Go Forth and Multiply
A Podcast Of Unnecessary Detail
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How to Rename Human Genes
There was a Pokemon gene. But it's now called ZBTB7 after apparently Pokemon USA threatened a lawsuit over trademark. So how do human genes get renamed is a good question. And there is the human genome organization gene nomenclature committee for that. Last year they renamed human genes to make them less susceptible to auto correct mistakes in Excel. 19% of all genetics research had data attached with an auto correct error in it. The easiest fix was to rename the genes to avoid the problem. If they'd called them sonic the hedgehog, if they were all named after video game characters and whatnot, we wouldn't have had this problem. This episode is sponsored by brilliant.
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