All Things Considered

Fruit Fly Scientists Swatted Down Over 'Cheap Date'

By Robert Krulwich

Published February 9, 2009 3:52 PM

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One of the privileges of being a scientist is that when you discover something new, you get to name it. And tradition says you can name it anything you want.

Fruit flies, for example, are popular laboratory animals, and geneticists have been studying them for decades. When fruit fly geneticists find or create a gene variant that is new and different, they have a tradition — some would call it a bad habit — of having fun with the new name.

Take the official scientific name for the gene in a fruit fly that makes it hard to develop a heart. Well, somebody saw The Wizard of Oz, because the gene is called "Tinman," i.e., if it only had a heart.

And that's only the beginning.

A Glossary Of Fruit Fly Mutations

Here's a list of — I kid you not — real scientific names for fruit fly genes and the effects they produce:

Stranded At Second: A fruit fly that dies, usually in the second larval stage of development.

Agoraphobic: A fruit fly with larvae that look normal but never crawl out of the egg shell.

Groucho Marx: A fruit fly that produces an excess of facial bristles.

Cheap Date: A fruit fly that expresses high sensitivity to alcohol.

Out Cold: A fruit fly that loses coordination when the temperature drops.

Kenny: A fruit fly without this gene dies in two days, named for the South Park character who dies in each episode.

Ken and Barbie: Fruit flies that fail to develop external genitalia.

I'm Not Dead Yet (INDY): These fruit flies live longer than usual. This is from the Monty Python movie The Holy Grail, where a guy pushing a wheelbarrow calls out, "Bring out your dead," only to discover that one corpse is well enough to shout out, "I'm not dead yet!" over and over.

Jokes Help Scientists Remember

These names, concocted over the years by research scientists, have a scholarly benefit. Good jokes tend to stick in people's heads, so if a scientist happens to find a long-lived group of animals and also happens to remember that there's a longevity gene — aka "I'm Not Dead Yet" — in fruit flies, they can go to the computer, look up the fruit fly INDY gene and see if it turns up in their animal.

Genes in one creature often show up in others. Since Charles Darwin, scientists have understood that all living things are related by ancestry and by the busy flow of viruses and parasites moving across cell lines, so genes can sometimes travel from critter to critter, including from a fruit fly to a human.

But when human genes acquire fruit fly names, then these jokes become not so funny. So now, fruit fly geneticists are taking heat from their geneticist colleagues.

Thou Shalt Not

A few years ago, the Human Genome Organization Gene Nomenclature Committee, a fancy name for the folks who monitor gene names in humans, asked their members if they thought some fruit fly names were "inappropriate, demeaning and pejorative" to humans. According to the committee, most respondents said it would be OK to change some of those names to avoid embarrassing doctors and patients.

Dr. Murray Feingold, a Massachusetts clinician who treats people with genetic diseases, says, "People want to know [the names of their missing or defective] gene and what the problem is and how did it go wrong."

No Such Thing As An Inside Joke

Since it's increasingly likely some fruit fly genes will show up in humans, Feingold warns that it will not be possible for doctors to hide a scientific name like "I'm Not Dead Yet."

Patients these days can go on the Internet or to chat rooms, they can look at scientific literature, and they will see what the scientists are saying. A few years ago, those names were inside jokes. Now, says Feingold, "There is no such thing as inside jokes. The inside jokes are becoming outside jokes."

And for a doctor, he says, these names become embarrassing "when that gene becomes responsible for some kind of medical problem, and I have to tell that patient, 'Well, I'm sorry things don't look so good because you have [the] I'm Not Dead Yet gene.' "

Anticipating this problem, the nomenclature committee decided to change a few fruit fly names, which they can do because major scientific journals have apparently agreed to be ruled by the panel's decisions. The ban includes a number of mutant genes: "Lunatic Fringe," "Manic Fringe," "Radical Fringe" and "Sonic Hedgehog."

When NPR wrote the committee to ask what the new "Lunatic Fringe" gene would be called, then-chairwoman Dr. Elspeth Bruford wrote back, "It made sense to rename them on a functional — if somewhat prosaic — basis, e.g. LFNG O- fucosylpeptide 3-beta-N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase." The fruit fly geneticists find this new name something of a downer.

