Fathers Pass On Four Times As Many New Genetic Mutations As Mothers, Says Study (theguardian.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Children inherit four times as many new mutations from their fathers than their mothers, according to research that suggests faults in the men's DNA are a driver for rare childhood diseases. Researchers studied 14,000 Icelanders and found that men passed on one new mutation for every eight months of age, compared with women who passed on a new mutation for every three years of age. The figures mean that a child born to 30-year-old parents would, on average, inherit 11 new mutations from the mother, but 45 from the father. Kari Stefansson, a researcher at the Icelandic genetics company, deCODE, which led the study, said that while new mutations led to variation in the human genome, which is necessary for evolution to happen, "they are also believed to be responsible for the majority of cases of rare diseases in childhood." In the study published in Nature, the researchers analyzed the DNA of 1,500 Icelanders and their parents and, for 225 people, at least one of their children. They found that new mutations from mothers increased by 0.37 per year of age, a quarter of the rate found in men. While the vast majority of new mutations are thought to be harmless, occasionally they can disrupt the workings of genes that are important for good health.

Comments

I guess this means

[NEDHead]

Fathers are the mother of evolution

Re:I guess this means

[markdavis]

There is no evidence that the cause of male genetic errors are caused by temperature of the testes. The reason they are external is that sperm cannot be formed at typical mammal internal body temperatures. Higher temperatures will result in a lower sperm count (and thus less virility). But that doesn't mean that the sperm would have more mutations.

Would be an interesting topic of study, however.

Re:I guess this means

[v1]

Mutations occur mainly during cell replication. Given how many sperm are produced (compared to eggs) there's going to be many more generations of sperm (in the stem cell lineage) replications between a man and a woman over their lifetime. I've seen 5 billion quoted as a man's lifetime sperm production. From 1 starting stem cell that's over 30 generations. I don't see any hard data on how many eggs a woman is born with (since they don't replicate beyond that) but if it's say 50,000, that's around 15 generations. Each generation is an opportunity for more mutation. So the man has up to 15 additional generations of sperm production as he ages.

I've also seen a study awhile ago that mentioned that older men have more mutations in their sperm, which also makes sense for the same reason, they're farther down the generation tree in their sperm production. Nothing about this article is surprising in the least.

Re:I guess this means

[AmiMoJo]

Unfortunately we don't really want evolution any more, at least not individually. Most evolution is failures, the kind of genetic downgrade that natural selection would deselect through premature death.

I wonder if this might lead to more men freezing sperm as teenagers, when the mutation rate is lowest.

Re:I guess this means

[angel'o'sphere]

Well, you seem not to know much about women :)
Fertile age range, 14 - 50 (simplified), 28 cycle, makes 13 cycles per year. 36 * 13 yields 468, so lets say: 500 eggs.
On the other hand, we have new research indicating that the old idea that a woman is born with a fixed amount of eggs is wrong. .they get recreated just like sperm, but at a different speed/rate.

Re: xx vs. xy

[gerf]

I'd suspect its because male gonads are more readily exposed to mutation causing environmental factors such as radiation, chemicals, etc

Re: xx vs. xy

[Matt.Battey]

Male gametes are continuously produced, while female gametes are 100% present at birth. Transcription errors occurs during replication which may be as much of a factor as male vs. female gonad tissue depth.

Could be compensation

[Anonymous Coward]

It appears that throughout evolutionary history a much larger proportion of men produced no offspring than did women. The men who did produce offspring produced more, leading to human beings having about twice as many female ancestors as male (males were more likely to be distant cousins of other males in your family tree, which means more duplication of (great-)*n grandfathers).

Since males were more likely to be childless, to have an equal influence on evolution the males who were fathers would need to pass on more mutations. There would have to be evolutionary pressure for both sexes to equally influence evolution, though. Or, at least, some advantage for males in particular to keep up with women.

Re:Could be compensation

[Samantha Wright]

I believe the generally accepted view on the evolutionary impact of sexual dimorphism, in most mammals, is that males are experimental (and relatively expendable, as far as biological fitness is concerned; the act of copulation is a relatively brief part of childrearing.) Take, for example, the X chromosome: with only one copy, males experience its effects far more prominently. In females, one of the copies of the X chromosome is selected at random to be disabled, so the two copies are averaged out, statistically driving the overall phenotype toward the mean. There are a number of physiological traits that exhibit this pattern, for example men have a higher standard deviation in height than women. In a hunter-gatherer scenario, this protects the nucleus of the tribe from deleterious mutations, and is a key advantage of sexual reproduction.

