This is an awesome discovery. The name doesn’t really matter to be honest, it’s what is happening that is important. I think stem cewll research is a good thing. The limits that the Bush administration put on it awhile ago could have set us back a great deal.

It’ll run rings around the competition

Actually I recently saw a lecture about the hedgehog gene, including sonic and several other hedgehog genes, desert Hedgehog and Indian Hedgehog. They discovered the other ones first, and the lecturer basically said that researchers are bored in labs, so they sometimes name things humorous names to amuse themselves. The Sonic Hedgehog mutation is an unfortunate name, since, if I remember correctly, it basically leads to brain cancer, and it’s not too funny when a doctor tells you that you have cancer because of a sonic hedgehog in your hippocampus.

One other minuscule note, it’s actually the “Sonic Hedgehog” protein, not “Sonic the Hedgehog” protein, just to clarify.