genetics: only the abnormal is interesting
One of the things that drew me to the field of genetics when I was an undergraduate was the fact that geneticists seemed to value the abnormal over the normal. Genes are named for the “abnormal” phenotype, rather than the wild-type phenotype. So you get names like hedgehog, a gene, which when mutated, causes a fruitfly to develop “lawns” of prickly denticles, and fringe, which makes the fruit-fly have, well, fringes. And geneticists aren’t afraid to appropriate facets of sociology and popular culture. So one of the better known mammalian analogues of hedgehog is sonic hedgehog, named after the video game character.
And a vertebrate analogue of fringe is radical fringe. There’s even an analogue called lunatic fringe.
So it is no surprise when scientists recently discovered the gene responsible for calibrating a flower’s internal clock that they named it FIONA1, after the heroine from “Shrek”, who is human by day and ogress by night.
