Pharyngula::Cyclopia

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Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Cyclopia

PZ Myers • 39 Comments (last page)

Apostropher mentions that some people find this picture of a one-eyed kitty unbelievable. Should I mention one of my little hobbies?

I do some work on holoprosencephaly. That kind of cyclopia is fairly common, and here are a few pictures to back that up.

At the top left is a zebrafish larva with ethanol-induced cyclopia, and a control below it. Top right are some sheep skulls—the top one is a case of natural holoprosencephaly, induced by a teratogen found in plants of the genus Veratrum (Mama Sheep ate some bad weeds during her pregnancy). The bottom picture is a row of rabbit pups that were intentionally exposed to that same teratogen, and all were born with that weird one-eyed look.

I've got a set of procedures that allow me to generate one-eyed fish at will. The agents responsible seem to muck up signal transduction at the midline in early development; my particular interest is in tracking down the patterns of cell death and aberrant cell migrations that produce the final phenotype. So, the one-eyed baby animal is a common sight around here, and the kitten is actually a rather uninteresting example: I like animals where I have access to the whole process of eye and face development in a petri dish, without have to chop into a bloody messy uterus to see it.

Oh, and my one-eyed fish don't make it to adulthood. Changes to the facial midline disrupt primary blood flow rather catastrophically, and they only last a week to ten days, with diminished circulation in the body and an unfortunately inflating heart and pericardium—their hearts actually explode.

Trackback url: http://tangledbank.net/index/trackback/3705/

Comments:

#57560: Keith Douglas — 01/11 at 07:15 PM
What a pitiful, sad, creature. I am glad that some people (like PZ) are working on understanding such sports of nature, though.

#57564: — 01/11 at 08:26 PM
I dunno, the sentence that really grabbed me was:

Should I mention one of my little hobbies?

That one had sinister chuckle all over it!

#57565: — 01/11 at 08:54 PM
To answer Polyphemus question:
Cyclopia is a well-recognized human congenital condition, and the poor infants are either stillborn or live only a few hours or days after birth. This is due to the usual host of associated anomalies such as a unilobate brain (holoprosencephaly), malformed heart, abnormal blood circulation. They have a characteristic appearance, with a normal appearing body, but a face with a single midline fused orbit and a variably fused eye, and a proboscis (non-functioning nose) ABOVE the eye. They are doubtless the source of the legendary Cyclops of the ancient Greeks.

Trackback: Cyclops-Kitty? Qu'est-ce que c'est? Tracked on: PhaWRONGula (72.9.234.70) at 2006 01 11 21:05:33
...It was a one-eyed, soon died, google-pimpin' puddy-picture, One-eyed, bona fide! blog-bloatin' puddy-picture, One-eyed, worldwide web-invadin' puddy-picture...

#57579: — 01/11 at 10:30 PM
Here's a dishy piece of utterly speculative gossip for you all: Tom Cruise might have holoprosencephaly! A neurologist muses aloud: http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/45654#1066483

Midline incisor, family history of retardation, dyslexia, small stature, history of stillborn babies... the signs are there. And Tom recently bought Katie an ultrasound machine. To monitor facial development of the embryo, perhaps?

If true, I think it's wonderous. Somehow, a little mutant troll, stunted both genetically and culturally, has become America's sweetheart. It's like a fairy tale.

Trackback: Коте-мутант Tracked on: DaggerRant (207.7.108.235) at 2006 01 12 03:05:56
По време на дневната блог обиколка се натъкнах на това: ...

#57598: Bryan Trim — 01/12 at 05:51 AM
When I was stationed at Fort Sam Houston, TX I worked at Brooke Army Medical center. One of the strange "details" i got stuck with was going down to the histopathology department and getting rid of about a years worth of old anatomical pathology specimens. Mainly stuff like leftovers from autopsies. However, there was an entire room filled with preserved specimens, such as conjoined fetuses ect. The oddest one had four legs, two arms,and a big old head that had two big lobes in the back, and a weird mashed together face. There were other specimens of note, but no cyclopeans......

#57602: MBains — 01/12 at 07:35 AM
Two from Mrs Tilton:
Or maybe the cyclopokitties' mamas eat sheep who've eaten the weed;

Oh yah! We can all benefit from that warning! {-;

or maybe they are the offspring of Uranus and Gaia.

I thought those were called butt-puppies??? er... yikes!

Either way, I'm taking No Wallpaper from this post. LOL!

#57608: — 01/12 at 09:20 AM
PZ Myers Perhaps you should have mentionned that holoprosencephaly happens (not on purpose, though) in humans. Aha and now the horde of IDiots will tax you of non scientific propaganda because it does not fit with the view of God creating us ressembling his image...

#57610: — 01/12 at 09:41 AM

PZ Myers Perhaps you should have mentionned that holoprosencephaly happens (not on purpose, though) in humans. Aha and now the horde of IDiots will tax you of non scientific propaganda because it does not fit with the view of God creating us ressembling his image...

Who says JHVH doesn't have one big ol' lidless eye in the middle of his/her forehead?

That'd be scary as shit. Wouldn't you be intimated into compliance by that?

After all, look at all those arms Vishnu has...

#57614: — 01/12 at 10:04 AM

Who says JHVH doesn't have one big ol' lidless eye in the middle of his/her forehead?

That'd be scary as shit. Wouldn't you be intimated into compliance by that?

A burning lidless eye? Oooh!

#57621: — 01/12 at 10:58 AM
In the kitten, how is the brain development affected? Is it a single hemisphere in front, and split further back? Does the optic nerve split on the way back to the brain, or is it connected at all?

I'm curious, but - ick!

#57622: — 01/12 at 11:11 AM
When I was a kid, my father was the curator of a small museum with specimens of nature's jokes. There were several (human) cyclopeans amongst them, as well as fetuses with their organs on the outside, two-headed animals and other interesting things (and a skeleton by the door whose hand you could shake). The interior of the museum was still the same as it had been in the 19th century, when the collection was first started.

My sister and I loved that museum.

#57624: Leftist Boddhisatva — 01/12 at 11:53 AM
PZ, you need to link to your new site (which looks nice BTW)

Best

#57639: — 01/12 at 03:06 PM

PZ: I've got a set of procedures that allow me to generate one-eyed fish at will.

Epat: This is the greatest sentance ever written in the English language.

It would go well with: "I have a large supply of fissionable materials" (from SF short story Who Can Replace a Man)

I'm thinking it could be the first lyric of a Joe Walsh song.

#57662: — 01/13 at 09:04 AM
The book:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0142004820/sr=1-1/qid=1137164380/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-1681113-4781561?%5Fencoding=UTF8
has a good discussion of various freakishly weird birth conditions and genetic defects in humans, including cyclopia, with accompanying pictures. It's for a non-science audience. I found it enlightening.

#57694: Alethea — 01/25 at 03:34 AM
I'm curious about the blood-flow issue. Mammalian cyclops don't have this problem. Is the aortic arch misshapen in the zebrafish, too?
Also, do you get to pick the "submit the word you see below" list? because it's awfully embryological this time.

#57701: Wil Nusser — 02/01 at 07:17 AM

So, can we start calling ID "Incompetent Design?"

I'm sure someone's done this, but it still sounds good to me.

CS -- This has been done, complete with a song. Find it here:

http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2005/11/the_other_id.php

-- Wil

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Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Cyclopia

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