X Chromosome May Leave a Mark On Male Fertility

So we are part... by etash · 2013-07-22 06:26 · Score: 0

...women! Excellent news for crossdressers. Bad news for religious fundamentalists of the middle east *wink* *wink*.

Re:So we are part... by Samantha+Wright · 2013-07-22 06:46 · Score: 5, Interesting

No, it's just bad science journalism. The X chromosome is, for the most part, just another part of the genome; it contains all sorts of random junk, like blood clotting factors and parts of the receptors in our eyes that let us see colour. Any disease you've ever heard of that's "X-linked" or more common in men than women is either affected or effected, directly or indirectly, by the X chromosome. It is of no significance or note whatsoever that it contains stuff that's only activated in the male body.
If you want something weird and sex-linked to rant insanely about, however, there's always the mystery of digit ratio.

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Re:So we are part... by linnsey · 2013-07-22 08:45 · Score: 2

It's significant from a health and evolutionary perspective. X inactivation in women makes expression of these genes mosaic which can prevent disease as well as cause some interesting immune responses. A gene can be beneficial in a pair but fatal solo which creates an interesting evolutionary tradeoff. If a woman can't have sons, is that a significant evolutionary disadvantage?
Re:So we are part... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-22 10:26 · Score: 0

Jurassic Park proven! If all the men in the world died out, nature will find a way.
Re:So we are part... by Samantha+Wright · 2013-07-22 14:36 · Score: 2

It's not a trait that lasts very long; every successive daughter has a 50% chance of passing it on afterwards, after all, so at most you'd expect such a mutation to only be around for three or four generations.
However, such diseases are probably the reason why women make up 51% of the population. In the stereotypical portrayal of hunter-gather societies, certainly it is desirable to have slightly more women than men; the traditional division of responsibilities leaves the women with more consistent work. Contrariwise it would seem that an agrarian society would benefit more from a surplus of men to work fields, but there are relatively few adaptations in our genomes that are agriculture-oriented. (Cavities, for example, are a symptom of eating grains.)

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Re:So we are part... by Demonantis · 2013-07-22 17:34 · Score: 1

X linked diseases are more serious to men because men can't be carriers. Men only get one X chrome and if it stinks we are stuck with it. It really isn't that shocking that a simplistic models used in genetics is proven wrong. That has been the common fact for the past decade.
Re:So we are part... by Samantha+Wright · 2013-07-22 19:28 · Score: 4, Insightful

There's nothing wrong here; it's just a simple misunderstanding by the journalist. We've known about X-linked for as long we've known about sex chromosomes, which inherently implies that the X chromosome has responsibilities beyond determining sex.
Believe it or not, however, there are actually advantages to the Y chromosome being so minimal. Men are nature's beta testers: sometimes mutations in the X chromosome have significant benefits, and as these traits aren't balanced out by a second allele, they become more pronounced and hence are easier to detect during sexual and natural selection. This is (probably) why men display a greater variance in height, strength, and analytical skill. Similarly, by always suffering from a disease, and hence by not getting laid, men protect the rest of the tribe from the disorders they end up with. (Admittedly not great when you're actually in the middle of things, but sexual dimorphism and reproduction are both full of cruelties.)

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Re:So we are part... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-23 10:25 · Score: 0

But the mRNA, the software layer, is a very big influence that can also evolve and be inherited. This was known in the late 1980's but the research was pasted as wrong. Turns out bad habits are often programmed into genetic code software and inherited that way for generations. E.G. The Irish Drunk and Obesity.
Re:So we are part... by Samantha+Wright · 2013-07-23 13:16 · Score: 1

Our awareness of environmental triggering of epigenetic phenomena is actually quite older. Agriculture is full of examples of Lamarckian traits, such as resistance to drought or cold; plants switch on these attributes over successive generations as a form of memory, no DNA mutations required; it's all chromatin re-modelling. You're certainly right that it took us a while to accept that nearly everything in the Central Dogma has at least one counterexample.
A little note: obesity is actually an immune disorder and has nothing to do with epigenetics. You can read a pretty good explanation here. I think the real cause of the epidemic is unsanitary factory farming practices.
Also, the term "mRNA" is not generally used to refer to RNA molecules that hang around and perform other functions, even though they're all transcripts. The "messenger" moniker implies it's destined to be turned into a protein at a ribosome.

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Re:So we are part... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-24 07:51 · Score: 0

Thanks for the clarification. I read a Science article from 1980's (a couple of them, one male and one female researcher who were ignored). My guess is Obesity is simply a symptom of malfunctioning fat tissues caused by many factors, some coincident. But the factory farming, carb craze, and no sun are certainly factors.
Re:So we are part... by Samantha+Wright · 2013-07-24 08:00 · Score: 1

There's no need to guess. It's been demonstrated that a build-up of bad bacteria is responsible for difficult-to-conotrol weight gain in a significant portion of the US population. It's almost certain that this is only a problem now because of changing food conditions. One specific type of bacteria emit a toxin that causes the intestine to take up excess nutrients; it's that simple. Normally the human immune system prevents this bacterium from colonizing the gut. While a bad circadian cycle (i.e. no sunlight) can contribute to such issues, they're negligible next to Bacteroidetes infections. There's even a cure, consisting of a very specific crash diet that replaces all intestinal flora. Antibiotics have, unfortunately, made the situation worse.

