Gotta Catch 'Em
Irradiated by LabRat
A fun little post pointing out one of the more eyecatching named genes out there. Or, at least it was until Nintendo decided that having a gene that causes cancer named after one of their products wasn’t something they wanted to be involved with.
It stands out in scientific literature, but having a geneticist name a gene after Pokemon isn’t actually that unusual. Hunting down genes is often boring and always very time-consuming work, and they don’t really offer much in the way of intrinsic inspiration as far as naming goes; a dog might have spots or other odd markings, but you can’t call every gene “Proteinface”. Usually they get slapped with easily-forgotten letter and number combinations referencing some of its proteins and/or position on a chromosome, but every once in awhile somebody decides to swim against the tide and name it after whatever their kid has been talking about at dinner all month. Still, given what goes into finding and positively identifying a gene, I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if the geneticist in question WAS a fan of a game whose ultimate point involves spending a tremendous amount of time tracking down hundreds of critters simply for the sake of having them.
Those that study whole organisms have this problem too. This stinkhorn is still my all-time favorite, though.
May 21st, 2011 at 9:34 am
Nintendo is notoriously strict with their copyrights. Want to make an online Pokemon game without making money off of it? TOO BAD, CEASE AND DESIST. Fanmade Metroid title? CEASE. AND. DESIST. 2D version of Zelda: Ocarina of Time? GUESS WHAT.
I mean hell, there was that debacle with Serebii.net having screenshots from Pokemon Black and White before the game came out in the US (that was thankfully resolved in Serebii’s favor, but still).
Anyway, on the topic of the article, I think there’s a few species named after Stephen Colbert in some way, and some enzyme named after Sonic the Hedgehog.
May 21st, 2011 at 10:53 am
More unrelated stuff:
Portland band gets their colanders on ….
A game plane for Farm Girl’s deathmachine? Can you get a budget?
May 21st, 2011 at 10:54 am
BTW … these are my people, real Oregonians … not those pasty assed hippies that moved north from California.
May 22nd, 2011 at 1:43 am
LOL- I want to see Nitendo (yes I purposely misspelled it) sue to get the name changed… Good post and good info!
May 23rd, 2011 at 3:31 am
Ah, I remember pointing out the stinkhorn to the Autism Diva (Ms. Clark) She giggled, in an internet kind of way.
What is more gigglous, is that not only are the Pokemon things attractive to auties, but that the guy who invented them may well be one, too.
M’self? I LOVE MUDKIPS.
May 23rd, 2011 at 3:32 am
Umm, that should be, “I liek Mudkips!”