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[The following is an exact transcript of this podcast.]
[Cartoon audio clip] “We interrupt your regular broadcast to bring you this important news bulletin.”
Humans can talk. Chimps can’t.
“Your scientific jargon staggers me, Pinky.”
In recent years scientists have learned that mutations in a gene called FOXP2 seem to be crucial for human speech. Of course, it’s much, much easier to work with mice than either chimps or people. So researchers introduced genetic changes into the mouse FOXP2.
“You will be forced up the evolutionary ladder.”
To make it more like ours.
“Causing a mutating effect on your gene pool.”
And mice with the humanized gene show brain circuit changes known to be linked to human speech. Not only that, the genetically altered mouse pups had different ultrasonic vocalizations than did garden variety mice. The research appears in the May 29th issue of the journal Cell.
“If I could talk to animals I wouldn’t waste time with experiments like this.”
The authors wrote that “with this study we get the first glimpse that mice can be used to study not only disease, but also our own history."
“Finished, Pinky.”
--Steve Mirsky
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7 Comments
Add CommentUck! We are losing control of our identity and the identity of our descendants. Until now, evolution has depended upon natural selection. Unnatural selection is sort of scary. Will genetic manipulation lead our human lines down a dead end genetic path, eventually leading to our extinction? Will we inadvertently pass on short sighted genes of vanity that the rich or powerful may decide to introduce into the human population for a variety of selfish reasons? Or, will it all be ok?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAmazing. I immediately see the basis of a hundred sci-fi movies where animals are given the ability to speak...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisand possibly learn complex languages... that we might actually be able to decode... and learn about their perceptions, and thereby ours... wow.
People are going to say this is like playing god, but, this is not playing.
Disney beat everyone to the punch with Steamboat Willy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI do not see any more reason to attempt to make animals other than human appear to be something "less", becuase they communicate differently than we do.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is very insulting to other animals as well as to "thinking" humans, to imply such an idea.
There is nothing all that great about perpetuating ones entire speices demise. Which, essentially is what humans seem to be doing. And all the while, ignoring it, by pretending such studies as this are something new, and important.
Let us all stick our feet in the toilet and ignore the fact that our hands are on the mechanism that sends us down the watery chute.
Who are you people? And why did my family leave in the "family saucer?" Father,why have you forsakin me. Oops, bad line.
'It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this.'
The experiment would have given much more fun if practised with a more complex animal, say an orangoutan or a dolphin
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFun?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisis this really what science is all about? Entertainment?
it is clear that animals are able to communicate as well as humans are, and in some cases, more proficently.
Expecting another species to demonstrate similar forms of human language is as idiotic as attempting to have a human echo locate, in order to determine the exact size, shape and depth of any given item, many yards away from them.
All animals have abilities that are not found in other animals.
Just because humans happen to have the structur of vocal cords that allow them to communicate as they do, or even the ability to stand upright, and manuever objects with opposible thumbs, does not make us any more significant than an ant, that can carry many times it's own weight, a very long distance, in order to maintain their colony.
why is it that people have the desire to or need, to suggest that we are in any way, better than other animals, because of our ability to build nuclear weapons?
Isn't "unnatural selection" a part of natural selection? These big brains of ours are driving it.
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