DNA experiments on invertebrates

I kind of thought by now the results of weird experiments would have started trickling in where DNA manipulation was being used. So far I have seen nothing that caught my attention. Any news in this area?

There has been plenty of genetic manipulation being done in laboratories for years now. Most of the results are not all that “weird” or spectacular. You can (and they do) change, or introduce, a gene here or there, but if you mess too much with an organisms DNA you are going to kill it. What sort of things were you expecting? You don’t get science fiction type mutants, and most scientists are not interested in “weird”, they are interested in useful, either useful in the laboratory, for further experiments, or useful commercially, like genetically modified crop plants.

I wasn’t really expecting anything in particular beyond oddities that might pop up durring the course of normal research. It could be oddities that affected behavior or physical oddities.

If you pull the front legs off of male fruit flies, they become bisexual and into bestiality, if that floats your boat at all.

They’ve now put glow-in-the-dark genes into rabbits and cats- that’s pretty weird.

Invertebrate rabbits and cats, now that would be something. :wink:

Not DNA manipulation, but good, old fashioned genetics: discovery of homeobox genes. These genes are what give different segments of bodies identity. This part will be a head, wings, abdomen etc. In fruit flies, you can mutate these genes to switch identity and get effects like legs growing where antennae should, just by mutating a single gene.

Antennapedia locus:

Humans have these genes, too. It helps pattern the embryo to set identity from head to foot of different body regions.

Hox (homeobox) genes: Hox gene - Wikipedia

I’m surprised you didn’t find the Hox genes stuff interesting. I thought it’d be up your alley. Ah, well.

Apparently HoneyBadger don’t care!

:smiley:

Where’s our giant octoscorpions dammit?! Kim Jong-un’s screaming for his back order.

There’s some interesting research being done on the genetics of neural development in cephalopods with an eye towards developing treatments for paralysis or even the possibility of limb regeneration.

That was a good link, thank you.