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3.5 Billion years of hacks by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-22 06:26 · Score: 5, Funny

This is what happens when you have 3.5 Billion years of hacks. Legacy code, no overall architecture and absolute chaos.

Let's start over and redesign humans from the ground up.

Re:3.5 Billion years of hacks by etash · 2013-07-22 06:28 · Score: 1

Agreed! But this time let's make it a truly intelligent* design, shall we?

*no appendix for example.
Re:3.5 Billion years of hacks by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-22 06:47 · Score: 0

So what you're saying is Microsoft created humanity?
Re:3.5 Billion years of hacks by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-22 06:54 · Score: 0

I think it's reserved for release notes and other version-specific information. You might want to leave that in.
Re:3.5 Billion years of hacks by Samantha+Wright · 2013-07-22 07:00 · Score: 5, Insightful

The Y chromosome used to just be a variant of the X chromosome, with only a few genes different; they were the same size. Over time, careless maintenance staff decided the backups were redundant and stopped keeping them. Thus something like 5% of men have one or more factory defects—most commonly colour-deficient vision, which some backward engineer decided was a feature , not a bug, and went to great lengths to distribute bad copies to other users.
On the plus side, we recently found out that the genome actually does have some documentation—well, more like debugger symbols—so it's getting easier to figure out where the important binaries are located. Unfortunately in the process we also discovered that what appeared to be severe filesystem fragmentation is actually rotational performance optimization, and most of the rest of the disk is actually a messy broth of shell scripts, not merely unallocated space as we assumed.
The sad thing is that even if we did redesign everything, it would probably be way worse than the existing codebase, particularly since we only have a tiny portion of the actual spec, which you can imagine was never exactly written down.

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Re:3.5 Billion years of hacks by K.+S.+Kyosuke · 2013-07-22 07:05 · Score: 1

Are you really running Windows XY in your brain?

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Re:3.5 Billion years of hacks by jamiesan · 2013-07-22 07:20 · Score: 1

Wouldn't this be too easily confused with X Windows? Trademark infringement?
Re:3.5 Billion years of hacks by ProzacPatient · 2013-07-22 07:23 · Score: 1

It should have a consistent interface on phones and tablets as well.
Re:3.5 Billion years of hacks by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-22 08:02 · Score: 0

In theory, the appendix should evolve itself away at some point, if it's really that useless and the gut bacteria that lives in it can very well live in the rest of the gut.
Re:3.5 Billion years of hacks by Alsee · 2013-07-22 08:07 · Score: 1

Let's start over and redesign humans from the ground up.
Humans designed by committee might have cupholders for ears and camel humps, but even a committee wouldn't do anything as asinine as running a sewer line out through the middle of male&female sex bits.
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Re:3.5 Billion years of hacks by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-22 08:14 · Score: 0

If only we can send different application windows to other brains wirelessly...
Wait, isn't that telepathy?
Re:3.5 Billion years of hacks by AdamStarks · 2013-07-22 08:21 · Score: 1

Can you explain that again, but with more car analogies?
Re:3.5 Billion years of hacks by ildon · 2013-07-22 08:46 · Score: 1

This is what happens when you use genetic algorithms to design your code. It's a lot faster and more efficient, but no one knows how the hell (or even why) it works, and you end up with a bunch of garbage code that probably does nothing, but heaven help you if you try to remove it.
Re:3.5 Billion years of hacks by Dcnjoe60 · 2013-07-22 08:55 · Score: 1

Let's start over and redesign humans from the ground up.
Humans designed by committee might have cupholders for ears and camel humps, but even a committee wouldn't do anything as asinine as running a sewer line out through the middle of male&female sex bits.
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Actually, only males have the sewer line run out through their actual sex bits. With females, the uterus and fallopian tubes are totally separate from the ureter. For the male, it makes a lot of sense actually. Why build two hoses when you can have one with a valve to select what comes out of it. Kind of like the hose on the gas pump at the filing station. One hose supplying different fluids as the situation warrants.
As any engineering student will tell you, the purpose of engineering isn't to build the strongest structure or the biggest structure. It is just the opposite, it is to build the most minimalist structure that will get the job done.
Re:3.5 Billion years of hacks by kaliann · 2013-07-22 08:59 · Score: 2