In our All Things Considered broadcast, Professor Jerry Coyne of the University of Chicago lays out the case for allowing a certain level of humor in the naming of genes. (Just click the listen button in the top left corner.) For decades now, these geneticists have been pioneering the discovery of new genes, and if "Shaven Baby" and "Killer of Prune" disappear from the scientific literature, "we'd still do our work and we'd still have fun," he says, "but something would have vanished from the culture."

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MELISSA BLOCK, host:

From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Melissa Block.

Here's a list of names. Ready? Stranded at Second, Cheap Date, Out Cold and I'm Not Dead Yet. Believe or not, those are the formal scientific names of certain fruit fly genes, and thereby hangs a tale. Who better to tell it then NPR's science correspondent Robert Krulwich.

ROBERT KRULWICH: One of the privileges of being a scientist is when you discover something new, say you found a new gene that no one has ever seen before - and let's make it a fly - you get to name it, and you can give it any name you like. Most scientist are very traditional, so with genes - which are little bits of DNA - they use in number and letter formula…

Unidentified Woman: M, zero, zero, four, four…

KRULWICH: …which is kind of boring. But there is a group of scientists, fruit fly geneticists…

Professor JERRY COYNE (Professor, University of Chicago): I have to admit, I'm one of them.

KRULWICH: Who have decided - and they've been doing this for years, as Professor Jerry Coyne of University of Chicago - to get a little frisky when they name genes.

Prof. COYNE: Well, sitting at the lab for six or seven hours a day staring at flies under the microscope, your mind goes off in sort of strange directions.

KRULWICH: So, a few years ago, when Jerry discovered a gene, it was mutant gene that made his fruit flies very purple. The name he chose for that gene was Zinfandel…

(Soundbite of cymbal crash)

(Soundbite of laughter)

KRULWICH: …after the purple grape. And that is now the official scientific name for the gene.

Prof. COYNE: Yeah. We have the liberty to use those kind of names. I mean, some day, they may crack down on us.

KRULWICH: But in the meantime, here's what fruit fly geneticists call a gene that makes a fruit fly with no external genetalia, no visible genetalia: They call it the Ken and Barbie gene.

Prof. COYNE: That's right.

(Soundbite of laughter)

KRULWICH: That's the scientific name. And maybe my favorite gene name of all of them comes from the Monty Python movie "The Holy Grail," set during the black plague, where if you've seen the film, you'll remember there's guy with a wheelbarrow who comes down the street crying…

(Soundbite of movie, "Monty Python & the Quest for the Holy Grail")

Mr. ERIC IDLE (Actor, Writer, Comedian): (as Dead Collector) Bring out your dead.

KRULWICH: Bring out your dead.

(Soundbite of movie, "Monty Python & the Quest for the Holy Grail")

Mr. IDLE: (as Dead Collector) Bring out your dead.

KRULWICH: And one of the bodies about to dumped into the wheelbarrow keeps saying I'm not dead yet. I'm not dead yet. Or, in the musical version on Broadway, he sings…

(Soundbite of stage play, "Spamalot")

Unidentified Man: (Singing) I am not dead yet. I can dance and I can sing. I am not dead yet. I do (unintelligible) thing. I am not dead yet, don't need to go to bed. No need to call the doctor, 'cause I'm not yet dead.

KRULWICH: So, naturally, when fruit fly geneticists discovered a gene that helps fruit flies live much, much longer than expected, they chose to call it INDY, spelled I-N-D-Y, which stands for I'm Not Dead Yet.

Prof. COYNE: We're just having too much fun, you know? How often do you get the pretty little humor in your day-to-day work?

KRULWICH: Of course, not all geneticists turn genes into jokes. It's just the habit of fruit fly geneticists.

Prof. COYNE: We're nerds, you know. We're not computer nerds that sit up all night and drink Mountain Dew. But we have our own ways of being geeky, and one of them is to give funny names to things.

KRULWICH: And by the way, there's a scientific benefit, here, says Jerry, because good jokes stay in people's head. So if you're, say, a research scientist working on mammals or on porcupines and you find an usual group of animals with very really long lives, the I'm not dead yet joke reminds you there is such a thing as longevity genes. Fruit flies have them, so maybe your critters have them, too. Jokes help you remember your science, says Jerry.

