Aside from containing about eleventy hundred papers on Ardi–our new 4.4 million year-old ancestor–this week’s issue of Science has an interesting article on the genetics of dog hair. What is there to know about dog hair, you ask? Well, it turns out that nearly all of the phenotypic variation in dog coats (curly, shaggy, short-haired, etc.) is explained by recent mutations in just three genes. It’s another beautiful example of how complex phenotypes can emerge from relatively small genotypic differences. I’d tell you much more about it, but I’m very lazy busy right now. For more explanation, see here, here, and here (you’re free to ignore the silly headline of that last article). Oh, and here’s a key figure from the paper. I’ve heard that a picture is worth a thousand words, which effectively makes this a 1200-word post. All this writing is hurting my brain, so I’ll stop now.
