>well...we are finally moving...we leave Monday the 3rd for Utah... >Tooele, pronounced Too-will'-ah, it is near Salt Lake... LOL, Kat! Part of Steve's family is from there for a few generations and his Aunt Louise and cousins are there still. The town paper did a retrospective on their family a year or three ago. BTW, they pronounce it with the "oo" so contracted that it is pretty much lost, more T(o)will-ah. (Of course, Setauket which is one of my family's ancestral homes on L.I. is pronounced SEE-tawk-et by many of the "newcomers" (i.e. anyone after 1958 when developments began), but those of us from old time families say Se-TAU(L)-ket, and one of the old spellings is "Settlekot". So, things drift... Steve just got home; he said that both ways of saying Tooele are heard these days just like both ways of saying Setauket are, and that like where I grew up there was a sudden growth explosion. If you want to confuse people into thinking you have been there a long time take accent lessons from Aunt Louise! LOL! ;-) --- >About 5 weeks ago my friend picked up a panda baby with a blaze >marking from animal control. ? A panda is a white head. A blaze is a white head marking. It wouldn't be possible to see a blaze on a panda head, just as it isn't possible to see a panda head on an albino or DEW. There is no way to know at this point if the ferret has always had that marking so offhand it can't be said to be roaning, or seasonal coloration, or neural crest unless there are other symptoms of neural crest genetic variant. If the ferret is one with neural crest genetic variant markings -- what is commonly called Waardenburg Syndrome -- know that in recent years geneticist, Dr. Brett Middleton, has pointed out that the KIT Oncogene's syndrome form of neural crest variant better fits the markings and medical problems seen in these ferrets as a group than Waardenburg Syndrome does. What other areas lack pigment? It sounds like he hears so that is good. He may just have a seasonal coat that looks that way or may be roaned, instead of having had the markings for life. It is still possible that he has a neural crest variation because it shows what is called "variable expression" meaning that not all symptoms show up in all individuals and the degree can vary, too. When a neural crest variant like the KIT Oncogene expresses itself very fully a lot of problems can be seen and these ferrets should get earlier and more frequent old age exams than others. When looking at what is documented across species there can be skull malformations, partial or full hearing loss, an increased rate of malignancy, an increased rate of multiple fingers or of them being joined (polydactyly and syndactyly), an increased rate of cardiomyopathy (now thought to perhaps be due to changes to sympathetic nerves (so not only changes at the time of the cardiac-neural crest), jaws may be unable to open fully, dysphagia (trouble swallowing) is documented in some species, with KIT there can be GI problems due to innervation gone wrong, due to some suggestive evidence some human kidney problems including cystine ones came under study starting last year in relation to neural crest variations thanks to NIH's National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, etc. (It may interest you that our two who develop cystine urinary tract stones on high protein diets but not on 35% protein diets both have KIT Oncogene types of markings.) Just a little background: in the early fetus before there is anything as focused as actual organs (and certainly not features) there are "crests" of highly undifferentiated cells which migrate to various regions and differentiate into a number of cell types. One very early crest is the cardiac-neural crest which then splits into the more differentiated cardiac crest (later heart and vascular) and the neural crest. The neural crest cells become some skull structures, pigment cells, some hearing structures, and of course a lot of the neurological structures. Happening so early in the fetus shows one reason why the "expression" of the changes can be so varied and widely spread. Also, because structural development and "upkeep" is so affected by innervation it appears be that altering innervation can have widespread and varied results. (Yes, it is a really bad idea to breed ferrets with neural crest variation markings, but there was a time when so many were bred for the extra money they garnered that the genetics for this are too widely spread in U.S. ferrets now.) [Posted in FML issue 5018]