Content Stats & Analytics for @science_vs

Science Vs
@science_vs

47,327 followers

Editor Blythe Terrell captured this image of senior producer Rose Rimler and producer Michelle Dang having a VERY exciting science conversation when some of the team got together at a Cold War Kids show at Hollywood Bowl in LA. Read on to find out what Rose was nerding out over ...👇 I was saying to Michelle and some other folks earlier that day that calico cats are almost always female because the gene that codes for black or orange is located on the X chromosome (no, I don't remember how this came up). Female cats have two X's, so they might inherit one that codes for black and the other that codes for orange. But she can only express one X at at a time, so the body randomly turns one X off per cell. (Happens in humans too!) But if the color is determined cell by cell, why do cats have those big splotches??? Shouldn't they be, like, pixelated? THIS IS THE BREAKTHROUGH MICHELLE AND I WERE HAVING WHEN PIC WAS TAKEN: The answer is that this process happens very early when the kitty is just a blastocyst (awww!) with only a handful of cells. Each cell will then clone itself as the fetus grows, again and again and againandagainandagain and that creates the blotch of a certain color. One black blotch represents the descendants of a very early cell, while the orange blotch next to it are the descendants of a different early cell. (The white patches in calicos come from a gene on another chromosome.) Images: Rose and Michelle talking, the Cold War Kids show going on in the meantime (photos by SV editor Blythe Terrell), a calico (photo by Rose) @spotifypodcasts #calico #calicocat #science #sciencefacts #cat