Sonic News and cool Sonic-related findings on the internet has been sparse this past week, so I thought I’d whip out some trivia for everybody in the first edition of USELESS KNOWLEDGE!, a “Did You Know?” type segment.  Check this out:

Sonic the Hedgehog is not only a fast hedgehog in a video game.  “Sonic Hedgehog” is also a name of a gene on chromosome 7 of a human genome.

Sonic hedgehog homolog (SHH) is one of three proteins in the mammalian hedgehog family, the others being desert hedgehog (DHH) and Indian hedgehog (IHH). SHH is the best studied ligand of the hedgehog signaling pathway. It plays a key role in regulating vertebrate organogenesis, such as in the growth of digits on limbs and organization of the brain. Sonic hedgehog is the best established example of a morphogen as defined by Lewis Wolpert’s French flag model – a molecule that diffuses to form a concentration gradient and has different effects on the cells of the developing embryo depending on its concentration. SHH remains important in the adult. It controls cell division of adult stem cells and has been implicated in development of some cancers.

Check out the rest of the article here!

SOURCE: Wikipedia