Difference between revisions of "Talk:1706: Genetic Testing"

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Consider yourself lucky.  My blood work has declared me pregnant three times this year as a male.  It's gotten to the point that it's one of the ways that my doctors check to see if the results are valid or not.  --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.213|108.162.237.213]] 15:21, 14 July 2016 (UTC)
 
Consider yourself lucky.  My blood work has declared me pregnant three times this year as a male.  It's gotten to the point that it's one of the ways that my doctors check to see if the results are valid or not.  --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.213|108.162.237.213]] 15:21, 14 July 2016 (UTC)
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:Test your self for prostate cancer. I'm serious. http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2012/11/08/home-pregnancy-tests-may-detect-mens-cancer/ [[Special:Contributions/141.101.97.82|141.101.97.82]] 07:17, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

Revision as of 07:17, 15 July 2016

Regarding the title text, elbow dysplasia is something that genetic testing might find a susceptibility to in dogs, but parvo (canine parvovirus) is a viral infection and heartworms and mange are both parasites. I'm only beginning my veterinary studies so it's possible I'm speaking in ignorance but I've never heard of any genetic factors that make one dog more or less susceptible to any of the latter three than another dog. Generally speaking, all dog owners are advised to get their dogs vaccinated against parvo and kept on a heartworm preventive treatment such as ivermectin (Heartgard and other brands). Ie., these are blanket prevention strategies recommended for all dogs and no attempt is typically made to ascertain susceptibility level before recommending these treatments.

Of course, Randall is writing a comic intended for mass consumption and it's possible he wanted to include some canine ailments that would be more commonly recognized rather than just strictly listing congenital ailments of dogs like entropion or brachycephalic syndrome, which might have caused confusion and ruined the joke. --(I don't have an account yet) 108.162.210.178 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)


Now I really wonder if anyone has actually done this before. It would be fun to see the actual results of this. 141.101.104.104 08:00, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

Just because a disease is infectious doesn't mean there can't be breed dispositions. For example, parvo in GSDs. I tend to see lots of demodectic mange in bull breeds too. This can be due to factors, such as genetic immune deficiency or particular types of skin/hair which can be inherited 198.41.239.32 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Interestingly 5% seems to be the common shared DNA between humans and dogs: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/12/1207_051207_dog_genome.html 162.158.87.35 11:05, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

I was the editor that made the original explanation. I never intended my word to be the final say; if anything, I was expecting the opposite, since I'm not educated at all in those fields. Regarding the link in parvo, I found this study, which starts that Spaniels are the most susceptible to parvo-enteritis. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3003015 173.245.52.74 14:57, 13 July 2016 (UTC)
That effectively puts Pierre Paul Broca in the wrong, from a genetic POV. More specifically his theory that the main difference between humans and primates stem from their understanding of language, something that also relates to Wernickes and Brocas areas of the brain. Obviously animals have language albeit simpler. As for testing the difference between human and animal... with blood tests this is simple, because human blood contains some unique factors. But when it comes to DNA there may be no obvious telltale signs, which would mean only a computer would be able to spot the difference. If that's true it would explain why the lab doesn't run such a test. Todor (talk) 00:42, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

When I came here, I was rather hoping to see a comment on how legitimate these ancestry services really are. Anyone? 108.162.241.133 21:10, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

I certainly do not know enough about genetics to edit the explanation nor comment substantively, but elsewhere on the web I've seen that humans' DNA is 82% "homologous" with dogs, and 60% with fruit flies! Presumably this reflects the difference between "homologous" and "shared"? As a non-scientist, 5% does 'feel' sorta low. Miamiclay (talk) 02:45, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

Well now I'm just curious what a 48% lab, 35% beagle, 12% cocker spaniel and 5% other dog would actually look like. 173.245.50.29 06:29, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

"Cueball clearly does not understand that he needed to send his own sample for testing" How in the fuck is that the "clear" interpretation of the comic? Last panel and title text both say they are his results. 108.162.210.174 11:30, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

That is not the only wrong assumption in the explanation ATM. Another user pointed out that it might not be *practically* possible to test DNA for which species it belongs to. It is not normal nor practical to do DNA sequencing, on the contrary usually a lab test means a quick PCR, and those are different enough to tell a person apart with a fail-rate of about one in a billion. Assumptions, assumptions, assumptions. 162.158.222.218 15:25, 14 July 2016 (UTC)
Found on the wikipedia page for DNA barcoding that "mtDNA barcode to assign a species name to an animal will be ambiguous or erroneous some 23% of the time". Also note that this applies to classifying a higher-order species, not like in the comic which sub-species it belongs to. According the the wikipedia page doing so would be largely bogus. 162.158.222.218 15:43, 14 July 2016 (UTC)
This also answers the question in the first panel about how legit these tests are. Spoiler alert: They are not. 162.158.222.218 15:57, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

Another comic where Randall is attacking groups. This time it's furries. Wonderful. 172.68.35.70 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Not necessarily, although I did consider it for a moment especially as there have been other comics in the past referring to furries. Except cueball has never been a furry in comics before, and even if he was that wouldn't change his DNA, so I don't think it's got anything to do with furries this time. 141.101.98.130 20:34, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

Consider yourself lucky. My blood work has declared me pregnant three times this year as a male. It's gotten to the point that it's one of the ways that my doctors check to see if the results are valid or not. --108.162.237.213 15:21, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

Test your self for prostate cancer. I'm serious. http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2012/11/08/home-pregnancy-tests-may-detect-mens-cancer/ 141.101.97.82 07:17, 15 July 2016 (UTC)