Prof. COYNE: I think so. I mean, how can you forget the name - look, you know the name of gene, I'm Not Dead Yet. Right? I mean, how many genes can you name your own body? This is a gene that's in flies. So, yeah, it helps you remember them. And it - also, it tells you what they do.

KRULWICH: And yet in 2006, a London-based group, the Human Genome Nomenclature Committee, announced that some of these names are so potentially offensive to people, they should be banned right now. And because the committee is backed by major scientific journals, three of the names - Lunatic Fringe, Manic Fringe, Radical Fringe - were banned as inappropriate, demeaning and pejorative (unintelligible).

Dr. MURRAY FEINGOLD (Director of Birth Defect Center, Massachusetts): There you go. Good for them. And I agree with them.

KRULWICH: Dr. Murray Feingold runs a birth defect center in Massachusetts.

Dr. FEINGOLD: I'm a genetic clinician.

KRULWICH: So he sees lots of patients with dwarfism and genetic cancers and diseases. And just because a genetic mutation turned up first in fruit fly doesn't mean it's only in fruit flies.

Dr. FEINGOLD: Ultimately, some of them will become mutations…

KRULWICH: In humans.

Dr. FEINGOLD: …in humans, without question.

KRULWICH: And because those genes were first discovered in fruit flies, those gene keep their fruit fly names. That's a problem, says Dr. Feingold. Because if a patient one day walks into his office and says tell me, doctor, what's the name of my defective gene - by the way, does that ever come up?

Dr. FEINGOLD: Oh, sure it does. People want to know the gene and what the problem is and how did it go wrong.

KRULWICH: So they ask: What gene?

Dr. FEINGOLD: Oh, they're very sophisticated. Not everybody, of course, but they're very sophisticated. If you go online…

KRULWICH: Dr. Feingold says these days, people with gene problems have Web sites and chat rooms and advocacy groups. They read, they share, they know a lot.

Dr. FEINGOLD: The days where doctor could say you have x, y, z are over.

KRULWICH: And that doesn't mean you have to tell them, well, you have the Barbie and Ken gene. I mean, they got to be…

Dr. FEINGOLD: (unintelligible)

KRULWICH: You could give it an abbreviation of some kind, right?

Prof. COYNE: But they'll just tell the patient a name that won't be funny.

KRULWICH: Exactly. Call it KAB, short for Ken and Barbie. The patient's not going to…

Dr. FEINGOLD: Why should I hide what the name of the gene is?

KRULWICH: Well…

Dr. FEINGOLD: There should be no need for that.

KRULWICH: Yeah. But you're making no effort at all to help the research scientists who finds this jokes useful because they're so descriptive. I mean, what's more descriptive than I'm Not Dead Yet? It tells you exactly what it does. It keeps you alive.

Dr. FEINGOLD: Yes, except when that gene becomes responsible for some type of medical problem and I have to tell that patient, well, I'm sorry things don't look good because you have I'm Not Dead Yet gene. And they'll look at me, and rightfully so. Are you a physician? Are you are scientist? What are you with those type of terms?

KRULWICH: These jokes would be fine, says Dr. Feingold, if they were inside jokes, known only to scientists. But now, with the Internet, people can discover what scientists are saying to each other, so there's no privacy anymore.

Dr. FEINGOLD: So there is no such thing as inside jokes. The inside jokes now becoming outside jokes.

KRULWICH: So people who would never know about the Ken and Barbie genes, now they know. And even if scientists tried to hide their jokes, the media wouldn't let them.

Dr. FEINGOLD: The reason you're talking to me is a whole other subject, and this will be reported.

KRULWICH: I guess I should just shoot myself.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Dr. FEINGOLD: Yeah, well, not if you have that You're Not Dead Yet gene.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Dr. FEINGOLD: You'll be all right.

KRULWICH: The nomenclature committee in London told NPR there may be further occasion to ban even more joke names.

Prof. COYNE: And so, you know, someday, it's all going to revert back to very dry numbers and, you know, letters instead of names. But if they took away that priviledge, we'd still do our work and we'd still have fun, but something would have vanished from the culture.

KRULWICH: Fruit fly geneticist Jerry Coyne. I'm Robert Krulwich, NPR News Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.

Source: NPR

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