The appendix may not be as useless as we once thought.
Recent investigations have suggested that the appendix acts as a kind of "wildlife preserve" for our gut microbes. Throughout much of our evolutionary history (and much of the modern world) massive diarrhea has been a disease with two distinct issues: the likelihood of death from dehydration, and the disruption of intestinal flora in the survivors. A rapid recolonization with "good bugs" would have helped keep survivors from the kinds of recurring and chronic conditions that can result from microbial imbalance.
Testing of this hypothesis has shown that individuals with an appendix are four times less likely to have recurrences of C. diff infections compared to those without: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21699818
However, the way the recurrent laryngeal nerve runs around major thoracic vessels before ending up in the larynx is preposterous. That totally needs a redesign. Also, can I request a functional nictitating membrane? Those things are sweet!
Re:3.5 Billion years of hacks by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-22 09:14 · Score: 0

Plus, it's not so much sewage as it is grey water. If I had sewage coming out of my urethra, I'd be pretty scared.
Re:3.5 Billion years of hacks by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-22 09:37 · Score: 0

Let's start over and redesign humans from the ground up.
Humans designed by committee might have cupholders for ears and camel humps, but even a committee wouldn't do anything as asinine as running a sewer line out through the middle of male&female sex bits.
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Actually, only males have the sewer line run out through their actual sex bits. With females, the uterus and fallopian tubes are totally separate from the ureter. For the male, it makes a lot of sense actually. Why build two hoses when you can have one with a valve to select what comes out of it. Kind of like the hose on the gas pump at the filing station. One hose supplying different fluids as the situation warrants.
As any engineering student will tell you, the purpose of engineering isn't to build the strongest structure or the biggest structure. It is just the opposite, it is to build the most minimalist structure that will get the job done.
Well, we now know what your problem is.
Re:3.5 Billion years of hacks by Samantha+Wright · 2013-07-22 14:14 · Score: 2

Not a chance. The computing mapping is almost 1:1, and I simply don't know enough about cars to come up with a plausible explanation for the second half. Not everything in biology can be fit into a car analogy. Computers are somewhat easier.

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Re:3.5 Billion years of hacks by Samantha+Wright · 2013-07-22 14:27 · Score: 1

Well, we upgraded to include a dynamic self-modifying portion, but there are some bugs; the basic self/non-self discrimination regularizer has a high tendency to cause wars over stupid things like who has the better facial hair. Unfortunately, the wide range of other regularizers—emotions, convictions, self-preservation, altruism, and the rest—aren't enough to completely repress this sort of thing. On the plus side they're now inventing new ones.
(In all seriousness, I think comparing the human species to an ensemble of classifiers is perhaps the most profound and interesting analogy ever made. The passing of genetic algorithms out of vogue in ML research reflects our own development of an advanced nervous system as an adaptable survival mechanism; culture, then, is the mass of concepts and rules we can integrate into our personal collections of weights to tune our nets to do specific things.)

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Re:3.5 Billion years of hacks by twosat · 2013-07-22 21:29 · Score: 1

Three graduate engineers were discussing who might have been responsible for the design of the human body.
The first one said "Think of all the joints etc. it must have been a mechanical engineer".
The second one said "No no, what about all the electrical impulses and nerves etc? It must have been an electrical engineer".
The third graduate was shaking his head, "You are both wrong, the human body was designed by a civil engineer - who else would run a waste pipe through a recreational area"?
Re:3.5 Billion years of hacks by kick6 · 2013-07-22 23:51 · Score: 1

This is what happens when you have 3.5 Billion years of hacks. Legacy code, no overall architecture and absolute chaos.
Let's start over and redesign humans from the ground up.
The early programmers attempted to select the most fit patches (based on what they were able to observe as rank novice coders) to incorporate into the next version of the software. However, with programming techniques such as "fat acceptance," "gender nonconformity," and "child-bearing as a right" the most recent patches have absolutely ZERO quality control.
Re:3.5 Billion years of hacks by Muros · 2013-07-23 10:48 · Score: 1

No, in theory if a mutation which does away with the appendix proves advantageous, then it will become widespread. It depends on what other characteristic changes come bundled.
Re:3.5 Billion years of hacks by Sardaukar86 · 2013-07-26 19:44 · Score: 1

I wish to table the motion that Samantha Wright be officially recognised as a Slashdot Treasure.
That is all.

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Re:3.5 Billion years of hacks by Samantha+Wright · 2013-07-27 17:21 · Score: 1

I think the Slashdot Treasury is already full of stale copypasta and mangled attempts at Yakov Smirnoff jokes, but the thought is appreciated.

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Who wrote this mess? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-22 06:26 · Score: 2, Insightful

And where's the documentation?

Re:Who wrote this mess? by MozeeToby · 2013-07-22 06:32 · Score: 5, Insightful

An infinite number of monkeys and a ruthless unit testing process. As for documentation, there's lots of people working on it, but some of them think they should be able to hold exclusive rights to their documentation.
Re:Who wrote this mess? by Nemyst · 2013-07-22 06:53 · Score: 1

It's open source with unclear licensing, it's got no comments whatsoever and there's more dead code than you can shake a stick at. Sounds like your average SourceForge project then :)
Re:Who wrote this mess? by NatasRevol · 2013-07-22 07:31 · Score: 1

"Source code is the ultimate documentation".

