Couch Potato Gene Identified In Fruit Flies

Pickens writes "University of Pennsylvania biologists have discovered a mutation in fruit flies aptly named the 'couch potato' gene that allows them to simply chill out — entering a mild state of quasi-hibernation known as diapause, when winter arrives. 'It's not like they're bears sleeping in a cave,' says Paul Schmidt. 'They just look like they're a little bit more sluggish.' The couch potato gene, first discovered in the early 1990s, got its nickname because flies with mutations in the gene became really sluggish and behaved abnormally. Little is known about the underlying evolutionary genetic architecture, but in diapause, the slacking off is far less severe. The flies' bodily functions slow down, and they are better able to tolerate stress. The fruit fly gene may have implications for human health, as it can help biologists study the function of the nervous system and diseases such as epilepsy, refuting a recent statement by a political candidate that fruit fly research has 'little or nothing to do with the public good.'"

Comments

This is why we are $10T in debt

[unassimilatible]

refuting a recent statement by a political candidate that fruit fly research has 'little or nothing to do with the public good.'

It might be fashionable to make fun of Palin on Slashdot, where people pretend to be constitutional purists and libertarians. But this type of thinking, "don't cut my program" is why America is $10T in debt, not counting the 79 million baby boomers about to retire and demand their Social Security and Medicare.

The question isn't whether government programs are well intentioned or often lead to good results (although maybe more often lead to bad results). The question is, can we afford every Utopian goal? Every time an executive, state or federal, tries to "cut" the budget (more likely, slightly reduce the increase in the budget), we invariably hear cries of "but the children," "the homeless will freeze to death!" or "but medical research funding!" Not one single recipient of government funding ever says, "yeah, we'll take on for the team." It's always a good idea to fund programs, and not one of them can ever be cut back or cut altogether, even though few if any of them are mentioned in the Constitution and our country got along fine without them for 150 years. Even the slightest paring back of government programs and living within our means would lead to an apocalyptic unraveling of the social fabric of the country.

Just tell your grandkids, as you exhale yur last breaths on your deathbed, who paying all of this off with exorbitant tax rates, "I did it for you."

Re:This is why we are $10T in debt

[Kligat]

I think it's more that they dumb down studies to a sentence that makes them sound like tax payers are paying for scientists to play with bug collections, for the benefit of riling up Joe Sixpack, and generally creating a feeling of anti-science instead of anti-wastefulness. When I hear "Joe Sixpack," I think of it as an insult and picture Cletus from The Simpsons.

Re:This is why we are $10T in debt

[Abcd1234]

But this type of thinking, "don't cut my program" is why America is $10T in debt

Uhh... no. America is $10T in debt because:

a) People demand their programs stay, while simultaneously refusing tax hikes to actually pay for them.
b) Prosecuting a war the country can't afford, then *cutting taxes* in the meantime.
c) Allowing the financial industry to run off a cliff, forcing the government to take action to prevent a complete economic meltdown.

Is pork a problem? Yup. But as Obama has pointed out *many* times, earmarks, where much of this pork comes from, account for a truly *miniscule* sum compared to the broader budget, which is dominated by military expenditures and various entitlement programs. Unfortunately, Americans are, apparently, unwilling to actually *pay* for those military expenditures and entitlement programs, and so you get mind-bogglingly large debt.

Incidentally, on a side note, here in my country, Canada, we have universal healthcare, universal education, university tuition that's actually affordable, old age security benefits, and a welfare system. And we're running a *surplus*. Just a little food for thought.

Re:This is why we are $10T in debt

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

My displeasure with Palin in this case(like my displeasure with McCain in the "3 million dollar overhead projector" case) is not about spending policy, it is about disingenuous rhetoric.

I may or may not agree, depending on the instance; but I fully support people debating the merits of various projects, either in the broad sense of "what are the principles that guide what we do and do not pay for and how?" or in the narrow "is this particular project worth it or not?" sense. What I find objectionable, though, is people batting at strawmen rather than doing that.

In this case, the "Fruit fly research in Paris, France", as best I can tell, appears to have been Rep. Mike Thompson, D-California's $742,764 for research on the olive fruit fly. As it happens, that fly is a rather pernicious invasive species in California, where it has been spreading through the olive crop for the last decade or so. Personally, I'm of the opinion that large scale pest management, like national defence or law enforcement, is something that is very imperfectly, at best, handled by the private sector(if you are trying to wipe out an invasive species, a single farmer who attempts to free ride can serve as a harbor, etc. The feds have also achieved some notable successes in the area, particularly the Screwworm eradication starting in the 50s) That said, I'm totally open to disagreement with that, or the assertion that it should be handled through the department of agriculture rather than an earmark, or whatever. What annoys me is that, rather than an actual position on spending, we just got a soundbite and a snicker.

That is what annoys me. I agree that we spend too much, and we do a very poor job of examining our spending; but that is part of why exercises like this one annoy me. Soundbite sniping might be a good way to kill a particular program, especially if it has an amusing name, or involves something that you can get a knee jerk reaction to; but it is corrosive to any kind of national dialogue about spending. If we plan to reign in spending, we need leaders who will stand up and support reasons that underlie spending decisions, rather than working according to ad-hoc emotional appeals.

Re:This is why we are $10T in debt

[MindlessAutomata]

I'm not sure why your complaints are directed at libertarians (or liberals/phony libertarians? Your signature is confusing me!) All the libertarians--ALL OF THEM--scoff at the excuses you gave. Some libertarians are unfortunately the Social Darwinist type, as well, and think the homeless should "just get jobs" and don't understand the roots of homelessness. Many libertarians I know are also a bit dogmatic on issues such as free will and don't want to admit that people are machines and simply put some people just don't function as well as others and may need psychological help to fix whatever is contributing to their homelessness.

Not all libertarians are like that--libertarianism is, at its core, a political philosophy, like socialism or anarchism or similar, and generally it's rather consistent although I think many libertarians are rather dogmatic, almost utopian (although they are not true utopians and don't think of themselves as utopian) in nature towards how things will turn out. Quite strange, as they are often bent on economics and talk about (rightly, I feel) subjective value and things are often a system of tradeoffs.

All ideology aside, fruit fly research, like most scientific research, is valuable no matter where the funding comes from. No, I'm not making any argument on where it should come from, or that the ends justify the means. But many people do not have a great understanding of science, particularly evolution and comparative biology, and want these programs cut because their intuition tells them search on cow farts or fruit flies is useless and provides little help to humans. Not that there isn't useless research, but you often have to understand the field on some level to understand why the research is important and its implications.

This leads me back to Americans and science. Americans don't understand science. Just ask Joe Schmoe to explain evolution, you'll get a lot of stuttering and probably some mixed-up talk of fish growing legs or something. Which is quite sad, because all they really need is the basics of natural selection and individual variation to explain how evolution works. The fact that people don't understand evolution is exactly why things like fruit fly research is mocked, by the way--they don't understand that despite being vastly different creatures, there are often many things that can be extrapolated from vastly different species to humans or other creatures, despite hearing stories about fish being genetically engineered to glow in the dark from firefly genes, or such!

The true libertarians, not the Bill Maher type or the "South Park" type, are against all government funding based on the belief that democracy is inherently immoral and unjustified and, from that, taxes are generally tantamount to stealing, because libertarianism is based NOT on "the greater good" but on the individual being the base unit of morality and that no amount of social consensus justifies infringing on the individual's right to autonomy; they generally reject the utilitarian arguments (although, in my experience, tend to employ them when they feel the arguments are in their favor and tend to deny the existence of any downsides of a libertarian system) in favor of "natural rights" either in its original sense or as a personal/ethical/political code. Libertarianism does not mean "generally Republican on economic issues, generally liberal on social issues" although the term is starting to evolve more into that direction and judging by Bob Barr's Libertarian nomination, it appears the Libertarian Party has gone that route as well.

Re:This is why we are $10T in debt

[philspear]

As already said, funding everything is sort of a bad idea. We have to make cuts where we can, and this program honestly looks like it holds little promise without other major scientific advances. Until human gene modification becomes plausible, there's no point in sinking our imaginary dollars into fruit fly programs.

So you're saying it might be time to change the way we decide who gets scientific funding, that the "Guess a number between one and ten" method we have, where if you guess the right number, your scientific proposal gets funded, might be a BAD system? Maybe we should start thinking about funding only the most important, worthwhile studies? Whoa man...

Waitafuckingminute, THAT'S ALREADY WHAT WE DO! There's this organization, called the National Institute of Health, that hands out a lot of grant money for biomedical research. Scientists spend a lot of their time filling out grant applications in the vain attempt to get them to fund their research, it's very competitive, a LOT of good studies don't get funding.

The ones that do are chosen by panels of other scientists and experts (though any scientist who has had a grant rejected will tell you, they're not perfect). They have a deeper understanding of what the benefits of research projects are than Sarah Palin, although that wouldn't be a high bar to clear. Yet they chose to fund fruit fly projects.

Hmm... a panel of biomedical experts think fruit fly research isn't a waste. Maybe they are crazy or corrupt, or maybe you don't really know as much about it as you think you do.

You can't jump right to the end in science, there is a lot of preliminary data you need to know usually before you can get a cure for X disease. For instance, with syphilis we had to first realize what bacteria were, realize it was a bacteria, realize that penicillin could kill bacteria, THEN we were able to cure it. You could have dumped all the money in the world into finding a cure for syphilis before we knew anything about that. You may have gotten lucky, but it's unlikely.

Similar with human diseases, knowing the genetics involved is ABSOLUTELY essential knowledge, even if we can't directly cure the genes yet.

Cancer treatments have improved greatly because of genetic work often done in flies. We can identify genes involved, then find out what they're doing in human cancers, then make treatments based on that.

