Wendy the Whippet

You can view these photos of whippet dogs.

The first vertical column is of typical whippets.

The middle vertical column is of whippets with one normal copy, and one myostatin mutation copy - you see, as is often the case, one trait is NOT recessive to the other, both genes are expressed, and these whippets run faster than other whippets - read from the link.

The right-side vertical column are the whippets with two copies of the mutated gene. They have huge muscles.

http://commons.wikipedia.org/
(enter: myostatin)

Wild Goose Hunt

You've seen photos and video of Wendy the Whippet with the mutated "stop code" gene that should (but in her case doesn't) turn off muscle growth?
(google: wendy the whippet) - many articles, and photos.

You know about the cattle breed, Belgian Blue - they are often shown with their butts shaved. I don't know why, other breeds aren't. Could be that the huge rear muscle prevent the poop from failing down? and they are shaved because that part gets dirty?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_Blue

Ignore the blog title, this article is something else:

http://www.who-sucks.com/people/monstrous-myostatin-misfortunes-a-collection-of-myostatin-deficiency-pictures

Science has, once again, brought us to a fork in the road. In the comments at "who sucks" , you can read about pills that turn off the myostatin stop code, and some people think they would like to have that.

But the questions/problems are much much more vast than beefy cattle. Scientists no longer have to wonder IF they can tinker with the human genetic code - the question is how best to do it. Because companies, and governments will tinker with it.

We hope, that they will do better than the dog breeders, who have made a mess of things - and who, not only don't say they are sorry, they keep on with ideas that don't work.

Balance please. The dog breeders won't buck a bad system, and the scientist have not shown any "big picture" plan - just random individual guesses.

One thing from dog breeding: the truth is usually not simple.
Unintended consequences pop up when you change things.
Changes that have benefits, also have costs.

Like the Belgian Blue cattle, with the mutated myostatin gene, the cows often need C-sections, and the bulls often sire calves that must be born Cesarean, even when bred to cows who usually give birth vaginally.

If you change one protein to effect a particular item, you are also changing that protein's effect in the whole system.

Just breeding the best to the best doesn't work. Whippets that race the best, are often heterozygous for the mutated myostatin gene, so 1/4 of their puppies turn out like Wendy.

"who sucks" states, in the comments, that Einsteins brain was different. I'm not sure about that, but, what is unusual, is usually deviant, even if it seems to be better.

That is, super-normal is often another form of ab-normal. Something was traded.

The classic example being the scientist said to have 2 heads, but no heart.

There are stereotypes of strong men who weren't smart, and smart men who were weak, or heartless - as if, doubling one trait, reduced some other trait. Engineers who can't dance, dumb but pretty women, and so on. Most times stereotypes are NOT true.

But traits are more often NOT linked than linked. It is wrong to think that if a person inherits genes that make them much better at one thing, that they must (or must not) have inherited other better genes as well.

That's one of the downfalls of dog breeding: He grows such pretty hair, he must also be a better stud dog to produce better hunting dogs, and better puppies. Wrong, he has a gene to grow better hair. period. Breeding for 'better' hair is stupid, it takes away the focus of breeding for health, temperament, and usefulness.

Totally one dimensional breeding, It would be a joke if it weren't so sad.