Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Libby and Ritalin, Mice and Knuckles

Libby Purves is on fine form again today:
"... One woman interviewed about the marvels of Ritalin complained that before it her three-year-old was always asking questions, and going on to another as soon as one was answered, which drove her mad. Well, it drives us all mad: 'Why is the moon? Can sheep fly?' But if we are wise, we rejoice in it."

I can relate to this. The three year old middle master Pedant-General floored us all the other day with:
Do mice have knuckles?


Well? Do they? And if so, what for?



2 comments:

Devil's Kitchen said...

Accoding to this (scroll down to see knuckles highlighted. If the link works, of course) they do indeed.

"How do we generate the Dorsal- Ventral axis?

Palms - ventral

Knuckles - dorsal

Need to be sure that extensor muscles of digits form on the dorsal side and that flexor muscles form on the ventral side."

It's a description of experiments on mice. One has to assume that they have knuckles since they have, like us, jointed phallanges (fingers, for all you lucky non-biologists out there) and, thus, knuckles. I don't think that they are for anything particularly.

http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:NXwSPXXdUgcJ:facstaff.bloomu.edu/chansen/development/DB15%2520Hox%2520limb.ppt+do+mice+have+knuckles&hl=en&client=safari

DK

Anonymous said...

I don't know about knuckles, but some bald mice now have hair - which is of comfort to some of us.

See: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/09/0927_050927_baldmice.html