The ASPM gene!!!

One interesting fact I came across recently was about the ASPM gene. This gene can be found on chromosome 1, and it is rather large (10,434 letters long, divided into 28 paragraphs or 'exons'). But the most interesting fact about this gene is that between the 16th and 25th exons there is a single phrase of letters which is repeated over and over again. And it has been found that the number of times this pattern is repeated in the gene of an animal is linked proportionally to the number of neurons in its adult brain!
But it gets better - the arrangement usually starts with isoleucine and glutamine, respectively abbreviated to I and Q. This means that the number of 'IQ' repeats on the ASPM gene could correspond to the relative IQ of the species!
(Note: you are not expected to find this humorous yourself - but there may be a few nerds among you that do. I hope.)
But back to serious learning - the method by which this gene achieves this is it appears to determine the number of times neuronal stem cells in the brain are able to divide roughly two weeks after conception, which then controls how many neurons there will be. There will almost certainly be other factors that also play important parts of course, but I for one am rather excited about the prospect of there being (to simplify things probably too much) an 'IQ gene'.


Source: Nature via Nurture by Matt Ridley (I may end up using this source a lot!)