Blogging the Human Genome

No one kept it a secret exactly during her lifetime, but few people knew that Elizabeth Taylor was a mutant. In fact her condition, distichiasis, which usually involves a frameshift mutation near the tip of chromosome 16, helped accent Taylor?s famously lovely eyes with an extra-sexy set of double eyelashes to bat at the cameras. Taylor lucked out, though: In other victims, distichiasis scars the corneas, swells the limbs grotesquely, opens up cleft palates, and causes varicose veins. In 7 percent of patients, it also leads to heart disease, and perhaps not coincidentally, Taylor had a history of heart trouble and died of heart failure in March 2011.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=698beb30f5677969bbf6e79335a88a9a

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