Today I learned about the "Beavis effect". The Beavis effect is a statistical phenomenon in biology that refers to the overestimation of the effect size of QTL (quantitative trait loci) as a result of small sample sizes in QTL studies. QTL studies attempt to link phenotypic variation in an organism with genotypic variation... in other words, which genes (or gene regions) are responsible for certain traits in lving things. Human height, for instance, has been shown through these types of studies to be influenced by two loci (gene regions) - 9q22 on the 9th chromosome and Xq24 on the human X chromosome. Interestingly, the gene "ROR2" is located within that 9q22 locus and is responsible for growth plate development. (Liu, Y et al., Human Genetics, 2006)
I may be carrying out a QTL analysis in my own research, so I should be sure to use large sample sizes to avoid the Beavis effect.
Word to your moms.
(jackson)
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