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Re:Who wrote this mess? by Jane+Q.+Public · 2013-07-22 08:25 · Score: 1

"The finding shakes up our ideas about how sex chromosomes influence gender and also suggests that at least some parts of the X chromosome are playing an unexpectedly dynamic role in evolution."
Huh? What? Shakes up WHOSE ideas? Certainly not mine.

YY babies don't tend to go very far (not XYY, just YY).

Seriously... I don't see how this perfectly obvious stuff "shakes up" much of anything.
Re:Who wrote this mess? by Dcnjoe60 · 2013-07-22 09:00 · Score: 1

"The finding shakes up our ideas about how sex chromosomes influence gender and also suggests that at least some parts of the X chromosome are playing an unexpectedly dynamic role in evolution."
Huh? What? Shakes up WHOSE ideas? Certainly not mine.
YY babies don't tend to go very far (not XYY, just YY).
Seriously... I don't see how this perfectly obvious stuff "shakes up" much of anything.
Well, if they just reported the findings without adding hyperbole, nobody would read their article. For example take these two hypothetical titles: "Research sheds new light into inter-relationship between X and Y chromosomes." and "X Chromosome findings change how we will forever view gender." Which one do you thing will garner more page hits and readers?
Re:Who wrote this mess? by Jane+Q.+Public · 2013-07-22 10:51 · Score: 1

I don't doubt that they might have had reasons to write it that way... but that doesn't do any more to impress me. The uncalled-for sensationalism actually ends up giving me a negative impression.

Not that surprising at all. by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-22 06:30 · Score: 0

If the X genes were the same as mice, then all the girls would not be human. And some HAVE to be active during the creation of sperm - after all, half the sperm have an X, the other half have the Y.

Moronic writer. Old news with new data. by i+kan+reed · 2013-07-22 06:31 · Score: 5, Insightful

The y chromosome doesn't code many genes at all, and this has been known for a long time. It's main function is turning specific genes off. Anatomy of all sorts, including gender characteristics is coded across all 24 chromosomes. The y just suppresses the female parts.

If I learn something over a decade ago in a high school class, it shouldn't be "science news."

Re:Moronic writer. Old news with new data. by Teresita · 2013-07-22 06:34 · Score: 1

The Y chromosome is a li'l runt and they think it won't even be there anymore in a hunnert thousand years or so.

Behind every great man... by mwvdlee · 2013-07-22 06:39 · Score: 1

Behind every great man, the saying goes, there's a great woman

Behing every failed man, there is a failed woman.

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Re:Behind every great man... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-22 06:53 · Score: 2, Insightful

Behind every running man, there is a woman with an axe.
Re:Behind every great man... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-22 07:25 · Score: 0

Hence why we (USA) have the Second Amendment.
Re:Behind every great man... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-22 07:28 · Score: 0

If that were true then (mens) Olympic marathons would be a lot more exciting to watch.
Re:Behind every great man... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-22 09:53 · Score: 0

Behind every great man, the saying goes, there's a great woman
Behing every failed man, there is a failed woman.
Definition of a successful man: one that makes more money than his wife can spend.
Definition of an unsuccessful man: one who made less money than his ex-wife spent.
Re:Behind every great man... by Tanuki64 · 2013-07-22 12:33 · Score: 1

Behind every serial killer, there is a woman who created him.

Bottom line... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-22 06:43 · Score: 0

Science still have a long way to go in decoding natures mysteries. It wasn't that long ago that it was reported that the Y chromosome used ECC, compression, and was encrypted with AES.

Re:There is _female_ in male? Sacrilege! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-22 06:46 · Score: 0

Women are XX. Men are XY. Any high schooler, or an American college student could have old you there is an "X" in men.

So now the liberals will go off to say that part of every may is gay. Oh joy. As if that is what defines a "man". Surprise: Chuck Norris, John Wayne, Charlton Heston were all XY.

I agree by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-22 06:46 · Score: 0

the Y chromosome makes men, men,...

We all know that Football - American Football - and Rugby make men. So do guns and Water Polo ( Water Polo makes Rugby players look like the fags they are. LaCross?! - Rich boy homos!) .

The more guns you have, the more man you are.

I mean really, the biologists need to examine how many gun toting Water Polo players there are.

Fucking Homos!

Y is X Mutated by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-22 06:46 · Score: 0

I thought this was implied when it was determined that the Y chromosome is a mutated X chromosome. The same reason dudes have nipples, yeah?

Re:Moronic writer. Old news with new data. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · 2013-07-22 06:48 · Score: 1, Flamebait

The y just suppresses the female parts.

So the suppression of females by the Y Chromosome is natural, and this is what evolution has intended and achieved, and the general oppression of the women in the society is just a natural extension of what is going on in cellular level. So all the male chauvinistic pigs can now breath a sigh of relief, "we can't help it. we are born this way".

