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Deleting Certain Gene Makes Mice Smarter
An anonymous reader writes "Deleting a certain gene in mice can make them smarter by unlocking a mysterious region of the brain considered to be relatively inflexible, scientists at Emory University School of Medicine have found. Mice with a disabled RGS14 gene are able to remember objects they'd explored and learn to navigate mazes better than regular mice, suggesting that RGS14's presence limits some forms of learning and memory."
I can haz turnkey upgrade for 50$?
To call an inability to forget "smart" is a display of misunderstanding what learning actually is. Forgetting comes in many flavours, and while intuitively believe some forgetting may be related to "making more room", extinction learning is a rather finely-tuned mechanism of filtering relevant input from irrelevant input. Making that filter wider is hardly smart.
When the policeman of the tie, rule you violate, hello punishment of the kitty?
Unfortunately it's likely not. Evolution or God (your choice) rarely gives something for nothing. This gene is likely there for a reason. Disabling it will have some drawback, and it may not be an obvious connection.
I remember watching a show about genetics. They were talking about how humans have a genetic defect in a gene which governs the size of our jaw muscles. This defect means we bite with far less force than a chimp. But the show pointed out that a smaller jaw muscle, due to the physical attachments, allowed our skull to grow larger and with it our brain. Considering how well chimps are doing as compared to humans, I'd say the defect was actually a good thing.
I'm sorry, but you come off as very elitist; "I don't fit into society, but I'm way above average and everybody else is too stupid (to understand me). That's reasoning in order to maintain a certain position you clearly dislike, but giving purpose to it by telling yourself you're "above average".
"Intellingence" is a very wide subject and is sensitive to interpretation: A bushman wouldn't be able to "do the intelligent things you consider intelligent", but you wouldn't survive long in his world. It's relative, but you victimize yourself and place yourself on top of other in a egocentrical "I must be better".
Oh, woo me, the intelligent creature who suffers and is "always on". All those other stupid fucks sleep well and go about their meaningless lifes...
I'm sorry, but that doesn't take "above average intelligence". And by all means, by the age of 10 you do not have a "need for a god" in a western midclass world where you're shielded from life, certain life events later who will make you cry you wished there was something or someone who is godlike. At 10, you lack certain insight and experience. I'm not telling you I believe in a god, but at that age you lack experience.
TV isn't life, get out, live a bit.
They're not around because they don't like hanging out by an isolated guy who feels superiour in his self-explaining of his isolation.
Don't mix intelligence, a sense of superiority with your sexual preferences and religion. You're not discussing on topic, you're just being an egocentric shortminded selfentitling dumbfuck.
I'm sure you feel you have all figured out already as well :)
I think we can keep recursing like this until someone returns 1
Evolution isn't causal. It's, well, non-anti-causal, which isn't quite the same thing. That is to say, traits don't evolve in response to things, stuff without appropriate traits gets wiped out by those things. The difference is key. A trait doesn't persist because it's an advantage, it persists because it's not a sufficiently bad disadvantage, which is a weaker constraint. In the context of TFA, a gene that makes mice "dumber" doesn't mean that the gene provides a hidden advantage that has a better tradeoff, and it doesn't mean that being dumb provided a big advantage. All it means is that being dumb wasn't a disadvantage. Or, at least, wasn't a disadvantage strong enough to hurt the mice's reproductive chances. Due to statistics, and something called "neutral drift", an allele that is "neutral" in that it doesn't result in a significant disadvantage to reproduction, has a fair chance at taking over a population, over enough time. Not that it will happen a lot. But, "fair" chance here means it's not vanishingly small.
So, if a gene breaks comes into being that makes mice dumb, but being dumb doesn't stop them from finding food, evading predators, and having sex, then it's a neutral gene. So while not guaranteed to happen, there's nothing unusual about this gene becoming dominant, or in fact, part of the entire species. It certainly doesn't mean that it provides some sort of advantage as a trade-off. Genes that provide an advantage are much more likely to be passed on, until the entire species has it. But, ones that aren't strongly disadvantageous can be, too. All mammals have a gene that lets them make vitamin C. Some primates, including humans, have a broken version and so cannot produce vitamin C. That's because out ancestors ate mostly fruits and berries, which are full of vitamin C. So, when by chance we lost our ability to make it, it had no effect. This doesn't mean it provided a hidden disadvantage. It was simply not needed, so when it broke, natural selection did not kill animals who didn't have it.
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI