Saturday, November 26, 2005

Mad Science

If you thought that all the nerds do physics, think again. I'm preparing a presentation for my masters' course; it's about a paper about some research about drosophila (a.k.a. fruit-fly). Now all the clinically insane people in life science hang out in cell biology, or so it seems, whilst the nerds do drosophila stuff (more whole-organism and more likely to be developmental biology related work). Symptoms? Protein names, including such brilliant examples as:
  • Bazooka (have a hole both dorsally and ventrally)
  • Hedgehog, and even better, in humans: Sonic Hedgehog (mutant Dros. larvae look a bit like hedgehogs)
  • Gherkin (no clue)
  • Klingon (again, no clue)
  • Scott of the Antartic (mutants have one defective pole in their mitotic spindle)
  • Ken and Barbie (mutants have no external genitalia)
  • Lost in Space (mutation leads to abnormal axonal projection of nerve cells)
  • British Rail (disrupts the 'always early' gene)
  • Cheap Date (higher alcohol sensitivity)
  • Ring (Really Interesting New Gene - as nobody initially knew what it did)
  • Son of Sevenless (and also Daughter of Sevenless and Bride of Sevenless; don't know what they do though)
  • Sunday driver (problems with neuronal molecule transport)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm a big fan of Sonic Hedgehog, still. I mean, Sega, yay ;)

Sabrine said...

whaha :) humor! maybe the sevenless genes makes them unable to count to seven? :-P or they misspelled seven legs?

JHMS said...

Okay, about sevenless: It's needed for development of R7 cells (photoreceptor cells), so mutants lack this seventh type of cell. Though I have to agree, they probably also can't count to seven.