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Re:There is _female_ in male? Sacrilege! by ackthpt · 2013-07-22 06:50 · Score: 1

The neo-feminists will not stand for it! This has to be another male-dominated science propaganda finding and must be a lie!

Marilyn Manjaw sides with you.

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Re:Moronic writer. Old news with new data. by wierd_w · 2013-07-22 06:50 · Score: 1

Actually, it does both: Turn genes on, and turn genes off.

Take for instance, "TDF Males".

(TDF == Testis Determining Factor, and is encoded by the SRY gene on the Y chromosome)

This single gene is sometimes translocated to the X chromosome in a rare mishap of cellular meiosis during gamete production.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XX_male_syndrome

Since this is just a single gene out of the many on the Y chromosome, resulting phenotypical male offspring are infertile, and the "androgenization" of the offspring is incomplete, often showing signs of feminine features.

The Y chromosome contains more than just SRY, and does quite a bit more. Specifically, it contains genes for sperm specific cellular features, like the AZF1 gene,
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AZF1 ), without which you can't produce sperm cells.

Given the limited real-estate of the Y chromosome, and it's structural fragility (See the "shrinking Y chromosome" theory, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y_chromosome#Shrinking_theory ), it makes LOADS of evolutionary sense to offload as much vital genetic data off of it as possible, and onto more stably recombining chromosomes as is possible.

The real thing here, is that "most of being male, is present in the female genotype". Most, but not all.

well, uh, not surprising by goffster · 2013-07-22 06:51 · Score: 2

Otherwise there would be very little genetic diversity between father and
son regarding fertility, and we know that to be false.

Re:well, uh, not surprising by Daniel+Dvorkin · 2013-07-22 14:14 · Score: 1

Otherwise there would be very little genetic diversity between father and son regarding fertility, and we know that to be false.
Not necessarily; the determining factors in fertility could just as easily be on the autosomal chromosomes (the of which nearly everyone gets one copy from each parent, and aren't involved in sex determination). Given that these chromosomes make up most of our genomes, in fact, you'd kind of expect that.

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My Three Options by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-22 06:55 · Score: 0

"...the Y chromosome makes men, men, or so researchers have thought..."

Two of my choices are the same thing, and the third is a short phrase. Interesting.

Re:There is _female_ in male? Sacrilege! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-22 06:55 · Score: 1

You misunderestimated the significance of the finding. The fe(e) in female chromosomes responsible for controlling the ability of 'certain tissues' in both the male and female, presumably until the each has met some prerequisite for reproduction, like 'getting in touch with your 'inner feminine side' (as an alternative to aggression?). Maybe this will explain the success of the 'sneaky' less-than-dominant males who may not rule the harem but pass their genes on down the line none-the-less. Could it be that this is the key to unlocking the code that allows men to employ cooperative, empathetic strategies to achieve success thus explaining the emergence of game theory from the example of men cooperating for the affection of women in bars?

Not surprising by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-22 06:55 · Score: 0

I guess I always assumed that the Y determined sex, not that everything about maleness was encoded on it --- a signal rather than a guidebook.

Re:Moronic writer. Old news with new data. by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-22 06:57 · Score: 0

Which species has 24 chromosomes?

Re:Moronic writer. Old news with new data. by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-22 06:57 · Score: 0

The y chromosome doesn't code many genes at all, and this has been known for a long time. It's main function is turning specific genes off. Anatomy of all sorts, including gender characteristics is coded across all 24 chromosomes. The y just suppresses the female parts. If I learn something over a decade ago in a high school class, it shouldn't be "science news."

Yeah, it's very poorly written. The news here is that there are far more genes active only in males on the X chromosome than expected. This is important when studying how evolution happens. The science writer largely misses this exciting result focuses, as you say, on something that's been known for decades.

The previous science article about accurately measuring sea level in the past has the same stupidity when written up by others.

Re:Moronic writer. Old news with new data. by i+kan+reed · 2013-07-22 07:04 · Score: 1

The human species has:
1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,X, and Y.

How many do you count?

Re:There is _female_ in male? Sacrilege! by Bengie · 2013-07-22 07:08 · Score: 1

What about fully functional XX men, except that one gene that allows sperm to swim, but otherwise normal?

Many Y genes have gotten trans-scripted onto the X over time and the Y may just disappear leaving us with everyone being XX.

Re:There is _female_ in male? Sacrilege! by jamiesan · 2013-07-22 07:08 · Score: 1

X men don't have to be gay.... they have to be Super! Thanks for asking!

Re:Moronic writer. Old news with new data. by jeffb+(2.718) · 2013-07-22 07:08 · Score: 1

The Y chromosome contains more than just SRY, and does quite a bit more.

SRSLY?

X-X, X-Y, Y-Y by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-22 07:11 · Score: 1

Women, X-X. Men, X-Y. Chuck Norris, Y-Y.

There is no chick in Chuck Norris.

