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Yuk yuk yuk. Offspring are all right. Very interesting though. 300 offspring, both parents left-y, but all offspring right-y. It seems curious that left-y is s
by daveguy 9y ago
Yuk yuk yuk. Offspring are all right. Very interesting though. 300 offspring, both parents left-y, but all offspring right-y. It seems curious that left-y is so rare and according to the article additional genetic studies are needed before the left-y cause is determined. Maybe it isn't genetic, but a rare quirk of development.
I was wondering why right-y is so prominent, but if there are physical limitations during mating between left vs right then one would naturally emerge. No mentions of alternate snail species in the article with left-y shells, but apparently left vs right shells are distinguishing features of gastropods (land and sea snails).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gastropod_shell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gastropod_shell
An interesting natural constraint on design. Edit: and by design I mean constraint on emergence / naturally restrained emergence, not some externally imposed design.
- userbinator 9y agoIt seems curious that left-y is so rare and according to the article additional genetic studies are needed before the left-y cause is determined. Maybe it isn't genetic, but a rare quirk of development. My wild guess, based on only a primitive knowledge of genetics and with analogy to computing, is that although DNA is highly "error-corrected", very very rarely this fails and a "bit flip" that reverses the shell goes through uncorrected.
- leoc 9y agoAt least he had his wish to die before he got froze. And just in case anyone is missing the joke in the choice of name, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Corbyn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Corbyn .
- sandebert 9y agoHoly crap, it's the dude from Half Life 2!
- tzahola 9y agoIt can be that multiple independent recessive mutations can cause leftyness. So if the parents don’t have the same lefty-genes, then the offspring will merely be carriers, but will look normal.
- matt4077 9y agoWho made that song again, The kids are all right?
- Joeboy 9y agoThat is correct, yes.
- pvaldes 9y ago> I was wondering why right-y is so prominent It depends on the gasteropod species. Some species are mostly dextrogirous and other mostly levogirous. Nobody knows why. Being one or another is a barrier for reproduction and this is important for the creation of new species of molluscs. A big and very interesting group of animals comprising around 70.000 different species of snails (vs around only 3000 extant mammals instead). I couldn't care less about british politician jokes. Is more interesting to remember that there is a market for mollusc shells, and rarest items can be sold for a lots of money. Is sort like the valuable stamp with printing error.