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Desert Diary
Mammals/Of Mice and Men

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Lots goes on that we don't learn about until the proper instrumentation comes along. One of these things was that baby mice made sounds too high for us to hear. Now we can pick up these ultrasonic cries with sophisticated gear. The infant mice emit the ultrasonic sounds when separated from their mother—a kind of cry of distress. Now we've found out that one kind of gene, a gene called FOXP2, is vital for the emission of this sound. When mice are bred to have disrupted copies of the gene, they remained ultrasonically quiet.

What's fascinating about this other than being about mouse behavior is that we also have the FOXP2 gene, only slightly different from that of the mouse. And, when the human gene is defective, there is impairment in both the understanding and muscle control of speech: special sounds, that is. Once again, it looks like that inveterate tinkerer, evolution, has taken an ancient gene and, though it's still associated broadly with the same thing, tweaked it for the benefit, in this case, of mice and men.
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Listen to the Audio (mp3 format) as recorded by KTEP, Public Radio for the Southwest.

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Contributor: Arthur H. Harris, Laboratory for Environmental Biology, Centennial Museum, University of Texas at El Paso.

Desert Diary is a joint production of the Centennial Museum and KTEP National Public Radio at the University of Texas at El Paso.

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References

Holden, C. 2005. Gene knockout leaves mice squeakless. Science 309:47.

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