Re:X-X, X-Y, Y-Y by linnsey · 2013-07-22 08:49 · Score: 1

He'd truly have to never get hurt, he'd be unable to clot and would bleed out from a paper cut.
Re:X-X, X-Y, Y-Y by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-22 11:34 · Score: 0

Chuck Norris can't get a paper cut. Only Chuck Norris can cut Chuck Norris.
Re:X-X, X-Y, Y-Y by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-23 02:15 · Score: 0

He'd truly have to never get hurt
Chuck Norris never gets hurt.

he'd be unable to clot
That's 'cos Chuck Norris never gets hurt.

would bleed out from a paper cut.
Awsome. No one could manage that, except Chuck Norris, except he'd do it without getting hurt.

Re:Moronic writer. Old news with new data. by Bengie · 2013-07-22 07:11 · Score: 2

It just means men are females that have been suppressed. We're the victims here!

Y chromosome is likely to stick around. by Valdrax · 2013-07-22 07:16 · Score: 5, Informative

The Y chromosome is a li'l runt and they think it won't even be there anymore in a hunnert thousand years or so.

I don't think there's anyone who takes this seriously any more. There were some people suggesting that if genes are lost at a linear rate off the Y chromosome, it should disappear in another 10 million years. However, chimpanzees and humans show no difference in the number of genes on the Y chromosome since we diverged 6-7 million years ago, and we've both only lost one gene since we diverged from the rhesus macaque 25 mya. Given that sequencing of the platypus genome puts the common mammalian Y chromosome at a max of age of 166 mya, this suggests the linear model is just wrong.

The Wikipedia has good article on this from which I drew my numbers, if you're interested in more.

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Re:Y chromosome is likely to stick around. by Common+Joe · 2013-07-22 09:13 · Score: 1

Yeah... I heard this a few decades ago in grade school and I thought "WTF? Just about every organism on earth has two genders including things like plants. How can they say that the Y chromosome is going away?"
Unfortunately, my WTF moments concerning these "scientific conclusions" haven't stopped. It's only gotten more frequent as I've matured. At least the poles haven't flipped like my "WTF sensor" for politics. I only go "WTF!?" when I hear something that actually makes sense in politics because I'm so used to hearing something ridiculous.
Re:Y chromosome is likely to stick around. by Valdrax · 2013-07-22 10:11 · Score: 3, Interesting

Yeah... I heard this a few decades ago in grade school and I thought "WTF? Just about every organism on earth has two genders including things like plants. How can they say that the Y chromosome is going away?"
To be fair, the Y-chromosome isn't the only way of determining gender, and the Y-chromosome of non-mammalian species has no common ancestor to those of mammals (they all degenerated long after splitting off).
Some species use the number of X chromosomes. Reptiles and avians use ZW chromosomes, where the "female chromosome" is the shorter, degenerate one. Ants and bees are just kind of weird. The platypus has something like 10 sex chromosomes and lacks the SRY gene, so we have no idea how it really works AFAIK, and platyfish (unrelated) have some sort of weird W/X/Y system.
Single gender in plants is relatively rare, and I have no idea how it works.

Unfortunately, my WTF moments concerning these "scientific conclusions" haven't stopped. It's only gotten more frequent as I've matured.
I think that's more of a problem with bad science journalism than bad science, though.

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Re:Y chromosome is likely to stick around. by Common+Joe · 2013-07-22 18:15 · Score: 1

To be fair, the Y-chromosome isn't the only way of determining gender
Huh. Shows how much biology I forgot and / or didn't know about. Thank you.

I think that's more of a problem with bad science journalism than bad science, though.
Yes, you're absolutely correct, and I'll certainly concede that point. Despite that: in my personal view of the world, I still consider science journalism to be part of science. After all, without a good way to spread truth to the masses, can science really be considered science? (I suppose it's fair to say that too many people who believe in the whole earth-created-in-six-day-and-here's-scientific-proof has shaped this particular opinion.)

Women by BenSchuarmer · 2013-07-22 07:22 · Score: 1

Can't live with em, can't live without em.

Re:There is _female_ in male? Sacrilege! by Runaway1956 · 2013-07-22 07:25 · Score: 3, Insightful

Some of those feminists make even stupider arguments. It's perfectly alright for women to cooperatively solve problems together, but add a man to the equation, and the solution becomes "sexist".

If a gang of women need to pass through a door that is difficult to open, the strongest woman present will probably pull the door open, and the least strong women in the gang will duck through as quickly as possible. If a man and a feminist need to pass through that door, if the man opens and holds the door for the feminist, he is sexist. We have basically the same solution to the same problem, but the sexist feminist refuses to acknowledge that the solution is the CORRECT solution.

MOST WOMEN will just accept this trivial act of consideration with a nod of gratitude, or a word of thanks, and go on about their business. SOME FEMINISTS will want to kick the man in the balls for being sexist.

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Re:Moronic writer. Old news with new data. by Doc_Gamesh · 2013-07-22 07:32 · Score: 1

Yes. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly.

Re:There is _female_ in male? Sacrilege! by Sarten-X · 2013-07-22 07:39 · Score: 1, Insightful

No feminist would ever make a stupid argument like this...

