"When the scientists made this genetic tweak in mice, the animals didn’t grow tails, according to a new study that was posted online last week... Darwin shocked his Victorian audiences by claiming that we descended from primates with tails..... 'This question — where’s my tail? — has been in my head since I was a kid,' said Bo Xia, a graduate student in stem cell biology at N.Y.U. Grossman School of Medicine.
A bad Uber ride in 2019, in which Mr. Xia injured his coccyx, brought it back to his mind with fresh urgency. 'It took me a year to recover, and that really stimulated me to think about the tailbone,' he said.... [H]e compared the DNA of six species of tail-less apes to nine species of tailed monkeys. Eventually, he discovered a mutation shared by apes and humans — but missing in monkeys — in a gene called TBXT.... The mutation that Mr. Xia discovered had not been observed before. It consisted of 300 genetic letters in the middle of the TBXT gene.... Even if geneticists are beginning to explain how our tail disappeared, the question of why still baffles scientists.
The first apes were bigger than monkeys, and their increased size would have made it easier for them to fall off branches... It’s hard to explain why apes without tails to help them balance wouldn’t have suffered a significant evolutionary disadvantage.... 'That’s the next outstanding question: What on earth would the advantage be?'"
ADDED: I continued reading
the article blogged in the
previous post and I ran into this, which I want to put here:
I thought, early on, I would’ve loved to have been a singer. But I realized that, at a certain point, the audience makes a pact. I remember this guy, his name was George Kirby, I saw him on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” He did the greatest impersonations of everybody. And one week, on “Ed Sullivan,” he just was going legit. He was just going to sincerely sing. And I’m going, “Is there a sandbag that drops on him at one point? You’re breaking your contract with us.” Lorne Michaels has this thing where he says, “You go to the zoo and you see the monkeys and they have a right to be reflective, but if they’re not swinging by their tails and jumping around, we go, ‘I’ll come back later.’ Marty, you’re one of the monkeys.”
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32 comments:
At this point, what difference does it make?
As a young man I was told that Jews do have tails. Told by people who didn't like me much.
The advantage not having a tail is that it's easier to quickly get into an elevator without a tail.
Now that we know which gene produces the tail, how long before Drs. Fauci and Daszak and their lab friends in Wuhan produce a human with a tail? And how long before our future young professionals get to select their modified children with or without tails?
'That’s the next outstanding question: What on earth would the advantage be?'"
Maybe nothing. Evolution means random mutation. Some mutations are fatal, some are innocuous, and some have an adaptive or survival function. The fatal ones never continue, but all others can.
Maybe something completely unrelated to balance. Some human populations have sickle cell anemia, which involves misshapen red blood cells and is a devastating health condition. However, it protects against malaria and is thereby a net positive.
Maybe tails became irrelevant over time, as their reliance on trees faded. Cave animals routinely evolve to be pale or white, as pigment no longer required for camouflage or sunburn protection. They also lose the ability to see, as eyes are pointless when living in complete darkness.
Humans routinely commit interpretive errors: your best reasoning is merely what you can imagine from partial ignorance.
One advantage of not having a tail is you can kick back in a Barcalounger and do nothing with ease.
Evolution fails the timeline test. There just isn’t enough time for single-called organisms to mutate their way into humans. I have long wondered if anyone has developed a simulation that would show this. Seems very doable but I can’t find evidence anyone has coded such an animal.
Darwin had an elegant theory but it’s premises are shaky as hell.
"It really does wag."
"Only when I'm nervous... or happy."
Most monkeys would rather be 1 foot 4 inches with a 300 inch tail.
'That’s the next outstanding question: What on earth would the advantage be?'
To not get stuck in car doors?
You have to look at the all the changes. The apes and orang-outans have bodies that are different as a whole - stronger with thicker bones, and with rotator cuffs that allow 360 degree turns. These allow heavy bodies to jump and twist in the air whereas human beings who try the same manoeuvres, pole dancers for example, suffer rotator cuff injuries. Evolution did not intend us to be pole dancers. It did intend us to play computer games as shown by it by removing the long tail so we could sit and by it giving us fine muscle control in our fingers. But evolution left enough of a tail so we can't sit for very long because it intended us to get up and get the dishes done. Evolution also gave us 23 paired chromosomes instead of 24 like the apes and chimpanzees and the other primates just so that, from then on, we couldn't marry that attractive ape swinging through the branches above and have children who were successful pole dancers instead of the correctly human basement-dwelling computer gamers.
