Comments on: The genes that built a home

By: adventureworm

adventureworm — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 14:29:19 +0000

>How do you build an escape tunnel without building an entrance tunnel in the first place?

Both species build entrance tunnels. The individuals that have the escape tunnel gene but none of the three entrance genes build a nest with a deer mouse entrance and an escape tunnel.

By: ST

ST — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 16:50:45 +0000

Sorry Ed, but Escape tunnel building is not a mendelian trait.

Take a look at the methods in the paper: They required that Escape tunnel building is a “Binary” trait in the F2 and eliminated all mice in which they could not make this Yes or No call.

Secondly, finding one locus (btw with dozens to hundreds of genes) does not mean that other loci do not influence the trait. Table 1 actually states that this locus only explains 6% of the phenotypic variance. Fairly far off from one locus explaining everything.

“These two components of a burrow–the entrance and escape tunnel—are completely separable,”

Seriously? How do you build an escape tunnel without building an entrance tunnel in the first place?

By: Yotam

Yotam — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 16:07:46 +0000

“That makes the escape tunnel a “Mendelian trait”, where inheriting the dominant version of a gene from either parent produces the dominant form of the trait. Other examples include a cleft in your chin, or whether you can roll your tongue.”
Actually, both examples are myths. They are discussed at Myths of Human Genetics:
http://udel.edu/~mcdonald/mythcleftchin.html
http://udel.edu/~mcdonald/mythtongueroll.html

By: Petros Papadopoulos

Petros Papadopoulos — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 12:57:27 +0000

This study as well as Nature’s priorities are best described by an old Greek proverb:
Εδώ ο κόσμος καίγεται και το μουνι χτενιζεται