News From The World Of Science

[Stephen Mills]

As one of several scientists on c.net, I try to monitor the scientific literature for matters relating to concertinas and concertina-playing. Recently, I had noted a trend among neurobiologists to name newly discovered proteins arbitrarily, much like physicists name quarks “truth”, “beauty,” and so forth. Various synaptic proteins have been named bassoon, oboe, and piccolo, for example. Naturally, I wondered whether there might be a “concertina” protein anywhere in the scientific literature. A quick search uncovered the following abstract, which showed that there was in fact not only a concertina protein, but that the gene that encodes it is also called concertina. This gene encodes a part of the gastrulation process in the fly Drosophila, which involves a process of folding that must give it its name.

 

Following up, I came across an interesting “concertina”-related paper in the scientific literature. Since the paper was rather technical, I found an interview in a more popular-style science magazine. I have copied the most relevant part below.

 

Nature Daily News: Dr. Weizenstein, tell us a little about how you got the idea for these studies.

 

Weizenstein: Walter Gehring and his colleagues created quite a stir in 1995 (abstract) when they showed that implanting the mouse eye gene in Drosophila produces extra eyes in the flies (Figure 1A),

and implanting the Drosophila eye gene in mice also produced these “ectopic” eyes in mice. What was surprising was that we had always thought genes encoded specific proteins, so the fly gene would make fly eyes in the mouse and vice versa. It seems instead that they’re what we call “master control genes”. Their protein initiates a program rather than a specific set of structures. So the mouse gene makes fly eyes in the fly and mouse eyes in the mouse, and the fly gene does the same. So we felt that perhaps the result of implanting the concertina gene in other species to make species-specific organs would be interesting.

 

NSD: What did you find?

 

W: Well, we found a profusion of little tiny concertinas growing all over the flies. (See Fig 1B)

 

NSD: Were they real concertinas? Could they make sounds?

 

W: Well, it’s hard to tell. First, you have to play them with micromanipulators. Secondly, A is tuned to 3520 Hz, so they’re pretty hard to hear.

 

NSD. So, what was the next step, Dr. Weizenstein?

 

Next, we tried the squid, because we were already using those for another project. As this article shows, the genetic program seemed to take over the whole organism. The results were disappointing, but actually quite tasty!

 

From there we went on to mammals. Although what we found differed across species, the results were almost always interesting. Look at some of the examples (Figure 2).

 

In some cases, animals repeatedly produced complete concertinas in a kind of “budding off” fashion (A). At other times (B, C), the new ectopic organ was an integral part of the animal and could not be detached. There were also cases of spontaneous regressive mutations that produced deeply disturbing phenotypes, as in panel D.

 

There was much more in this article, but that’s enough about this exciting development for now. I’m off to the Southwest Concertina Workshop in Palestine, TX today, so I will not be available to respond to any comments you might have for a couple of days.

Edited April 1, 2005 by Stephen Mills

[Greg Jowaisas]

I just heard on the news that Dr. Weizenstein's research facility has been quarantined by the CCD. As evidenced by Stephen's wonderful photos the

"concertina gene" can jump species, even phylums! Witness the poor dachsund infected with the "Crabb concertina gene"!

 

Frightening and exciting!

 

Greg

 

(CCD: Center for Concertina Devolution)

Edited April 1, 2005 by Greg Jowaisas

[Henk van Aalten]

There was much more in this article, but that’s enough about this exciting development for now.  I’m off to the Southwest Concertina Workshop in Palestine, TX today, so I will not be available to respond to any comments you might have for a couple of days.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Stephen,

 

I'm flabbergasted and almost speechless of excitement .

First the discovery of Jonathan (see this topic) and now this stunning scientific discovery!

 

It must be a lucky day for science!!!

[Chris Timson]

Well, my gast is completely flabbered, I don't mind telling you!

 

For further scientific revelations, I could refer you back to the ancient Albertiddle thread, wherein it was shown that the entire universe was a single action bass concertina, and the microwave background radiation merely the note it is playing. But I won't.

 

Chris