One current hot prospect in cancer research is knocking out members of the kinesin family, a protein that moves along the cytoskeleton and is involved in cell division. Cell division goes haywire in cancer, if we could affect only one time of kinesin, it would stop cancer pretty well.

Know how we discovered kinesin? By studying squids and fruit flies.

To sum up: unless you're out there reading whole grant applications, don't say a study is worthless or scientists are lying about the outcomes of their research, because you really have no earthly idea and are maligning people who DO know what they are talking about.

(PS. don't quote me on the squids, I could be mistaken on that)

Re:This is why we are $10T in debt

[whereiswaldo]

Great... so the U.S. will soon become another Canada - universal free everything, and good at nothing.

If you take your finger out of your ass and use it to pick up a book you might learn about all the things Canada is good at. Ignorance is curable, after all.

Re:This is why we are $10T in debt

[atomic brainslide]

pragmatically speaking, your government is going to tax your ass whether you like it or not (for the foreseeable future). this means they already have your hard earned cash to do with as they please. you can now look at the situation in one of two ways.

1. the government spends about 60-70% of all that money paying for a "defense" budget, wallstreet bailouts, and interest on the debt it has accumulated.

2. the government cuts "defense" funding to 30% and puts the same cash to work in programs that put better food on your table, give you better medicines, better roads, parks, clean air and water, more free time to enjoy your life, better and cheaper education, and a more beautiful city or town in which you live.

the way i read your response is that you'd rather see the government spend money on "defense" (using the term very lightly), killing people in other nations, spying on you and your family, and creating illegal prison camps for "terrorists". whereas people like myself would rather see the government use the money that it "stole" from me in a way that actually improves my quality of life and doesn't infringe on my rights and freedoms.

hell of a country, the USA.

Sweet

[guyminuslife]

I'm one step closer to getting my disability check when they identify the gene for humans. It's not laziness, it's a disease.

More Obama Facts

[guyminuslife]

Did you know that...

Barack Obama's education was paid for by Saudi Arabian oil princes?

Barack Obama plans to enslave all of the hard-working, white Americans as part of black reparations?

Barack Obama paid $200,000 to the German Nazi organization UMLAUT to drive up attendance to his Berlin rally?

Michelle Obama retains her youthful look by bathing in the blood of infants?

Both Obamas are trained in the art of voodoo witchcraft?

Obama's supporters have engaged in a campaign of violence to terrorize God-fearing McCain supporters, including an underground vault where they torture and kill McCain campaign volunteers?

Obama's third-grade essay claimed that his personal heroes included Stalin, Mao, and Caligula?

The More You Know.

Re:Hmmm

[cashman73]

Palin doesn't like "fruit fly research" because apparently, the couch potato gene is linked to the Republican gene. So if scientists figure this out, we'll be able to cure the Neo-Con disease,...

5T$ and growing from republican policies.

[guidryp]

"It might be fashionable to make fun of Palin on Slashdot, where people pretend to be constitutional purists and libertarians. But this type of thinking, "don't cut my program" is why America is $10T in debt, not counting the 79 million baby boomers about to retire and demand their Social Security and Medicare."

When Bush took over the debt was 5 Trillion and was shrinking under budget surpluses.

Large unsustainable tax cuts with a trillion dollar war of choice are the main culprits in the current 10 Trillion Debt level. Your grand children will suffer mainly from the Bush legacy. Not fruit file research.

Re:5T$ and growing from republican policies.

[commodoresloat]

Your grand children will suffer mainly from the Bush legacy. Not fruit file research.

Yes but fruit file research will suffer for other reasons; mostly because it's very difficult to get all those oddly shaped fruits into manila folders.

Of course

[EdIII]

refuting a recent statement by a political candidate that fruit fly research has 'little or nothing to do with the public good.'

That scientific paper the politician had in his hands had "couch", "potato", "fruit", "fly" and "diapause" in it.

Try publishing a paper with the words "penis", "growth", "stamina", "huge", "could beat an animal to death with it in the forest" and see how fast you get bipartisan funding.

War critics, stop being illogical

[unassimilatible]

Yes, this war was unnecessary in that we were not attacked by Iraq and it costs money. But put away your emotion and knee-jerk ideology and Bush Derangement Syndrome and note some important facts:

1) Compared to the chief role of the US government today - redistribution of wealth - The Iraq War is a mere drop in the bucket;

2) Compared to other wars, this one is rather cheap, and we are spending about 38% on the military today compared to what we did in 1960;

3) The war won't last forever. Government programs will.

I am not ignoring the costs of the war. It all adds up. But for God's sake people, we are spending 60% of our budget on entitlements (not called for by the Constitution) while we spend 17% on the military (called for in the Constitution). Get some perspective.

I'll be reasonable and say the war costs money. OK, that's bad. Now it's your turn to be reasonable and say that spending $1.8 trillion of our $3 trillion budget with a $10T debt - and the $75T off-budget Social Security and Medicare liability looming - is a larger problem than any temporary war, and is not only bad, but really really bad.