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Is The Y Chromosome Dying Out?
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FilippaBates
07/17/09

In reply to Is The Y Chromosome Dying Out?
Wow! I'm thrilled at all the comments. Rabbity is correct that the monotreme sex chromosomes evolved independently of the therian (marsupial and eutherian) sex chromosomes. In our paper we don't actually consider monotreme sex chromosomes at all. The cool thing about the region we asses (X-added region/Y-added region) is that it is sex-linked in eutherian mammals, but autosomal in monotremes and marsupials. This autosomal outgroup sequence allows us to investigate how eutherian sex chromosome sequence evolves, when it first becomes sex-linked (both on the X or the Y). Please keep up the comments! maw397 = melissa wilson :)
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Snockered
07/17/09

In reply to Is The Y Chromosome Dying Out?
You forgot to mention that there are plenty of men out there with two X chromosomes:
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=trans+men
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BetteD
07/17/09

In reply to Is The Y Chromosome Dying Out?
I, for one, welcome our ambiguously sexed new overlords. Ahem.
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biochemgal
07/17/09

In reply to Is The Y Chromosome Dying Out?
One of my professors once memorably said that the Y chromosome is where good genes go to die.
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girly
07/17/09

In reply to Is The Y Chromosome Dying Out?
I don't think you can count out the Y Chromosome just yet, I read another article on this that said that although it has lost genes, it is also capable of gaining them as well!
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Lucille van Pelt
07/17/09

In reply to Is The Y Chromosome Dying Out?
I think i was taught about this in highschool AP bio 10 years ago. Interesting that it's just now coming out in the media.
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Callinectes
07/17/09

In reply to Is The Y Chromosome Dying Out?
Today, the human Y chromosome contains less than 200 genes, while the human X chromosome contains around 1,100 genes.

This explains SO much.
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hovy
07/17/09

In reply to Is The Y Chromosome Dying Out?
Well... I guess this means I'll be getting myself a pet monkey and changing my name to Yorick.
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LBB
07/17/09

@hovy: The minute I saw the headline I wondered who would be the first to make the Y: The Last Man reference :)
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stoprobbers
07/17/09

In reply to Is The Y Chromosome Dying Out?
I had no idea chromosomes were so furry. Now I really want a chromasome throw pillow.
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Anna N.
07/17/09

@stoprobbers: You can haz it -- sorta: http://www.cafepress.com/stargazerdesign.168721335
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Sputnik_Sweetheart
07/17/09

In reply to Is The Y Chromosome Dying Out?
Someone should show this study to Kirk Cameron. I see your "crocoduck" and raise you a platypus, sir. Game on.
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vanka-vstanka
07/17/09

@Sputnik_Sweetheart: He would just use a banana to demonstrate how evolution isn't real and how to live your life according to the Way of the Master. He would then make you watch Fireproof repeatedly until you conceded defeat.
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Asmo
07/17/09

@vanka-vstanka: Oh yeah. You just reminded me of that video where Kirk's buddy explains the whole, "bananas prove god exists" tripe. Thank you; you've just brightened up my day.
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dianersb was bit by a zombie
07/17/09

In reply to Is The Y Chromosome Dying Out?
But platypodes/platypi/platypuses have 10 sex chromosomes, so can somebody with a science background explain how this leap was made?
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NefariousNewt
07/17/09

@dianersb was bit by a zombie: God did it.
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Rabbitty
07/17/09

@dianersb was bit by a zombie: If I remember the original platypus paper correctly their sex chromosomes evolved from a different autosome (non-sex chromosome) than our sex chromosomes*. They might have also had duplicates, but I don't remember if that was the case.

*Sex chromosomes can come from mutations arising in autosomes, or from fusing of a sex chromosome with an autosome to form what are called neo-sex chromosomes.
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dianersb was bit by a zombie
07/17/09

@NefariousNewt: Creationist!!!!

*points horrified finger at you*
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Anna N.
07/17/09

@dianersb was bit by a zombie: From the article, it looks like platypus chromosomes swap DNA with one another, as X and Y chromosomes once did. The scientists compared platypus chromosomes to the chromosomes of other animals to see what happened when X and Y stopped swapping and became totally separate, which is also when Y started evolving faster and losing genes. Also, yeah, God did it.
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dianersb was bit by a zombie
07/17/09

@Anna N.: Thanks! I'll be the first to admit that my grasp of science is fades the longer it has been since my university biology class.
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wtfox?!
07/17/09

In reply to Is The Y Chromosome Dying Out?
I vote we call this new world Amazonia.
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mbprice
07/17/09

@wtfox?!: I don't know, if the naming of women's things follows high school sports team naming conventions, I think you're just gonna have to call it Lady Earth.
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Annabellie
07/17/09

@wtfox?!: Or Lesbos?
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Zombie Ms. Skittles
07/17/09

@wtfox?!: In high school, for a sociology project, this one girl and I created a women-dominated society. We called it Athenopolis.

