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Biotech Science

Sonic the Brain Chemical 44

Posted by michael from the need-more-rings dept.
GamerBub writes "A chemical protein that appears to prevent Parkinson's Disease has been named Sonic the Hedgehog. According to the National Post."
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Sonic the Brain Chemical More

Sonic the Brain Chemical

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  • I see a lawsuit coming. Why can't people come up with original names (I'm one to talk!)?
  • Did this story make the cut because of the science, or because of the video game reference?

    And what does SEGA have to say about the dilution of trademark/copyright infringement/etc?

  • And in other news... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Aardpig ( 622459 ) on Tuesday October 07, 2003 @02:29PM (#7155808)

    ...Slashdot is over six years behind Google [google.com]. D'oh, guys, D'OH!

    • Impressive, considering Google just turned 5 [slashdot.org]. PageRank and time travel, what can't they do?

      • Impressive, considering Google just turned 5. PageRank and time travel, what can't they do?

        Well, it appears that taking over DejaNews a couple of years ago was not beyond their capabilities...

        • Uhhh, that was supposed to be teh funny, I suppose next you'll be telling me that they can index pages that were put up on the Intarweb over 5 years ago. Supposing that, I suppose that I'll respond "balderdash!"

  • Why? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by GuyMannDude ( 574364 ) on Tuesday October 07, 2003 @02:31PM (#7155827) Journal

    Does anyone know why the protein was named after Sonic? The linked article doesn't really give any indication why that name was picked.

    GMD

    • Re:Why? (Score:5, Informative)

      by ag3n7 ( 442539 ) on Tuesday October 07, 2003 @02:49PM (#7155996)
      The reason why the chemical is called Sonic Hedgehog has only a passing relation to the video game. One of the researchers was an avid video game fan and the chemical's precursors are actually: SoNiC. Hence the play on word, Sonic Hedgehog.

      Plus, it has to do with increasing the speed between synapse firings.
      • All this time I thought it was this little blue guy who was spinning really fast and trying to collect rings. I suppose they have to name the protein that causes the disease Mario or Luigi, Sonic's arch nemesis. *shakes fist*
        • I assume you were referring to Sonic's business archnemeses... Nintendo's mascot. /me imagines scene:

          Sonic: I hate Luigi soooo much!
          Lisa Simpson: No, you're from Sega: You hate Dr. Robotnik.
          Sonic: ...soooo much!
      • I attended a talk on the Sonic hedgehog pathway last week, and the "SoNiC" explanation offered in the parent post has nothing to do with it. Fruit flies with a mutation in one gene have a hunched-over shape that makes them look like hedgehogs, so the gene was named "hedgehog". Research in mice and humans has revealed that there is actually a whole family of genes of this kind, and one of them was given the name "Sonic hedgehog" as a reference to the video game character.

        By the way -- Sonic hedgehog (or

    • Re:Why? (Score:2, Informative)

      by genecutl ( 470280 )
      Despite what the story says, Sonic Hedgehog is an old gene. The origin of the name is that there was a gene first discovered in fruit flies which was named Hedgehog, presumably because flies missing the hedgehog gene reminded the researcher of a hedgehog. Since then, related genes have been found and given hedgehog-related names, like Desert Hedgehog and Sonic Hedgehog.

      Fly geneticists like to go for amusing names. For example, there is a gene responsible for development of the 7th cell of the fly ommati
    • A gene in fruit flies was named hedgehog. Genes in fruit flies are named after how they look as mutants (so the gene white was named for flies with white eyes). The hedgehog mutation causes fruit fly embryos to be hairy, so they look like little hedgehogs. Mammals have duplicate copies of most genes in animals like flies. So the multiple hedgehog genes have to have elaborations like "Indian hedgehog" and "Sonic hedgehog" to differentiate them. Since most genes involved in development were discovered in
    • Does anyone know why the protein was named after Sonic? The linked article doesn't really give any indication why that name was picked.

      Because it has a nice *ring* to it? I look forward to Michael J Fox receiving his oscar for Back to the Future parts 4, 5 and 6 and thanking Sonic The Hedgehog for allowing him to return to his sterling acting career.

  • Good news for the pope
  • "The scientists found that the subthalamic nucleus is hyperactive because there are insufficient amounts of Sonic Hedgehog to adequately control its activity. "

    It's hard to read this article without chuckling at the repeated insertion of the silly name into the medical jargon, but hey people, (researchers, journalists) if you're going to use such a ridiculous name, and use it repeatedly throughout the story....

    How about letting us in on the joke?

  • Whats so wrong... (Score:3, Funny)

    by maxinull ( 685219 ) * on Tuesday October 07, 2003 @02:38PM (#7155902) Homepage Journal
    with putting a little bit of fun in science? I'm sure kids in high school biology would much rather learn about Sonic the Hedgehog and how he helps fight Parkinson's, rather than (insert boring sceintifc name here)!

    Though, when theres a Dr. Robotnic filling out perscriptions, then you can bust out the lawsuits.
    • Yeah. When I teach kids at my school I gave the numbers 1,2,3,... interesting names. So now they all say things like Mario+Kzooie=Rayman. Needless to say everyone in the class completely loves the subject and in a few years time they'll all be getting PhDs. Or maybe not.
      • agreed, i think part of the problem with school is that the teachers get so damn bored with teaching the same thing over and over again that they have no more enthusiasm for teaching, and they don't make the kids want to learn. none of my teachers have ever bothered to make things the slightest bit interesting. good thing i found my way into the real world! heh.
  • ...that they didn't name it after the other Hedgehog, Ron Jeremy.

    *ewwwww*
  • My neurologist is at Toronto Western (the hospital where this research was done)...and I just really, really cannot see this being true....based on their humourless bedside matter. But you never know ;-)

    Maybe the cure for cancer might be known as "Zelda"?

    -psy
  • sure... why not... well people always had 'knuckles' and its often said girls have tails...

  • I know... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Deanasc ( 201050 ) on Tuesday October 07, 2003 @04:00PM (#7156797) Homepage Journal
    I'm desperately trying to discover a signalling link to violence that I'm going to call Grand Theft Auto.
  • Check out this publication [nih.gov].

    Gene versus protein, huh?

  • My friend the pathologist told me about this at least a year ago... The way I remember it, they had too many hedgehog genes and so the scientist called the last one sonic. I do realize this is a protien, not a gene that they're talking about but I'm sure they're related :)

  • This is 2 and a half years late. (Score:3, Informative)

    by azav ( 469988 ) on Tuesday October 07, 2003 @05:50PM (#7157895) Homepage Journal
    Sonic was mentioned on the 8th of March, 2001.

    And it's called Sonic Hedgehog, not Sonic THE Hedgehog.

    http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2001-03/U oC M-SHst-0803101.php

  • I'm an MD/PhD student, so I am exposed a fair amount to people involved in biology research. I get the impression that most of them have no idea what the name is from, which makes it really awesome.
  • It's called "Sonic Hedgehog," and it's quite old. There are lots of things with funny names in biology, especially bacteriophage, which there are billions of in the world. Some "philatelist" programs do little more than catalog and name phage.

    Hey, there is even a mitochondrial protein named after my slashdot username: tom7 [genedb.org].
  • A write-up on how this name came about, as well as what the Hedgehog family is all about, can be found in this February 1998 article:

    <A HREF="http://web.reed.edu/community/newsandpub/feb 1998/platika/2.html">http://web.reed.edu/community /newsandpub/feb1998/platika/1.html</A>

    (page 2 for the Sonic reference)
  • Sonic the Head-Drug?

    Bloody scientists... so unimaginative.... :)

    Q.

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