A gene that is important for human hearing could determine whether a dog's ears are pendulous like a basset hound's or stubby like a rottweiler's, according to a genetic analysis of more than 3,000 dogs, wolves and coyotes. The study, presented on 11 January at the Plant and Animal Genome Conference in San Diego, California, found that DNA variants near a gene called MSRB3 are linked to ear length in dogs. The results were also published in December in Scientific Reports1. The project was inspired by Cobain, a gregarious, nine-year-old American cocker spaniel whose hobbies include morning swims in a local creek and following people from room to room. One day, Anna Ramey, an undergraduate working in a canine genetics laboratory at the University of Georgia in Athens, gazed at her dog Cobain's long, floppy ears and wondered: why' She took the question to her colleagues, and the project was born. 'We realized that people had studied ear carriage before ' like pointy, erect ears versus...
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