![]() ![]() Bob Audette wore cooler clothes than we did. Bob Audette was different from anybody any of us kids had ever met. His name was Bob Audette, and he had just moved to Anchorage from far-off New York. Thinking about this got me thinking about when I was in 8th grade. So what’s up with all these cloverleaf experts? It must be the genes, right? ![]() Also, I’m told that several of their friends can do it, too. I’m not saying our family is weird or anything, but Katie is officially the third Coyle kid to be able to perform this feat. I look over, and sure enough, she’s folded her tongue into a cloverleaf shape. I was driving my daughter Katie to school and she stuck out her tongue at me and said, “Look! I can do it!” A far smaller percentage - a genetically chosen few - could fold their tongues into the rare cloverleaf.īut a funny thing happened the other day. They said around 80 percent of people have the gene to roll their tongues in a tube shape. When you first try it, you flounder around and can’t even come close.īack when I was in fifth grade and again when I was in college biology class, my teachers informed me that tongue-rolling, like so many other talents, is genetic. But have you ever tried the cloverleaf? It’s hard. It involved 10 students practicing a few minutes a day for a week.Most everybody can roll their tongue in a tube. If mom and dad can’t roll their tongues, but you can, don’t worry - chances are you’re still their kid.Įditor’s note: An earlier version of this piece misidentified the number of study subjects in the small undergraduate study on tongue rolling. Are my parents really my parents, they want to know? He quickly puts their fears to rest. While you may think this myth is harmless, McDonald says he’s received emails from kids who don’t share the tongue-rolling status of their parents. But there isn’t a single dominant gene that’s responsible. Perhaps the same genes that determine the tongue’s length or muscle tone are involved. ![]() More than one gene could contribute to tongue-rolling abilities. This doesn’t mean tongue rolling has no genetic “influence,” McDonald says. After a week of practice, one participant achieved a successful tongue roll. In fact, one of McDonald’s undergraduate students conducted a small study asking 10 non-tongue-rolling participants to try rolling their tongue each day. See this and this, for example.ĭon’t be discouraged if you aren’t a member of the tongue-rolling elite - some can train their tongues to obey. “I am embarrassed to see it listed in some current works as an established Mendelian case,” he wrote in 1965 in his book, “A History of Genetics.” Yet, McDonald says, the myth is still taught in science textbooks and classrooms. ![]() Sturtevant later acknowledged his mistake. If rolling the tongue was genetic, then identical twins would share the trait. In 1952, Philip Matlock disproved Sturtevant’s findings, demonstrating that seven out of 33 identical twins didn’t share their sibling’s gift. In 1940, the prominent geneticist Alfred Sturtevant published a paper saying the ability to roll one’s tongue is based on a dominant gene. Your tongue can be an acrobat, regardless of whether your parents are capable of the same tricks.Įvery semester, John McDonald, a evolutionary biologist at the University of Delaware, asks his undergraduate students the following question: How many of you were taught in biology class that rolling the tongue is a genetic trait? Roll it, flip it, fold it and even mold it into a squiggle. ![]()
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