer to recognize as it was so much more prevalent than the DUF1220 gene.
Apparently, the function of the FUD9999 gene is to convert the proteins that DUF1220 encodes into a complex mixture of steroids and alcohol.
Genetic Testing (Score:2)
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Gene therapy? (Score:2)
Let's Uplift the Three-Toed sloth! (Score:5, Funny)
They can be put to work installing Wi-Fi nodes and spy cameras on telephone poles.
And if they decide to rebel against their human creators, it will be really easy to outrun them.
As I recall this is a flipped segment (Score:2, Interesting)
However, just remember that just because we may have found a segment doesn't mean we understand how it works. Sometimes, it's not just the genes it encodes, it's how it impacts other genes on other chromosomes, and how it misfolds or affects transcripti
The Noodly Appendage Did It... (Score:3, Funny)
More Common Elsewhere (Score:5, Informative)
I for one welcome our new armadillo overlords.
http://genome.ucsc.edu/cgi-bin/hgTracks?hgsid=770
good to know (Score:2)
Poor humans still believe they are the pinnacle... (Score:2)
From believing they are in the center of god's creation, they have slowly, as their knowledge increased lost again and again. First they discovered that the earth was not the center of the universe, then that the sun was just a mediocre star in an average neighborhood in an average galaxy. Darwin taught them that they are just another leaf on the tree of life.
Now they are still clinging to the hope that their brains are so
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Are you sure you are using an impartial yardstick here? Imagine you are reading the history books a billion years from now.
Maybe the monkeys have a lot more sex, and are much more happy. They do not destroy the earth either.
Humans may be on a path to:
1. Create silicon based life that will evolve much fater than humans
2. Destroy and exhaust much of the earth resources.
This may not be very much more advanced than yeast in a vat of wine hurrying to extinct
OK, So I'm in a Bad Mood (Score:3, Funny)
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Yes. Always.
Does this prove Intelligent Design is flawed? (Score:2, Funny)
Or does it mean chimps run Linux and only need 22 code segments to do what Humans (Windows) needs 220 code segments to get done?
Karma be damned... (Score:2)
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Explains George Bush (Score:2)
He has only ten copies.
The caption on the picture in the article says, "What makes humans, primates, unique?"
Who says they're unique?
Now. the big question is... (Score:2)
Not as widely reported, but still interesting (Score:5, Funny)
Humans carry 212 copies of DUF1220, whereas chimps have 37 copies, and monkeys have only 30 copies.
Corporate CEOs carry between 3-6 copies of the gene, and no one has yet to find a middle management specimen exhibiting even a single instance.
In addition, a representative sample of Slashdot readers was tested and there was a remarkably strong correlation between their karma level and copies of the gene. Digg readers came in slightly above MySpace users with 10 and 4 copies, respectively. 8^)
Oh the humanity!!! (Score:3, Funny)
This sounds like... (Score:2)
And this is peer review? How many copies of this do their peers have?
Wow (Score:2)
So they don't lack (Score:2)
So chimps have 37 copies, monkeys have 30. Apparently... these animals are not primates. Because the claim is that other primates lack this gene.
If they ARE primates AND have copies of this gene... then... ma
DUF stands for "Domain of Unknown Function" (Score:4, Informative)
Extreme gene duplication is a major source of evolutionary novelty. A genome-wide survey of gene copy number variation among human and great ape lineages revealed that the most striking human lineage-specific amplification was due to an unknown gene, MGC8902, which is predicted to encode multiple copies of a protein domain of unknown function (DUF1220). Sequences encoding these domains are virtually all primate-specific, show signs of positive selection, and are increasingly amplified generally as a function of a species' evolutionary proximity to humans, where the greatest number of copies (212) is found. DUF1220 domains are highly expressed in brain regions associated with higher cognitive function, and in brain show neuron-specific expression preferentially in cell bodies and dendrites.
Tell me when they isolate the "stupid driver" gene (Score:2)
Binky and the Brain (Score:2)
no such thing as a humanity gene (Score:3, Insightful)
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Re:They couldn't have come up with a better name.. (Score:2, Redundant)
Re:They couldn't have come up with a better name.. (Score:5, Informative)
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I thought it was Draft* of Uncertain Fermentation...
*or draught if you're from the other side of the pond.
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It's Draft on the western side of the Atlantic because we're still trying to perfect the brews.
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Yup, there sure are! I usually sit on mine.
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Therefore, Simpsons jokes aside, this isn't a protein named DUF1220, but rather a protein called MGC8902 that contains DUF1220 domains.
Duh! The Homer gene (Score:2)
Speaking of Bars (Score:5, Funny)
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"DUFMan, human! OH yeah!"
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It's not my fault, IntelliAdmin started it... (Score:2)
Warning. Consume all beverages before watching.
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The joke is a bit different:
My barracuda was in the shop
So I was in a rented stingray
And it was overheating
So I pulled into a Shell Station
They said I'd blown a seal
I said, "Fix the damn thing and leave my private life out of it, OK pal?"
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And it was a really lame joke he made.
Hey, if anyone's on Facebook, feel free to join my Seminar Junkies group - I'm the guy in the cape.
Remember, even if we have 220 segments and chimps have 37 segments, it doesn't mean we know what they do, or how they impact other gene-encoding regions - it's only recently we started figuring out most of the segments we thought were "noise" are actually responsible for encoding oth
Re:Carbon copies? (Score:5, Funny)
There would be *NO* humans! (Score:2)
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I think killing and eating a fishmonkeyrat is downright weird.</joke>
-:sigma.SB
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187
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Duh!
"Proofreading is your friend." - fragmentate, circa 2006.
Re:DNF1220! (Score:4, Funny)
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We're already there (Score:3, Funny)
>Well, why don't they make some knockout mutants and then look at the brain function? It seems like the logical next step.
Three words: Jerry Springer Show
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The researcher looking and analyzing this data, might not be the type of researcher that works with mice. Even if he was, he would probably get this paper our once this discovery was made. Another one after knocking the gene off.
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