Saturday, July 14, 2007

Gaining mass is easy

if your myostatin proteins are FU.

More pictures (and a nice story) of Wendy the whippet here (thanks Jade!).
Turns out to be an 11-bp deletion for these Belgian Blue cattle.

There are at least two documented cases in humans (1,2).

3 comments:

kenny g said...

So are we seeing the next step in evolution, or is there a physical/functional limitation in strength (or speed vs strength, etc) due to these myostatin mutations?

brian said...

Turns out that the mutation is not necessarily correlated with strength. I'll track down the reference in a bit, but it agrees with observation that strength and power aren't necessarily correlated with size. This is course is within limits, bigger muscles applied equally will generate more force, but there are lots of other factors. I mean, look at Dimas, he puts >400lbs over his head, but weighs less than you!

Also, evolutionarily, big&strong doesn't necessarily win over weak&fast. Even the simplest energy argument applies here. The anecdotes are that the myostatin-deficient kids eat like horses.

kenny g said...

Ah, reassuring we're not about to be taken over by a race of hulks...

There was a recent article in the NYT about bully whippets and breeding practices.