"What on earth would the advantage be?"
I know it goes against dogma, but why on earth should every genetic change have an "advantage"?
Put Fauci in charge and let's bring back the tails.
how to tell the difference between monkeys and apes
Which I heard about a 1000 times in long road trips back in the day.
M Jordan said...Evolution fails the timeline test.
The timeline test is made up. It has no validity.
I'm intrigued by the bad Uber ride. What kind of Uber do you have to have in order to injure your coccyx?
And this is also a great view into how science actually works. A person gets curious about something utterly irrelevant, spends thousands, millions, billions of dollars researching it, makes a truly scientific (observational, not based in a hypothesis) discovery and.....it's still irrelevant. Interesting, but irrelevant.
Until the engineers (also curious, but more often bored) get hold of it. Then things get fun.
They tell us that we lost our tails
Evolving up from little snails
I say it's all just wind in sails
Are we not men?
We are Devo
Are we not men?
D-E-V-O
"Jocko Homo" -- Devo
Unimportant
Is this a Kipling Just So Story?
“Maybe nothing. Evolution means random mutation. Some mutations are fatal, some are innocuous, and some have an adaptive or survival function. The fatal ones never continue, but all others can.”
Except that the truly innocuous mutations mostly go nowhere. There’s no evolutionary pressure to adapt the gene, so it mostly won’t be - unless it is somehow genetically tied to some other positive gene. Which essentially means that they reside on the same chromosome.
Lorne Michaels was some kind of genius, but once they found out they could tip elections with things like their ridicule of Gerald Ford, who was a pretty good athlete, (I know somebody who caddied for him once who vouched for that), once they found that out, as the Kevin Spacey character said in House of Cards, "You are a fool if you choose money over power." or something like that. SNL chose power. Who knows how big their show could have remained if they were politics free like American Idol was.
Oh, the monkeys have no tails in Zamboanga,
Oh, the monkeys have no tails in Zamboanga,
Oh, the monkeys have no tails,
They were bitten off by whales,
Oh, the monkeys have no tails in Zamboanga.
Oh, the birdies have no feet in Mariveles,
Oh, the birdies have no feet in Mariveles,
Oh, the birdies have no feet,
They were burned off by the heat,
Oh, the birdies have no feet in Mariveles.
So God has a tail?
Thank Him for New York, its scientists and it’s NYT.
Also, “The Monkeys Have No Tails In Zamboanga.”
Evolution is a very efficient process. Men do indeed still have tails, but now they hang in front and serve two purposes.
Imagine the hassle of putting your pants on if there's a tail back there.
So thrilled that this happened in my lifetime. The issue troubled me so.
I say it's all just wind and sails.
Are we not men?
It made a room full of rocking chairs non-anxiety inducing.
"What on earth would the advantage [of no tail] be?"
Anything extraneous is a disadvantage, a useless part which uses energy and can get injured and infected; that's why animals which live entirely in caves generally evolve to lose their eyes, including spiders, fish, shrimp, beetles, salamanders and snakes.
Never mind the tails. How do we get to grow fur?
"The fatal ones never continue"
They do now. Perhaps advanced medicine has a long-term, negative impact on the human genome.
The apes without tails might stop climbing trees to avoid dangerous falls. After they reproduce enough to create a ground level society they evolve to the point of making Planet of the Apes movies.
There's a reason for everything.
Human beings are not just adaptive. They're inventive. Human beings have no use for a tail because they do not have a tail. Think of all the many uses we have invented for the belly button and the male nipple. Where would belly button bling designers be without belly buttons? Gov. Cuomo has been willing to take his nipple in unexpected directions and this venturesome spirit has added viability and vitality to his pubic roles.......What with gene splicing, it's just a matter of time before such an appendage is re-introduced. Perhaps, like tattoos, it will start as an underground or outlaw phenomenon, but I can see it catching on. I myself would find a prehensile tail useful as well as decorative. I suppose it would involve getting a specialized wardrobe, but it might be worth it....People are quick to criticize those who different than them, but they're just as quick to do something to make themselves different than other people. If tails predominated among wealthy gays, many here would be quick to criticize faddish gays. If, on the other hand, tails became a thing among blue collar construction or production line workers with a conservative bent, I'm sure the media types would make it into some kind of divisive MAGA hat adornment.
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