Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Massive QTL for IQ discovered....   posted by Razib @ 4/01/2008 12:06:00 AM
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Just got a note from someone I trust that a massive QTL for IQ has been discovered, on the order of 10 points in effect for a substitution of the the major allele for the minor (it's additive and independent, so homozygote minor allele ~ 20 points greater than homozygote major allele). The novel variant is found in an ethnic-religious minority population and no other phenotypic effects are discernble for those who carry the IQ boosting polymorphism. Everything is very preliminary at this point...but they've checked and re-checked and this seems to be real. There are two genes previous implicated in neurological pathologies in this region of the genome, so a molecular genetic & physiological story should be easy to extract.

I'm being a little vague on the details for obvious reasons; no one wants to be scooped. But word is spreading through the labs though, so my friend thought it might be good to prep the public and those at GNXP who are interested in this topic. Expect a Nick Wade article as soon as possible. Exciting times....

Update: Yes, April Fool's. Obviously I wasn't going to do something like taking down the site and pretending someone was going to sue us; you might recall that several GNXP readers sent the befuddled sysop of the Gene Expression Omnibus some irate emails....

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