In my next post I planned to discuss a paper in the latest issue of Cell titled, "A Humanized Version of FOXP2 affects Cortico-Basal Ganglia Cells in Mice" (abstract here). A large team lead by Wolfgang Enard of the Max Planck Institute has substituted a human FOXP2 gene for a mouse FOXP2. I was amused to see that one result has been to display decreased exploratory behavior, but of course we cannot yet make any statements based on this technique yet. It is the start of a long inquiry. But I see that Carl Zimmer has posted a pretty good report on the paper on his blog, "The Loom" (here) and since I have something else I also want to discuss anyway, I'm going to refer the curious to that post.



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