Xeroxed Gene May Have Paved the Way For Large Human Brain 93
sciencehabit writes Last week, researchers expanded the size of the mouse brain by giving rodents a piece of human DNA. Now another team has topped that feat, pinpointing a human gene that not only grows the mouse brain but also gives it the distinctive folds found in primate brains. The work suggests that scientists are finally beginning to unravel some of the evolutionary steps that boosted the cognitive powers of our species. "This study represents a major milestone in our understanding of the developmental emergence of human uniqueness," says Victor Borrell Franco, a neurobiologist at the Institute of Neurosciences in Alicante, Spain, who was not involved with the work.
And please put flowers (Score:2, Interesting)
On Algernons grave
-Charlie
Pinky and the Brain (Score:2, Funny)
... will finally take over the world.
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The limiting factor to human brain development has been the birth process
If we apply this technique to animals that have larger birth canals, then we can create beings that have brains that are much larger than a humans
All hail our future bovine overlords!
You don't think that they will hold a grudge over the past few millennia do you?
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I thought the whole birth canal thing was the cause of humans being one of the only animals to give birth to a baby that is completely helpless for several years.
Head gets too big for birth canal, must exit before gestation is complete.
Brains continue to grow after birth. Newborns are 350 - 400g. Adults are 1300 to 1400g
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Interesting, I did some googling and found a competing theory that it is the restrictions of the mother's metabolism that demands that the baby be born at nine months. As compared to a chimpanzees development at birth (brain 1/2 the size at adulthood) the birth canal would only need to be 3 centimeters wider, a size that many women could accommodate
link to study:
http://blogs.scientificamerica... [scientificamerican.com]
Taking that out of consideration, I still have to wonder at the novelty of increasing brain size and complexity in
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You need an animal with an upright neck. Humans have a huge muscle connected to the back of our skull. When we're standing, our neck is straight, with the weight supported by bones. Big brains are heavy, along with the extra bone in the skull to accommodate it.
Re:Pinky and the Brain (Score:4, Insightful)
The size of the brain is much less important than the brain to body mass ratio. Several animals have larger brains than humans (elephants being one), but they all have large bodies as well: http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/b... [brynmawr.edu]
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No, not really. What sets a human and elephant apart is not how smart an individual human is compared to an individual elephant, but the ability to communicate. Human language is Turing complete, art is basically communication for the sake of communication, and our perhaps most popular form of entertainment is making up
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You don't think that they will hold a grudge over the past few millennia do you?
Not unless your geneticist is stupid enough to give them hands along with the bigger brain.
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I guess everybody thought of Pinky & the Brain first..
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Poor mice (Score:5, Funny)
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Unintended Consequences (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Unintended Consequences (Score:4, Insightful)
At what point does it become unethical to consider and treat these as lab animals. How much brain complexity is enough? This probably isn't it, and our A.I. isn't good enough yet. But some year we're going to cross the line, and I'm sure that as a society we're going to be completely unaware and in denial when we do.
Re:Unintended Consequences (Score:5, Funny)
I'm sure the mice will tell us when we've reached that point.
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If that unit has been willing to work for the Good Magician Humphrey for a year to get the answer to that question, there can be only one answer.
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They wouldn't dare violate the intellectual property rights of Disney.
What's a Disney? (Score:2)
With Jerry, Fievel Mousekewitz, Elizabeth Brisby, and others, who needs Mickey Mouse?
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Because they are strong enough to escape from their cages?
I hope this was tongue in cheek and I'm an idiot.
Because they aren't going to put this, along with strength genes, into the same species, at the same time, until they realize that they need to do this. Unless they are stupid, these will be gradual steps with no idiotic guards who all of a sudden decide to abandon their posts.
This is very important for understanding how these genes interact, and actually work in an organism. We don't know how our ge
Forget Mice (Score:3)
It would be more interesting to do it with a larger animal with a bigger brain. Could you raise an elephant that was smarter than people?
