Heritability of Magical Powers Investigated

A multilocus model with a dominant gene for magic might exist, controlled epistatically by one or more loci, possibly recessive in nature. Magical enhancers regulating gene expressionmay be involved, combined with mutations at specific genes implicated in speech and hair colour such as FOXP2 and MCR1.

The most important thing about this study is not its conclusion, but what we will do with it.

The study, in the current issue of the British Medical Journal (here), is surely to be picked up by some of the major news agencies. Another recent study, linking testosterone to humor, was, ans passed muster as a major story (see my earlier post). It remains to be seen if the present study on the inheritance of magical power, will have the same magical effect on the press...

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You can now read the Krause et al (2007) paper from Current Biology regarding the FOXP2 variant found in Neanderthals in an open-access on-line form at Current Biology Online. Here is the summary of the article: Although many animals communicate vocally, no extant creature rivals modern humans in…
Specific language impairment (SLI) is a language disorder that affects growing children, who find it inexplicably difficult to pick up the spoken language skills that their peers acquire so effortlessly. Autism is another (perhaps more familiar) developmental disorder and many autistic children…
Today, a new paper published in Nature adds another chapter to the story of FOXP2, a gene with important roles in speech and language. The FOXP2 story is a fascinating tale that I covered in New Scientist last year. It's one of the pieces I'm proudest of so I'm reprinting it here with kind…
Earlier studies have indicated that a gene called FOXP2, possibly involved in brain development, is extremely conserved in vertebrates, except for two notable mutations in humans. This finding suggested that this gene may in some way be involved in the evolution of language, and was thus dubbed by…

This research was sent to the British Wizarding Medicine Journal and accidentally routed to the muggle journal by a trainee in the Magical Sorting department of the Royal Post. The Oblivators are be on their way.