Nova and Evolution

[Heather]

Nova is on now and I heard about this episode on the Today Show. It is about a family in Turkey who are not bipedal.

I think there are 19 children in the family. Five of them are quadripedal. I think that they thought it might be evolutionarily of interest but turned out to be a genetic defect. Anyway, it's on now. I thought it might be interesting to watch and discuss, since many of us are interested in evolution.

 

[kentuckiense]

Thanks for the heads up!

Here's a BBC article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4782492.stm

 

[Heather]

The parents are cousins....Interesting! The plot thickens....

 

[kentuckiense]

The parents are cousins....Interesting! The plot thickens....

But I'm from West Virginia and I don't walk on all fours

 

[Heather]

Just watch the show, will ya? oke:

 

[Heather]

There is also an interesting religious aspect to the study....

 

[Mark]

We watched it but kinda only halfway since we were making dinner, catching up on what we've been doing, eating, bla, bla, bla. Good episode but seemed a little all over the map. Sean Carroll was on! Yay! He was one of the more dynamic speakers at Darwin Day last year and I really enjoyed Endless Forms Most Beautiful. Genetics has advanced so far since I took a class back in 19mumblemumble

EDIT: And tempted as I am, I know better than to comment on the religious aspect on this forum. :noangel:

 

[SlipperFan]

Interesting show. I saw it before I saw this thread. All this study of genes shows to me the need for stem cell research. Am I off topic???

 

[littlefrog]

Stem cell research might be useful, it is still a bit early to tell. No way to really know without doing the research!!!

Interesting genetic defects are often found in closely related pedigrees. Like hemophillia and the european royals. Geneticists can actually use pedigree information to find the location of a genetic defect in the DNA, if they have enough information to work with. It is still an important technique even now that we sequenced the human genome.