Blue gene blues

If you could name any gene, what would you name it? Come on, we’ve all thought about it. Would you give it some kind of Latin name that nobody but an academician would understand? Or would you name it something fun – something like, oh, I don’t know — Gary.

I bring it up because this week marks the 200^th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth. Darwin, of course, is the father of that secular humanistic theory called evolution. And genes are at the very core of evolution, at least according to the secular humanists who carry on Darwin’s work.

Decades of scientific inquiry have shown that genetic mutation results in plant or animal characteristics that make them better able to survive their environment, find food, find a mate, or reproduce. Because genes are passed along to the organism’s offspring, those characteristics – to the extent that they are beneficial – are repeated across subsequent generations, turning mutant nematodes with huge pectoral muscles into a barrel-chested race of superworms. This is called “survival of the fittest.”

Of course, genes are very tiny things. Much smaller than the period at the end of this sentence. Even smaller than the pixels that make up the period at the end of this sentence. But some scientists have super-strong microscopes and other instruments that allow them to isolate and study genes and figure out what they do.

This is new territory – it has only been recently that anyone could say what any of our genes do. But it turns out that as they discover new genes and their purposes, the people who make the discoveries are allowed to name the genes any old thing they want. Just like when Walt Disney discovered a new planet and named it Pluto.

Many geneticists keep things kosher, choosing prim and proper names like 1, 4-beta-D-glucan 4-glucanohydrolase isoenzyme I. Fruit fly geneticists, however, apparently hate formality and go right for the cheap laugh.

For example, there’s a special gene in fruit flies – which have extra tiny genes, because they are extra tiny – that, under certain circumstances, allows the insect to live much longer than normal. The fun-loving fruit fly researchers who burn midnight oil studying such things have named this gene the “I’m Not Dead Yet” gene, after the bring-out-your-dead scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

According to a recent report by the scientists at National Public Radio, here are some other genetic mutations and the names assigned to their unholy results:

• Groucho Marx: A fruit fly that produces an excess of facial bristles.
• Cheap Date: A fruit fly that expresses high sensitivity to alcohol.
• Out Cold: A fruit fly that loses coordination when the temperature drops.
• Kenny: A fruit fly without this gene dies in two days, named for the South Park character who dies in each episode.

But my personal favorite has to be the Ken and Barbie gene, which prevents fruit flies from developing external genitalia. This is a difficult mutation to spot, since – to the great consternation of both sexes ─ the fruit fly’s external genitalia are also extra tiny.

These are the actual, official names of the genes. Fun, huh? But every party has a pooper, and the pooper at this one is called the Human Genome Organization Gene Nomenclature Committee. This committee is responsible for monitoring gene names in people, and it is concerned. This is because many genes found in fruit flies and other animals are identical to those found in humans. And if you are a doctor, how do you explain to your patient that he is suffering from workings of the Lunatic Fringe gene?

So the Genome Organization Gene Nomenclature Committee — which needs to re-examine its own name if you ask me — is resisting the anything-goes attitude of the fruit fly culture and changing the most potentially offensive to something more, well, dignified.

I guess they have a point. But it does throw a big bucket of horse piss on the campfire.

Which brings me back to Darwin. If he were alive today, what side would he be on? The science-is-fun camp? Or, the let’s-be-serious camp?

In the coming weeks I plan to research the personality of Charles Darwin, borrow a hair that may have been saved by one of his descendents, and analyze it for its genetic makeup. That will certainly give us clues to how he would vote if he sat on the Human Genome Organization Gene Nomenclature Committee.

In the meantime, we are left to speculate. If only Mr. Darwin had had the I’m Not Dead Yet gene . . .