...And that sounds a lot like No True Scotsman.

Sadly, I've personally heard actual feminists make equally-stupid arguments. One particular instance I recall was discrediting a physical-fitness study because it separated male and female participants. The study's conclusion had nothing to do with gender differences, but segregating the samples eliminated a variable. That didn't matter to the opposing extremist, though. She argued that since the male and female results were separated, each group was therefore subject to different biases, and the whole study should be rejected because it was "clearly" just a piece of propaganda to further the myth that men are physically superior to women.

Of course, in the actual study, there were a good many outliers that overlapped. Speaking of outliers, there are also extremists on all sides of an argument, even the ones with supposed moral high ground. Such extremists should be ignored as an anomaly, and the real science can go on uninterrupted.

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Re:There is _female_ in male? Sacrilege! by MysteriousPreacher · 2013-07-22 07:40 · Score: 1

Yeah, and SOME black women are welfare queens. What's your point?

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Re:There is _female_ in male? Sacrilege! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-22 07:48 · Score: 1

Superheroes can't be gay!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTKSgf4NX_4

Re:Moronic writer. Old news with new data. by gr8_phk · 2013-07-22 07:58 · Score: 1

The Y chromosome has degenerated because it is only present in males. Therefore it does not benefit from crossover. Therefore a bad mutation on it is passed down to all generations of males from that point on. This makes it a very poor place to put useful genes, and it is gradually becoming nothing more than a device to determine gender.

Re:Moronic writer. Old news with new data. by wierd_w · 2013-07-22 08:03 · Score: 1

Look, I didn't name it that ok?

Want a truly silly name? Look up "sonic hedgehog gene".

For realz.

Re:There is _female_ in male? Sacrilege! by Luckyo · 2013-07-22 08:18 · Score: 1, Insightful

Like welfare queens, femnazis ruin it for all of us.

Consider for a moment by kilodelta · 2013-07-22 08:24 · Score: 2

That the basic body plan is female to start with. I mean why else would men have nipples too?

And look at differences in the reproductive organs of men and women. Testes and Ovaries - just small deviations create each, and of course location.

Re:Consider for a moment by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-22 08:38 · Score: 0

That the basic body plan is female to start with. I mean why else would men have nipples too?

Because they're fun, perhaps?
Re:Consider for a moment by linnsey · 2013-07-22 08:47 · Score: 1

Pacifiers. Although, men do actually lactate, they just can't produce very much.
Re:Consider for a moment by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-22 09:24 · Score: 0

Not all men have sensitive nipples. Whenever women try to play with my nipples I'm like, "I'm sorry honey, but you've been watching too much porn."
Re:Consider for a moment by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-22 09:34 · Score: 0

If you drink a ton of Mt. Dew every day and never exercise, it's easier than you think ;)
Re:Consider for a moment by kilodelta · 2013-07-22 10:37 · Score: 1

Funniest thing I ever saw - my nephew. He was just 4 or 5 months old. He was in my SO's lap. Now the SO is male. The nephew tried suckling on his uncle. Too funny.
Re:Consider for a moment by Obfuscant · 2013-07-22 11:05 · Score: 1

He was in my SO's lap. Now the SO is male.
What was he before?
Re:Consider for a moment by adolf · 2013-07-22 11:28 · Score: 1

Just X.

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Re:Consider for a moment by DNS-and-BIND · 2013-07-22 17:54 · Score: 1

"God isn't interested in technology. He knows nothing of the potential of the microchip or the silicon revolution. Look how he spends his time! Forty three species of parrot! Nipples for men! Slugs! He created slugs! They can't hear! They can't speak! They can't operate machinery! I mean, are we not in the hands of a lunatic? If I were creating a world, I wouldn't mess about with butterflies and daffodils. I would have started with lasers, eight o'clock, Day One!"
-- Evil, "Time Bandits"

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Re:There is _female_ in male? Sacrilege! by Runaway1956 · 2013-07-22 08:28 · Score: 1

Sounds to me like you might be a racist. Black women? Welfare queens? What is YOUR point?

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Old news by linnsey · 2013-07-22 08:32 · Score: 1

This is nothing new. The Y-Chromosome is too small to actually code for anything, and no one ever thought that it could contain more than a handful of genes. The Y is just a set of GOTOs pointing to the X.

Re:Moronic writer. Old news with new data. by linnsey · 2013-07-22 08:52 · Score: 1

Oppression of women is as natural and greed and cruelty, and just as avoidable.

Re:There is _female_ in male? Sacrilege! by linnsey · 2013-07-22 08:54 · Score: 0

Really? I though feminist were more concerned about domestic violence, education access and maternal mortality rates.

Re:Moronic writer. Old news with new data. by linnsey · 2013-07-22 09:00 · Score: 1

I wish I could vote up on this account. This is such a fascinating topic.

Re:There is _female_ in male? Sacrilege! by MysteriousPreacher · 2013-07-22 09:04 · Score: 1

That I, like you, should have used sarcasm tags?

