And of course, the Ultimate In Mutation Events!!!

...Back in Japan, there was a Ninja Clan, known as The Foot, led by HAMATO YOSHI, a quiet/gentle man who loved art. One of his students, AROKO SAKI, constantly challenged him in an effort to usurp his leadership, finally causing him to be banished from the Clan. Yoshi fled to the United States in poverty. He was forced to live in the sewers, where he made friends with the rats. One day, a small child was returning from the pet store with a fish bowl of baby turtles, when he tripped and fell, causing the bowl to crash on the street and the turtles to fall into a drain. Yoshi made four new friends.

One day, back in New York, Yoshi discovers the turtles covered in "goo" which he later learns was some new powerful "mutagen" that "caused whoever touched it to take on the form of whatever animal they most recently had been in contact with." The turtles became human, because of their recent contact with Yoshi in his effort to clean them up, and Yoshi was transformed into a rat because of his recent contact with the rats. April now realizes that Splinter is Yoshi.

Splinter continues by relating how they got their names. The Turtles christened Yoshi with the name Splinter because of his "martial artistry", and Splinter provides the turtles with the names of his favorite renaissance painters. Realizing the outside world would consider them freaks, Splinter trained the turtles in the ancient art of Ninjitsu and they in turn vowed to find the person responsible for their "mutagen bath" so that Splinter can become human again.

From the TMNT home page.

Thought questions: 1. Discuss the nature of the original mutagenic event. Was it germinal or somatic?

2. List no fewer than 10 mutations that had to have occurred in each of the animals, and discuss the probability that each of these could be expected to occur simultaneously in four individuals.

3. Discuss the probably nature of the offspring of the original TMNT. Include in your discussion the population or species with which they could be expected to successfully mate.

4. Discuss the possibilty that an "antidote" to this or any other mutagen could be found or might be possible. What problems in "gene therapy" are raised by these mutational events?