Cyclopia
Apostropher mentions that some people find this picture o' a one-eyed kitty unbelievable. Should I mention one o' me little hobbies?
{if "I do some work on holoprosencephaly. That kind of cyclopia is fairly common, and here are a few "!=""}
I do some work on holoprosencephaly. That kind o' cyclopia is fairly common, and here are a few pictures t' back that up.
At th' top left is a zebrafish larva with ethanol-induced cyclopia, and a control below it. Top right are some sheep skulls—th' top one is a case o' natural holoprosencephaly, induced by a teratogen found in plants o' th' genus Veratrum (Mama Sheep ate some bad weeds durin' that comely wench pregnancy). The bottom picture is a row o' rabbit pups that were intentionally exposed t' that same teratogen, and all were born with that weird one-eyed look.
I've got a set o' procedures that allow me t' generate one-eyed fish at will. Fire the cannons! Shiver me timbers! The agents responsible seem t' muck up signal transduction at th' midline in early development; me particular interest is in trackin' down th' patterns o' cell death and aberrant cell migrations that produce th' final phenotype, avast. So, th' one-eyed baby animal is a common sight aroun' here, and th' kitten is actually a rather uninterestin' example: I like animals where I have access t' th' whole process o' eye and face development in a petri dish, without have t' chop into a bloody messy uterus t' see it.
Oh, and me one-eyed fish dern't make it t' adulthood. Changes t' th' facial midline disrupt primary blood flow rather catastrophically, and they only last a week t' ten days, with diminished circulation in th' body and an unfortunately inflatin' heart and pericardium—their hearts actually explode.
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{if FALSE} {/if} {if TRUE} Oooo, I wouldn't tell th' animal rights folks!! {/if}
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