Ninetendo's "Pokemon" and Cancer
Nintendo's lawsuit over cancer gene "Pokemon"
Another link calling it the Streisand Effect: You draw attention to the very things you don't want attention drawn. It's like Google Ranking, you raise a profile by linking it, even if you were to tell people not to visit it. It's like Lakoff's "Don't think of an elephant!"
Now, the boring, opinionated stuff: What's the matter with naming genes after catchy monikers?
Research in 1999, for example, has implicated Sonic Hedgehog (Shh) in regulating growth and patterning of the cerebellum. Previously, problems in Sonic hedgehog signaling had been involved in causing medulloblastoma, a type of child cancer.
The researchers eventually found out that Shh mRNA was found in mice 17 days into embryonic development. They did experiments with blocking Shh and found out the effects of hyperexpression and underexpression of Shh that lead to various defects in the growing embryos of mice and chicks.
There are other names that you'll learn in a typical genetics class: Hunchback, Gap, Giant, Krüppel, Caudal, Nanos, Hedgehog (different from Sonic Hedgehog), all of which remain in use because they're easier to remember.
Note: I know these things because I write some paragraph summaries of several different papers for extra credit in one of my classes.
The other papers I've read is on Zebrafish mutants that negatively regulates the Hedgehog signaling pathway (by PLoS Genetics, an open-access journal); characterization of Suppressor of fused, where they found that fused mutants could be restored to wild-type phenotypicity by mutating the Su(fu) gene; and finally, the Patched protein, where they cleaved the protein into two to see if they could dimerize and how that affected Hh signaling.
I certainly will not be confused if articles blare up with "Pokémon Causes Cancer" because I know that playing video games doesn't cause cancer. I suspect some unwitting parents may only need to hear the headline before scrambling to take the Pokémon cards away, leaving their children bawling.
Then again, does anyone care about Pokémon anymore? I thought they played Yu-Gi-Oh, or something.
Another link calling it the Streisand Effect: You draw attention to the very things you don't want attention drawn. It's like Google Ranking, you raise a profile by linking it, even if you were to tell people not to visit it. It's like Lakoff's "Don't think of an elephant!"
Now, the boring, opinionated stuff: What's the matter with naming genes after catchy monikers?
Research in 1999, for example, has implicated Sonic Hedgehog (Shh) in regulating growth and patterning of the cerebellum. Previously, problems in Sonic hedgehog signaling had been involved in causing medulloblastoma, a type of child cancer.
The researchers eventually found out that Shh mRNA was found in mice 17 days into embryonic development. They did experiments with blocking Shh and found out the effects of hyperexpression and underexpression of Shh that lead to various defects in the growing embryos of mice and chicks.
There are other names that you'll learn in a typical genetics class: Hunchback, Gap, Giant, Krüppel, Caudal, Nanos, Hedgehog (different from Sonic Hedgehog), all of which remain in use because they're easier to remember.
Note: I know these things because I write some paragraph summaries of several different papers for extra credit in one of my classes.
The other papers I've read is on Zebrafish mutants that negatively regulates the Hedgehog signaling pathway (by PLoS Genetics, an open-access journal); characterization of Suppressor of fused, where they found that fused mutants could be restored to wild-type phenotypicity by mutating the Su(fu) gene; and finally, the Patched protein, where they cleaved the protein into two to see if they could dimerize and how that affected Hh signaling.
I certainly will not be confused if articles blare up with "Pokémon Causes Cancer" because I know that playing video games doesn't cause cancer. I suspect some unwitting parents may only need to hear the headline before scrambling to take the Pokémon cards away, leaving their children bawling.
Then again, does anyone care about Pokémon anymore? I thought they played Yu-Gi-Oh, or something.
posted by Alan at December 21, 2005
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