NO

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Not true. This story is lies. Fake news. Everybody knows that men and women are exactly the same at everything. Claiming otherwise is sexist and misogynist and racist and fascist and placist and bassist. You are Nazis and monsters and white supremacists. Retract this article immediately or we're going after your sponsors. Die in hell.

Signed,
The Tolerance Brigade

Re:NO

[lucm]

Everybody knows that men and women are exactly the same at everything.

... except when the boat is sinking, then suddenly equality vanishes.

Re:NO

[Zocalo]

*ANY* boat - metaphorical or literal. It's a rare feminist, or any other disadvantaged group for that matter, that will stick to their principles when being a member of that group presents an opportunity to gain an advantage, as exemplified by the call "Women and children first!" in the rush to the lifeboats. The ability to put looking out for number one over our principles is one of the few things that seems to be a constant across pretty much any grouping of humankind you can imagine.

Re:NO

[AmiMoJo]

Whatever, as long as men still can't get pregnant. The thought of having my genitals ripped open as some kid rams his head through them does not appeal.

Re:NO

[AmiMoJo]

"Women and children first" is actually a bit of a myth. It seems to have been popularized by reports of the second officer aboard the Titanic asking "Hadn't we better get the women and children into the boats, sir?" The captain responded somewhat vaguely, resulting in needless deaths. But there is no basis for it in maritime law and it isn't considered in evacuation plans.

It's actually something feminists dislike, because it's just another aspect of toxic masculinity, the idea that men should hide injuries, fear and any perceived weakness by prioritizing the rescue of people they see as un-manly. Evacuation should proceed in the order of greatest need.

Re:NO

[Ol Olsoc]

No. Not true. This story is lies. Fake news. Everybody knows that men and women are exactly the same at everything. Claiming otherwise is sexist and misogynist and racist and fascist and placist and bassist.

Not necessarily fake news, but serving news.

I know you were making a funny - a good one by the way - but there is an angle to the news.

As feminism has convinced women for a long time that they don't need men, and as we now have more educated women than men, and no end of that trend in sight, single, educated women are hitting their 30's and suddenly realizing that their reproductive drive is on high alert. But there is a problem. They are having a hellava time meeting and sealing the deal with any male that they consider worthy. This is based on the inherent acceptability factor that the female of the species wants to marry up in class.

So we are seeing a lot of educated women in a panic, freezing their eggs in hopes of finding a male who lives up to their standards. Some companies actually pay for this process. But that's a loser's game, because as they age, their value to the males of the species drops, and unless they plan on marrying someone much younger, there are not going to be too many 50 year old men who want to have children at that age.

Now there are a couple solutions. Marry young and have children at a more physically appropriate age, then work your career, and the other is to make the educational environment less unpleasant for men. Having been through that, it is an issue when you are reminded every day of how terrible a sub-human you are. Because all nature versus nurture aside, women inherently call the shots on reproduction, and at present, have largely priced themselves out of the market.

Back to the subject at hand. As many women panic over their declining fertility, and are taking some big efforts to try to artificially extend it, there is a social need to try to pin blame for the issue on the male of the species. The underlying message is "Grow up men" "stop being immature and we need fresh young sperm, because if you don't give it to us when you are young, any problems are your fault."

Whereas the real issue is that if you want children, you don't wait until you are at an age when most earlier humans were grandparents or dead. We have had some success with the artificial extension of childhood, but cannot extend that much more without a lot of bad issues. My great grandparents were married at 13 years old, but they had to to have a good chance of raising children before they died.

Today, it's the opposite. Some people are concerned they will die before having any children.

Re:NO

[Ol Olsoc]

... except when the boat is sinking, then suddenly equality vanishes.

What boat?

(Queue cheesy 70's music) The Looooove Boat....

Re:NO

[Ol Olsoc]

Do you have any evidence of this?

The only time "women and children first" seem to have been a thing is when the people in charge, usually men, have declared it.

In many circumstances, it makes sense, no matter who declares it.

If the stronger of the species were to physically make certain that they survived, and it was everyone for themselves, we'd fail as a species pretty quickly.

Now we are not in such a situation any more, but like it or not, human males have a pretty strong protective instinct that rises to the level that we will often choose to die to save a woman or women. Same with children. But when puberty hits, the female gets the privilege of living, and the once protected male child is now a utility and can die with the rest of the surplus men.

