Intelligence....also now a double-edged sword?

According to previous research it is evident that our complex cognitive abilities might have arisen strictly from a genetic mistake made hundreds of millions years ago. The idea that a few extra copies of a certain gene labeled Dlg2 were genetically made in an invertebrate long ago might have caused the rise to intelligent thinking. At the same time, what makes this a double-edged sword is that these scientists have been able to confirm a link between higher cognitive thinking to more mental illnesses arising. What is crazy is that is it possible that we have evolved to think more cognitively and more intelligently than other species of animals at the cost of a rise in being more susceptible to mental illness? In a way this makes sense to me strictly on the basis of thinking genetically, if there are more and more genes related to cognitive thinking then there must be a higher chance that a mutation can occur. What is everyone else's opinion on this idea?

University of Edinburgh. "Origin of intelligence and mental illness linked to ancient genetic accident." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 2 December 2012. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/12/121202164325.htm.

Not double, not triple.....but quadruple standed DNA!?? What???

This is crazy to even think about, according to this article quadruplexes are more common than you would think. By the way a quadruplex is the term these scientists use to refer to a DNA with four strands. Even though this article touches lightly on the subject about DNA with four strands, I think its nuts to even have imagined that this was possible. The article references that when a quadruplex is present, it is usually found in a cancer cell and that also it is found near oncogenes. What my take on this is that they might have found something that is very closely related to the cause for cancer to arise in cells. My main question about this article or any research that is done around this topic is: Is it possible that this quadruplex is passed down from generation to generation coded in our genes? Or is it that this folding of a double-stranded DNA on itself just a mutation to the DNA itself which leads to the cause of cancer?

Here is the article that touches on this cool new discovery
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/09/150909090609.htm

Imperial College London. "Designer molecule shines a spotlight on mysterious 4-stranded DNA." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 9 September 2015. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/09/150909090609.htm>.

Prions and their "Bright" side

While searching for information about prions and the diseases most closely linked to them, I came across several different articles talking about the benefits of prions. I have always thought of prions to be related to being these deadly, debilitating groups of proteins. It turns out that after taking sometime to read one of the articles, it talks about a protein located in fruit fly neurons and some human neurons called cytoplasmic polyadenylation element binding protein (CPEB). This protein plays a key role in helping form memories. At the same time though, CPEB is very similar to a prion in the thought that it has the same familiar sequence as a prion. When testing this out on fruit flies it seems that CPEB will form closely together with other proteins like itself. Once in doing so, these proteins will work together to form specialized proteins that help in the synapses of forming memories. Although this isn't just done by a single prion, but a co-operation with other neuronal proteins, it shows that there is an apparent prion switch that is involved in lower level organisms and as well found in humans.

I found this article to be a very interesting read, especially since I now have another look on prions and the way they can function. My question for anyone else is whether you think its possible for these prions to functionally work on there own inside an organism and still produce beneficial effects. One major question that wasn't able to be answered by this article unfortunately, is in what way CPEB is like a prion.

Here is where I read the article: http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/38721/title/The-Bright-Side-of-Prions/