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You didn't finish it... by Rob_Bryerton · 2013-07-22 09:05 · Score: 4, Funny

You didn't finish that saying. Time to burn some karma.

"Behind every great man, the saying goes, there's a great woman.

And behind every great woman, there's a man. Staring at her ass.

Re:You didn't finish it... by antdude · 2013-07-22 13:31 · Score: 1

Her donkey? [grin]

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Re:There is _female_ in male? Sacrilege! by Runaway1956 · 2013-07-22 09:08 · Score: 1

Heh - maybe you're right there. Point taken.

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Re:There is _female_ in male? Sacrilege! by MysteriousPreacher · 2013-07-22 10:00 · Score: 1

You're okay, for a cracker.

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Re:There is _female_ in male? Sacrilege! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-22 10:08 · Score: 0

For anyone interested, here are a couple of valuable Men's Rights Twitter feeds to follow:

https://twitter.com/mensrightsrdt
Which links largely to this Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/mensrights/

And https://twitter.com/manwomanmyth

Some of the information these guys post is truly shocking.

Re:There is _female_ in male? Sacrilege! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-22 10:14 · Score: 4, Insightful

>> domestic violence
SIGNIFICANTLY more males than females are assaulted and killed in society every day.
Perhaps not by their partner, but overall in society.

>> education access
Girls have been outperforming boys in school for many years now.
Also for many years, many more girls have been going into higher education than boys.

>> maternal mortality
Don't even get me started on government health spending.
Women live longer than men, but significantly more is spent on female-specific health issues.

No, what most (not all, but most) feminists do is perpetuate the notion of victimhood amongst females, and most women swallow this hook, line and sinker.
But if you do the research -- I mean actually look at the numbers -- you'll see that males cop it far worse than females.

Isaac Asimov predicted this by Llamalarity · 2013-07-22 10:43 · Score: 1

Actually not, but he did write this pun filled song - to the tune of "Home on the Range,"

Oh, give me a clone
Of my own flesh and bone
With its Y-chromosome changed to X
And when it is grown
Then my own little clone
Will be of the opposite sex.

More if you search for it.

Re:Moronic writer. Old news with new data. by Darinbob · 2013-07-22 11:46 · Score: 1

If you look at all the chromosomes though, there are a lot of "runts". The size of the chromosome doesn't matter as long as they can hold a few genes that are vital.

Re:There is _female_ in male? Sacrilege! by __aaltlg1547 · 2013-07-22 12:32 · Score: 1

Could it be that this is the key to unlocking the code that allows men to employ cooperative, empathetic strategies to achieve success thus explaining the emergence of game theory from the example of men cooperating for the affection of women in bars?

No. It's about sperm production.

With 5% of the human genome residing on this chromosome, it isn't a surprise.

Re:There is _female_ in male? Sacrilege! by __aaltlg1547 · 2013-07-22 12:36 · Score: 1

No feminist would ever make a stupid argument like this...

...And that sounds a lot like No True Scotsman.

So No True Scotsman burns Straw Man?

Where do Lizard and Spock fit in?

Re:There is _female_ in male? Sacrilege! by __aaltlg1547 · 2013-07-22 12:43 · Score: 1

See Klinefelter's syndrome for why that seems unlikely to happen.

Re:There is _female_ in male? Sacrilege! by Sarten-X · 2013-07-22 13:23 · Score: 1

A perfect sig.

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Re:Moronic writer. Old news with new data. by jeffb+(2.718) · 2013-07-22 13:33 · Score: 1

To be honest, I did check EntrezGene first to see whether there really is a SRSLY gene. Apparently not; all I got was SRSY, a little-boy-mouse gene.

Geek Fail ! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-22 16:50 · Score: 0

It is "X Window System". "WindowS" is a trademark of Evil Redmond, Inc,

Re:There is _female_ in male? Sacrilege! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-23 00:34 · Score: 0

Superheroes can't be gay!

A bunch of buff dudes who wear tights & capes? It really sounds like one of a very few career paths where being gay would be pretty helpful.

Re:Moronic writer. Old news with new data. by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-23 13:25 · Score: 0

Those first 22 are pairs. Humans have 46 chromosomes, two of which are the X and Y.

Re:There is _female_ in male? Sacrilege! by gweihir · 2013-07-24 08:28 · Score: 1

Matches my experience.

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Re:There is _female_ in male? Sacrilege! by gweihir · 2013-07-24 08:33 · Score: 1

There are rational feminists out there, true. And they may well be concerned with the issues you quote. But many, many neo-feminists are not aiming at equality at all, they are aiming at female supremacy, and to them anything even remotely "male" is repulsive. That goes so far that there are now neo-feminist professors in Germany that want to discredit the scientific method as a "male" construction that is invalid. (In truth they just do not get it and want to continue to spout their ridiculous BS despite having no proof for anything of it.)

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X Chromosome May Leave a Mark On Male Fertility

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