Animals, Bizarre

Meet Venus

-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger

Not photoshopped. Jerry Coyne has more here. Nat Geo has more here.

Fur color genes for each half of the face must reside on different loci. Coyne points out that eye color genes are no located near the fur color genes. It’s not unusual for cats, especially Siamese, to have different color eyes.

 

36 thoughts on “Meet Venus”

  1. I stopped reading after the photo of her back. OMG, which I never say.

    It is like someone stood with DNA packets and said :”first we take a pinch of that, and then a pinch or even two of this” They talk about protein folding as important. And DNA is often discussed in term of gene exposure to expression, etc.

    This should give a good scientist something to think about. It looks like someone is playing with us. Superstitious man.

    Again, was it serendipity or what caught your eye. Finding when not searching fascinates me.

    Thanks, whatever.

  2. Chimeras, Mosaics, and Other Fun Stuff
    Back to Chimeras, Mosaics, and Other Fun Stuff
    What type of test can be done to determine if you are a chimera?

    -An elementary school teacher from Texas

    November 17, 2011

    Most any type of DNA-based paternity test can tell whether or not you are a chimera. But you need a bit of luck too.

    Chimeras are really fraternal twins who fused together very early in development. The fusion happens early enough that there aren’t any issues with being conjoined or having extra limbs or anything. A chimera is simply a single person made up of cells from two different people.

    Sometimes there are outward signs that you might be a chimera. You might have the hair on one side of your head a different color than the other side. Or two different colored eyes. Or stripes that can only be seen under ultraviolet light. (There are also other explanations too.)

    Often, though, there are no signs. You might be a chimera and not even know it! Until you get a DNA test that is.

    These DNA tests are the only reliable way to tell if you are a chimera or not. Unfortunately, they don’t always work. Sometimes you can do all the right DNA tests and still not find out that you are a chimera.

    Chimeras Revealed

    Chimeras start out as fraternal twins. Two separate eggs fertilized by two separate sperm.

    http://genetics.thetech.org/ask/ask443

  6. Gurl,

    So what blood type does she have? And double DNA’s I think you said.
    Wouldn’t that lead to a potential immune war between parts? Some sort of compromise here.

    I’m only a novice, but they told us that the eye color genes are in several loci, whereas the skin color in only one locus.

    Where’d you learn all that? And is your daughter two-toned? Uh, two different colored eyes?

    ——————————————————-

    Idealist….. 🙂

    as for as the DNA etc… NO it wouldn’t… it is not two different blood types…. that would start a war…..

    DNA is different…. so some Chimeric’s have checkerboard patterned skin…. It is as if, they are 2 people patched together….
    or where one side is light skinned… and the other half, the skin is a bit darker…..

    OR… the cells in the mouth, where they often take DNA tests…. will differ say, from the DNA of the WOMB…..

    I am trying to find some photos of this….. as it is quite rare, it is not easy to find this….

    as for how I know this…. It was a documentary….
    NO first hand knowledge of this in my family…. 🙂

  7. Malisha 1, September 2, 2012 at 1:42 pm

    @ Justagurl — So, wait a minute, so this “Jane” was really a pair of Siamese twins who were joined everywhere? Did that have something to do with her kidney failure problem?
    ——————–

    Justagurl said they were non-identical twins. This makes sense b/c non-identical twins have different dna. Identical twins that have the same DNA, thus a fusion of the identical twins would result in the same DNA, not a chimera. Oops, maybe it would be a chimera (I need to look up the specifics) but not necessarily detectible b/c even if two sets of genes, they would be identical.

  8. Many years ago I was interviewing Dr. Kurt Bernischke (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Benirschke), then director of the San Diego Zoo’s Center for the Reproduction of Endangered Species (CRES) for an article I was writing about mule fertility. He mentioned that male calico cats — which can’t be explained by normal cat coat color genetics — were actually chimeras with two sets of genes.

  9. @ Justagurl — So, wait a minute, so this “Jane” was really a pair of Siamese twins who were joined everywhere? Did that have something to do with her kidney failure problem?

    A friend and I were walking down the street in NY in the mid-nineties. She was involved in one of those never-ending custody battles with a guy who had decided to make his whole life out of attacking her, and in a moment of strange lucidity, she said, “What if I REALLY bow out of this, what if I say, OK, prove those kids are MINE, the way fathers say, ‘prove their mine’ whenever they want to walk away?”

    I realized, even at the time, that she was just on mental overload because of the insanity of the court proceedings, and thus, was not thinking straight at all, but I wanted to inject some humor into the situation so we could continue to live without going off the rails. So I said:

    “It would never work. They would do DNA testing and prove that either those kids are YOURS or they are OJ’s.”

  11. While shopping in Spokane it was I believe, I came across a woman and her daughter, who resembled her markedly. Both she and her daughter had eye colors similar to this cat, that is a blue eye and a more tan colored. I was a bit envious.

  12. If the cat is indeed an expression of non-identical twins merging into one individual, I can accept that.

    Why? Just on the basis of how little we know about fetal development, the effect of the placenta on
    development, the mysterious process wherein we look like fetii of other species at different stages of fetal development. Some emerging parts recede and disappear, whereafter others appear and remain. It is indeed a mysterious process.

    Are two different eye colors a reliable marker for fused non-identical twins? Round them up, I got an empty FEMA camp near me with hungry post-docs waiting for funding.

    A new program for the Romney serf creators. Uh oh tangent again.

  13. “She is a bit of a mystery.” – Leslie Lyons, a professor at the University of California, Davis …

    Doncha just love honesty?

    “Mystery” is just another way of saying “we can’t explain it” or “this conflicts with our dogma.”

  15. Gurl,

    So what blood type does she have? And double DNA’s I think you said.
    Wouldn’t that lead to a potential immune war between parts? Some sort of compromise here.

    I’m only a novice, but they told us that the eye color genes are in several loci, whereas the skin color in only one locus.

    Where’d you learn all that? And is your daughter two-toned? Uh, two different colored eyes?

  17. When two became one in the womb

    Some babies could have started life as twins
    Jane was a puzzle to doctors. She needed a kidney transplant, but her naturally conceived sons could not donate – because they were not biologically related.

    Tests eventually showed Jane was a chimera – her mother had been pregnant with non-identical twins who had fused together in the womb to make one person.

    It meant some parts of her are derived from one twin, and the rest from the other.

    Jane, 52, was seen by doctors at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre in Boston, Massachusetts.

    Medical staff had tested her three sons to see if they were a close enough tissue match to act as kidney donors.

    But New Scientist magazine reports genetic tests showed two of her sons could not be hers.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3264467.stm

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