You, me and the little guy over there with the whiskers have a 99% similarity in our genes including the one to make a tail.
Of the 30,000 genes that we share only 300 are unique to each species making mice the mainstay of medical drug research for decades. Most of the time a good number of similar genes are silent (thank god– that tail thing could be problematic). The Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle has analyzed the active genes–the ones that send out messages to make functional proteins–verses the dormant ones producing three-dimensional maps of the brains of the two species. Their results were published in the April issue of Scientific American.
What did they find? Continue reading “Of Mice and Men–Their Brains that is…”
L.K. Union 