Current Events 2 - Deleting "Homer Simpson Gene" Creates Super Smart Mice

Deleting "Homer Simpson Gene" Creates Super Smart Mice

Adrian 7A

September 29

Scientists from Emory University have made a pretty surprising discovery: There was a gene in mouse brains, when deleted, makes the mice smarter. The mice with the gene removed remembered objects and navigated around mazes than mice with the gene intact. The article I read called the gene-removed mice "Mensa mice," and I did some researching on that topic, and it turns out that Mensa is a club for people/geniuses with very high IQs. The gene the scientists deleted is the RGS14 gene, which is located in the CA2 region of the Hippocampus. (great naming, right?) The hippocampus is the part of the brain that deals with learning, and although scientists know a lot about the hippocampus, the CA2 region is  almost unknown.

It seems surprising that the brain has things in it that make it dumber, and not smarter. You would think it would have gotten deleted during evolution, or maybe it has some hidden purpose. This scenario is similar to a story that made news in the tech world recently, that there was a leaked image that showed  that Intel would be putting fully capable processors in laptops but limiting their functionality, and to unlock full performance and functionality, users would have to buy a card with a special code for $50. Maybe in the future, students will routinely have an operation at a young age to remove the gene, and all students would be smarter. It's hard to see where this is going.
Sources: http://gizmodo.com/5642016/deleting-homer-simpson-gene-creates-super-smart-mice