*Pauses, looks at Congress.*
Never mind. Already there.
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I immediately thought of putting it into a whale, God knows what we could create then.. (insane Frankenstein cackle....)
Pinky and The Brain will be real soon (Score:2)
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Are we calling this one Gamma? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that Slashdot/Dice is telling me that it's time to get off the computer and go out and live my life in the real world again. Perhaps I should listen.
Re:Are we calling this one Gamma? (Score:5, Informative)
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Maybe the Slashdot programmers could borrow some of this special protein and get some cortical folding going on.
Either that or just read a book on CSS.
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If you can't explain yourself properly prior to the final line,
you've been necessarily culled, then.
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Can I suggest SoylentNews?
http://soylentnews.org/ [soylentnews.org]
Hey Devs!!! (Score:3)
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Today? Opening threads in new tabs/windows has been broken for a while now - the comment area is clipped to half of screen size, with a huge useless margin on the right.
My guess is it's going to get worse. Someone has decided Beta is a matter of principle/authority/whatever for them, and is slowly sabotaging the real Slashdot to smoke out the users before it'll go down.
I guess the lesson here is to never bui
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I think teh usenets worked (or could be made to work) like that, but everyone old enough to know is probably dead or doolally.
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>and it worked just fine without any javascript at all
it still does
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Not really. The image I have is of an isolated village in the south seas fruitlessly building runways.
Planet of the Mice (Score:1)
And that kids is how mice first became intelligent and eventually took over the earth. Later the crew of an earth space ship from the past crashed on earth and were captured by the mice. When one tried to escape the mice netted him and he uttered the classic line, "Get your stinking paws off me you damn dirty mice!"
All the mice really wanted was the recipe for cheese.
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lol, yeah, that's what I was thinking, they must be doing this research at NIMH!
I, for one... (Score:1)
...welcome our new hyperintelligent mouse overlords.
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.. are we going to try this on turtles next?
Slashdot programmers would be my vote. That way if they screw it up, nothing of any value would be lost.
Why are we still using Xerox? (Score:5, Interesting)
Xeroxing has become a seriously anachronistic term. Believe it or not, the target audience does know words like "duplicate" or "copy", but younger generations exposure to the "Xerox" company is very limited. Let that word die please.
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kethup? (Score:1)
I don't think anyone gets your point and what is kethup?
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The people who made the GUI, the mouse, the laser printer, ethernet, the Interpress pecursor to PostScript........... Xeroxed the Xerox when they made it available to consumers.
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Why not mimeographed?
Oh yeah. Intelligence gains would have been wiped out by sniffing the copies.
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Youngsters can Google it.
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What? Xerox is hip-hop slang. Where you been?
Xeroxed ? (Score:3)
You mean photocopied or something having to do with a registered trademark? Why not simply "Copied".
Old News (Score:1)
The concept of "co-opting" genetic material is old news. It was a key argument in the Behe Dover trial over Irreducible Complexity, which itself devolved into straw man attacks and false claims made about research papers. http://www.discovery.org/a/142... [discovery.org] This article also elaborates on the over simplification in defining "genetic material", and is a good start in understanding why genetic co-opting isn't a widely accepted theory.
One key problem with any mutation, including attempts to explain new genetic m
Re:I'm not saying aliens, but YEAH... ALIENS. (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, it's really so hard to believe.
Denisova hominins and Neandertals are distinct, and separate from Homo Erectus. As well as Homo Sapiens.
You should stop talking about anything related to this in public, or risk extreme mocking.
How did we get from nothing to lower primates? I would posit that this is where the magic happened. Primates to humans was largely a bit of chance, but it could be easily replicated given many many years from tool inventing primates.
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unexpected AI revolution? (Score:1)
Let the Uplift begin! (Score:2)
Any of these researchers . . . (Score:2)
Coulda, not shoulda (Score:2)
Yes but... (Score:2)
Interesting (Score:1)
Brains ain't all there is to it (Score:1)
One thing I have spent some time pondering: creatures t