This is just warmed-over BS from the 1960s.
Posted on 10/23/2024 1:25:15 PM PDT by nickcarraway
The Y chromosome, which contains the male-determining gene in humans and other mammals, is degenerating in the human species and may cease to exist after a few million years. This would lead to extinction unless humans evolve a new sex gene.
How the Y chromosome, the “Male Gene,” works
Female humans, along with other mammals, have two X chromosomes, while males have just one. This is paired with a much smaller Y chromosome in men. The X chromosome contains around nine hundred genes, which carry out lots of tasks unrelated to sex, and the Y contains far fewer genes (55) along with a great deal of non-coding DNA, such as simple, repetitive DNA that appears not to have any particular function.
The Y chromosome is important because it contains the gene that initiates male development in the embryo, which switches on at around twelve weeks into pregnancy. This male-inducing gene switches on others that regulate the development of a testis, and the embryonic testis produces male hormones (testosterone, among others), which leads to the development of a baby boy.
X and Y chromosomes explained
This master sex gene was identified as SRY (sex region on the Y) in 1990 and works by triggering a genetic pathway beginning with a gene called SOX9, which is crucial for male determination in all vertebrates.
The Y is disappearing The majority of mammals have an X and Y chromosome similar to those of humans. The X carried lots of genes, while the Y contains SRY and a few others. This biological system has innate difficulties, due to the uneven amount of X chromosome genes in males and females.
Grecian Delight supports Greece
In discovering the evolution of this system, it is useful to look at the duck-billed platypus, which has entirely different sex chromosomes. In platypuses, the XY pair is simply an ordinary chromosome with two equal members. This suggests the mammal X and Y were an ordinary pair of chromosomes not too far back in evolutionary history.
This further suggests that the Y chromosome has lost around almost nine hundred active genes over the 166 million years that humans and platypuses have been evolving separately. Consequently, this amounts to a loss of around five genes per million years, meaning the last fifty-five genes will have disappeared within the next eleven million years.
The case of the Y chromosome in rodents
There are two species of rodents that have already lost their Y chromosome and continue to survive. This includes the mole voles of eastern Europe and the spiny rats of Japan. Their X chromosome remains in a single or double form in both sexes.
It is unknown how the mole voles determine sex without the SRY gene, but a team led by Hokkaido University biologist Asato Kuroiwa has made headway with the spiny rat. It is a group of three species on different Japanese islands. Kuroiwa’s team discovered that most of the genes on the Y of spiny rats had been relocated to other chromosomes, but the SRY was not found, nor was the gene that substitutes for it.
In 2022, the research team published their study in the academic journal PNAS, having eventually discovered sequences that were in the genomes of males but not females. They refined them and then tested for the sequence on every individual rat. The team discovered a very minute difference near the key sex gene SOX9. It was on chromosome three of the spiny rat. A small duplication—just seventeen thousand base chromosome pairs out of more than three billion—was present in all males and no females.
The researchers posited that this tiny bit of duplicated DNA contains the switch that would usually turn on SOX9 in response to SRY. When they introduced this duplication into mice, they found that it boosts SOX9 activity, meaning the change could allow SOX9 to work without SRY.
The future of the Y chromosome?
Much speculation has been made about the eventual disappearance of the human Y chromosome, particularly with regard to the future of the human race. Several lizards and snake species are female-only and can produce eggs from their own genes via parthenogenesis. However, this is not possible in humans and other mammals because they have at least thirty crucial “imprinted” genes that only work if they come from the father via sperm.
In order for humans to reproduce, sperm is needed. By association, males are hence necessary. This means the end of the Y chromosome could spell the extinction of the human race unless, as the new findings suggest, humans can evolve a new sex-determining gene.
What he fantasized.
Why is it ‘fantasy’? He’s just reporting on research that appears to show a decline in the Y chromosome in males.
another article with an agenda. and a headline to get you excited.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/new-dna-telomere-chromosomes-pangenome
Some males lose the Y chromosome from some of their cells. The loss puts them at risk for cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and other illnesses.
The “research” is a lie.
This is just warmed-over BS from the 1960s.
A few million years.... There will be a mass extinction event far before that which is a universal mulligan.
Genetic decay happens - it is linked to lots of diseases; and loss of chromosome Y usually takes place ‘naturally’ in men as they age anyway.
I don’t have a problem with the research; but I don’t know if it means we’ll ‘die out’. (I find it hard to believe that all that ‘repetitive’ or ‘junk’ DNA is just that.)
Maybe Creation isn’t finished with us yet.
Male and female will change to one another. Uh...
I personally think we may not have to wait that long.
The ball has already started down that humongous mountain.
I don’t think we have to worry about that.
Males and females who simply believe that they can ‘change into one another’ by ‘identifying’, lopping bits off, taking hormones, etc. - they are the ones who are just fantasizing.
But the idea that we may further evolve genetically over hundreds of thousands or millions of years is interesting speculation.
Those that do try changing, don’t lack support or encouragement.
Money makes the world go round.
‘Support and encouragement’ my reinforce and perpetuate someone’s delusion; but they can’t change the facts of life and laws of science.
A few million years???
Gloria Steinem can hardly wait... And in a million years she will still be defending Bill Clinton sexually abusing his 20 year old intern.
It’s a fairly straightforward equation. Due to harsh environmental conditions, species need more chromosomes to make them more adaptable. However, when starvation is an issue, species need fewer chromosomes to use less energy in cell reproduction.
However, there are any number of other variables that come into play.
However, it is reasonable to say that if the “Y” chromosome dies out, an “X” chromosome will step up to take its place.
Right.
Wonder how many have experienced the ‘I wish I hadn’t done that”
It could literally ruin you sex life or your life.
I think there are going to be massive lawsuits in coming years, especially from those whose lives were butchered this way when they were minors.
Yes, he’s at leading edge!
Yes I understand genetic decay. Pandas?
However I was more focused in on the MAY and the in a million years that turns this into a non item
In a million years, if we haven’t already died out or destroyed ourselves here, we might live on another planet and have adapted to that in ways we can’t imagine now.
I think it’s all interesting to think about; and speculation often leads to new avenues of useful research in the ‘now’.
(The ‘dreamers’ among us are often the ones who create and discover new things.)
The article states that 5 genes have been disappearing every million years, presumably an average. It suggests that the remaining 55 will be gone in 11 million years.
It is unlikely that such a decrease will continue in the future. It might accelerate, but is more likely to decelerate.
One example would be a process where X% of the genes disappear per time period.
Women cannot ejaculate through a penis, but boy can they ejaculate through a milk filled breast when the baby starts to cry. It can be hard to get the infant sucking the breast sometimes because the milk is squirting into its face as it approaches the breast. You can temporarily stop the squirting by pressing a finger on the nipple as you try to get the baby into the proper position to to nurse. If you are a male reading this, keep it in mind if you ever have a woman who is trying to breast feed your child.
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