Personal Insights into Genetics
BLOG of Ron Okimoto
Hopefully an educational experience in understanding Genetics
About Bird Brain Genetics
Our Mission
This is not intended to be a comedy site. I have found that the brains of birds are not anything to scoff at. Bird brains are likely more efficient and functional for their size than the human brain. I intend to present articles that will help others understand the science that I have spent nearly my entire life learning about and extending our basic knowledge of.
I want to write up some of the material that I have been involved with that may not have gotten published. It is going to be some personal insights into genetic topics. I am going to start with something that I have been interested in since I was a kid raising a bunch of birds in my backyard. The first posts will be on feather color genetics.
Fonts are limited and there are no superscripts in the web editor so I am posting downloadable Word files. It may take a while to download the files in protected mode.
About Bird Brain Genetics
Our History
Bird Brain Genetics was started in order to keep me involved in genetics after my retirement in 2024.
Chicken E locus Nomenclature
The first post is a downloadable Microsoft Word file describing genetic nomenclature with respect to the chicken E locus. I also have a section on genetic Jargon in alphabetical order. If you understand the whole list you will understand a lot of the important aspects of genetics that should have been learned from a college introductory genetics course.
Chicken E Locus Phenotypes
In this downloadable Microsoft Word file I describe the phenotypes associated with the basic chicken E locus alleles.
Melanin and Melanocyte Molecular Biology and Table 1 Melanocyte Pigmentation genes
I have a downloadable Microsoft Word file and Excel file that lists some genes associated with melanocyte pigmentation. The genes have been placed in functional categories, and there is a description of how these categories relate to melanocyte and melanosome development and pigmentation. In the Appendix I describe how to use some web resources to get more information on specific genes.
Evolution of Melanosomes and Melanocytes
In this Microsoft Word download I summarize my notes on the evolution of melanosomes and melanocytes that I accumulated when I was looking for genes related to melanin pigmentation.