I used the word privilege quite purposely, because what is considered male privilege is often the privilege to sacrifice your own life. Which by the way, in a truly equal society unconstrained by instinct, a female is as likely to give her seat on the lifeboat to any random male. We just have these inconvenient instincts, which allowed the species to avoid extinction.

Re:NO

[religionofpeas]

Ideally, each rescue boat should have a ratio of ten women for each man.

It is, you know, a sacrifice required for the future of the human race. I hasten to add that since each man will be required to do prodigious...service along these lines, the women will have to be selected for their sexual characteristics which will have to be of a highly stimulating nature.

Best Place to Experiment

[Kunedog]

The more disposable gender is the better one to experiment with. You could lose a LOT of men to bad genes before it costs you same (raw) reproductive capacity of losing even 5% of women.

Re:Best Place to Experiment

[Ubi_NL]

eh yah, but that's completely unrelated to TFA. This is about mutation accumulation in germ cells (i.e. sperm). This mutation rate is not specific for the Y chromosome, thus the girl babies receive the mutations at the exact same rate as the boy babies.

Basically all the article states is that mature egg cells accumulate fewer mutations than mature sperm cells, which is kinda obvious as their stem cells go through fewer cell divisions until they create the cell that actually becomes the germ cell.

Really people, why is this modded up?

Not Reall Surprising

[NicknameUnavailable]

Women are more valuable from an evolutionary standpoint than men because they take so long to reproduce, whereas a single male can impregnate hundreds of women at a time.

This means that while males are largely disposable, there is also significantly less room for women to deviate from the norm without running the risk of losing viability for their immediate family. Therefore males will deviate from the norm much more.

This is why males tend to dominate the ultra-high and ultra-low intellect while the bell curve for female intelligence is much tighter, and similarly why children tend to take after their father's in terms of personality and aptitude: that's the edge version.

Re: xx vs. xy

[deviated_prevert]

female gametes are 100% present at birth

That's recently been found to be untrue.

Not quite. It depends greatly upon the health of the female in the years just prior to puberty. A more concise explanation of ovogenesisis here. This is indeed news for most nerds of the computer kind but then again we do understand the concept of having soldered in ram that cannot be increased. With male nerds the problem lies in the waste of excess male gametes while thinking about the physical aspects of a females reproductive organs. Thus reducing the quantity of male gametes available when the occasion actually occurs. So we do not reproduce as frequently as males who do the real thing, a situation which in theory could reduce the population of nerds in the long run.

Please reread the summary

[FeelGood314]

You read the short summary incorrectly. They never said men have more mutations they said men pass on more mutations to their children, both to sons and daughters. Other than in their sperm men don't have more mutations than women.

Re:Please reread the summary

[geantvert]

You are probably right but if there is an excess of mutations in the male sex cells then that means that the Y chromosomes are on average more subject to mutations than the X chromosome. Another way to see the problem is to consider that the 'ancestors' of a Y chromosomes were all males while the 'ancestors' of a X chromosome were 1/3 males and 2/3 females. By 'ancestor', I of course mean from which parent that chromosome was inherited. So over multiple generations the Y chromosomes should accumulate more mutations than the X chromosomes. This is of course assuming that the effect described in the research paper can be generalized in time and to larger populations.

The 'ancestors' of non-sexual chromosomes should be 1/2 males and 1/2 females and so should not be affected.

Re:Sex Selection

[serviscope_minor]

This makes me wonder if men having substantially higher mutation rates than women is a result of sex selection: women tending to be more attracted to men whose genes mutate faster,

Probably not. Almost all "just so" stories about evolution (and biology in general) are wrong.

A nice way to test your hypothesis would be to, say, do the experiment with the lab standards, mice, rats, zebrafish and drosophila. You could also both allow for choice and largely eliminate it.

First 40 posts are clueless - Fathers pass on more

[FeelGood314]

I lose faith in slashdot readers sometime. The study said nothing about X or Y chromosomes or that men had more mutations than women. It said fathers as they age pass on more mutations to BOTH their sons and daughters than mothers.

In Iceland?

[redmid17]

The same place where they have dating apps to confirm you aren't fucking your cousin? Please bring this study to some place normal like eastern Kentucky or a West Virginia holler. No way you could replicate it there!

Re: xx vs. xy

[sabbede]

Makes sense to me. What is it, tens or hundreds of millions of little swimmers that could be produced daily? That's a lot of unverified copy operations. Plenty of opportunities for mutation.

Re:I guess this means it's the man's fault

[cyberchondriac]

Surprised The Guardian didn't frame it that way, so .. wait, did they just assume someone's gender?