By Xiaoxi Zhu
Why can Harry Potter perform magic? Or, more specifically, what part does genetics play in the abilities of the boy wizard and his conjuring classmates at Hogwarts?
Eric Spana, a visiting professor of biology from Duke University, posed these fundamental questions at Duke Kunshan in a talk on the ‘genetics of wizarding,’ in which he attempted to apply real-world science to J.K. Rowling’s fantastical characters.
Genes are snippets of DNA that are passed from parent to child and control a person’s biological makeup, such as eye color, whether we have straight or curly hair, and many other features. A child’s characteristics will be more like their father or mother depending on which parent passes on the dominant rather than recessive genes.
With the science in mind, Spana set about reading the Harry Potter series of books and watching the Hollywood movies looking for any clue that may help him identify the ‘wizarding gene.’
Unsurprisingly, the basic logic of genetics was unable to identify where Harry’s magical abilities came from, so the professor introduced the concept of mutation, which is a permanent alteration to the DNA sequence.
Spana said this led to carrying out extensive research into specific cases and acquiring information that he’d never studied before.
‘There were a lot of fun things, although the question itself is stupid,’ he said, referring to his mission to find the origins of Harry Potter’s wizardly ways. ‘But I learned a lot, and that’s a good thing. And then I talked to people. People often learn stuff and then teach other people. This makes the world a better place.’
The talk reminded me of my own experience learning biology at high school. We learned basic biological knowledge, but no one taught us that we could try and apply it to things like Harry Potter. We were working simply to pass the national college entrance examination, so we kept doing exercises and reading aloud to memorize what would appear in the test.
At that time, I thought biology class was boring because the subject was boring. But after having listened to Spana’s speech, it occurred to me that biology can be interesting and attractive ‘ especially when applied to such magical settings.
‘I learned a lot of genetic biology because of Harry Potter,’ said Spana, who encouraged students to stay curious and to do the kind of research that inspires them.
In the Q&A that followed his talk, rather than answering one student’s question, the professor said with a smile: ‘That’s a good question. You should look into that. And if you go through it and come up with good answer, please remember to include my name in the summary so I can get some credit.’
Xiaoxi Zhu is a member of the Student Media Center from the undergraduate Class of 2022.
