Is Brian unique?

She and I walk into a pet shop. “Go chat with the birds; I want to talk to this dog in the window.” First though, while I’m checking out the other dogs in their cages while laughter comes from the birds’ section, I know she’s telling bird jokes. She laughs at a joke a bird just told her. None of the dogs in the cages appeal to me. No one says a word.

I stroll over to the pet shop’s front window and the dobbie. “How much is the doggie in the window,” I sing out and make a big smiley face.

The dobbie turns toward me with the half-wall between us and says, “Six hundred fifty dollars!”

“Do you think you worth that much?” I ask

“Of course, believe it or not, I’m good with children because I’m a coward at heart. I’m more afraid of some kid biting me!”

“Do you come with papers?”

“Hey, mister, do YOU come with papers?” sharply asks the dog with a scowl on his face.

“Ha, I want to give a quiz in math to see how sharp of a dog you are? Do you mind?”

-end of Pet Shop dialogue-

What’s going on here. Francis the talking mule routine? No way! This dog really talks, the birds talk, every pet in the year 2024 at this pet shop talks. How so?

Biologist Svante Passbo was featured recently in a New York Times article and raised such ponderous thoughts that I went to original source material to gather information for here and got lost in Nature and Current Biology. The three columns at half-a-page article is by Nicholas Wade of The New York Times and this is the part I became interested in:

A new strain of mice may have something to say about how FOXP2 affects mice. Paabo has developed mice whose FOXP2 genes have been replaced with the human version. The mice have extra neuronal connections in their brains and make an unusual sound.

“There seems to be a change in vocalization — they squeak in a different way, “ Paabo said. “But there are no obvious differences in behavior; in most ways they are normal mice.

Paabo’s bio will explain everything; Background on the man himself (from Wikipedia):

Svante Pääbo (born 1955) is a biologist specializing in evolutionary genetics. He was born in 1955 in Stockholm, Sweden and earned his PhD from Uppsala University in 1986. Since 1997, he has been director of the Department of Genetics at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. In 1992, he received the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, which is the highest honour awarded in German research.

Pääbo’s department in August 2002 published findings about the “language gene”, FOXP2, which is lacking or damaged in some individuals with language disabilities.

Pääbo is known as one of the founders of paleogenetics, a discipline that uses the methods of genetics to study early humans and other ancient populations. In 2006, he announced a plan to reconstruct the entire genome of Neanderthals. In 2007, Pääbo was named one of TIME Magazine’s 100 most influential people of the year.

By Gawk! That’s all you need is a dog or cat who talks back. The possibility is there; it can be done. Would you partner with such a pet?

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