In our world, men were kept in underground bunkers and used only for breeding purposes.
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Edited by Zombie Ms. Skittles at 07/17/09 9:55 AM

LaComtesse
07/17/09

@Zombie Ms. Skittles: Heh. I'm guessing you attended high school pre-Columbine... ;-)
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Zombie Ms. Skittles
07/17/09

@LaComtesse: Actually, no. This was probably 2002-2003. The guys didn't think it was funny, but we did.
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mbprice
07/17/09

@Zombie Ms. Skittles: I don't know... do these underground bunkers have TVs and maybe a coffee shop?
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Edited by mbprice at 07/17/09 10:02 AM mbprice was starred mbprice was unstarred

Eleanor Ramilly
07/17/09

@wtfox?!: Death by snoo snoo!
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LaComtesse
07/17/09

@Zombie Ms. Skittles: ah. Then you were far enough behind those times that admins and teachers didn't freak out at every subversive looking notebook scribble or kid wearing a trenchcoat...

@mbprice: I'm in talks with Au Bon Pain and Starbucks right now. We know how to treat our menz.
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LaComtesse
07/17/09

@Eleanor Ramilly: That does not fempute!
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AmericanSplendor
07/17/09

@Eleanor Ramilly:

The best way to die!
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Zombie Ms. Skittles
07/17/09

@LaComtesse: It was for a class project! We had to create our own society!
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LaComtesse
07/17/09

@Zombie Ms. Skittles: You had to create a society, not enslave half the population for breeding programs!

(I'm completely joking with you... sometimes sarcasm is lost in the interwebz before it gets to its intended audience.)
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hellosunshine
07/17/09

@wtfox?!: Personally, I like Bonerkillerworld.
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Zombie Ms. Skittles
07/17/09

@LaComtesse: But it was so much fun!!!!!! And also, clothes were considered non-necessary for men in our society since they...lived in bunkers. So they all wore togas and shit.
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ozu
07/17/09

@Zombie Ms. Skittles: Will these underground bunkers have internet access and alcohol? Because I can get down with that.
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Edited by ozu at 07/17/09 10:51 AM ozu was starred ozu was unstarred

makeminemanda
07/17/09

@wtfox?!: Themyscira?
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Sodypop
07/17/09

@Eleanor Ramilly: ...We need rest. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is spongy and bruised...
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PipPipCheerio
07/17/09

@Zombie Ms. Skittles: That reminds me of a story Ursula LeGuin wrote with a setting along those lines. In her world, fewer and fewer men were born each year, so society is composed entirely of women and the few men are segregated into an institution called the Fuckery, where women come and pay to have sex with them to get pregnant (they marry other women for romantic/ economic purposes and men are just for breeding). Within the fuckery, men compete with each other for status so that their sperm will be worth more, and thus their services more valuable.

I read it for a sci-fi literature course and, not surprisingly, all the guys in the class hated it.
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Spaceman Bill Leah
07/17/09

@LaComtesse: You have no idea what it’s like to be a fembot pretending to be a femputer in a manbot’s manputer world.
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margareita metermaid
07/17/09

@PipPipCheerio: I never really liked science fiction (besides Philip K Dick) until I found some of the better female writers, like LeGuin. I read a bio of James Tiptree Jr, who was actually a woman, and it's amazingly predictable how sexist the industry was/is. No man would've written the story you described, so I'm very grateful these female sci-fiers found a way to get their work out there.
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youareasleep
07/17/09

@wtfox?!: On the heels of this article, I am now going to form an all-female death metal band called Parthenogenesis.
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violettefay
07/17/09

In reply to Is The Y Chromosome Dying Out?
My brain actually doesn't comprehend this, but I think it means my great-great-great-great-grandchildren will save $ on birth control?
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starryeyedkid
07/17/09

@violettefay:
Yesssssssssssssssss! Can we be frozen like Han Solo to survive until then, therefore not wasting any more of our precious money?
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Spaceman Bill Leah
07/17/09

In reply to Is The Y Chromosome Dying Out?
Does this mean that maybe we will become like those awesome frogs that caused all that trouble in Jurassic Park by spontaneously changing sex to compensate for the all female population?
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LaComtesse
07/17/09

@Spaceman Bill Leah: If this will somehow allow me to turn into a super-smart, fast, big-clawed, door-opening, Muldoon killing, quick-to-adapt half-woman half-veliociraptor I am SO down with this...
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Spaceman Bill Leah
07/17/09

@LaComtesse: Clever girl...
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HarpMadness
07/17/09

@Spaceman Bill Leah: Or like in that one Ursula LeGuin book where at a certain time each month they would become a random sex and bonk like bunnies?
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LaComtesse
07/17/09

@Spaceman Bill Leah: I can't even begin to tell you how often I use that phrase in that voice. Probably daily.
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littlemisslondon
07/17/09

@HarpMadness: The Left Hand of Darkness. Awesome book.
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Spaceman Bill Leah
07/17/09

@LaComtesse: Hah! So do I. I was even trying to figure out how to spell it out to get the accent to come across but I couldn't make it look right so I just gave up.
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mbprice
07/17/09

In reply to Is The Y Chromosome Dying Out?
Well, we had a good run. Time to turn over the keys to you ladies, I suppose. Thanks for all the fish and whatnot.
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BabyJane
07/17/09

@mbprice:
One of us, one of us...
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CurtCole
07/17/09

@mbprice: Come on mbprice, it's time we took a trip to the land before time.
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mbprice
07/17/09

@CurtCole: Can we go around smashing any and all things out of time-paradox frustration, a la Homer Simpson? Cuz if so, I'm there.
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NefariousNewt
07/17/09

@mbprice: Men will survive... as CYBORGS!!!!
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mbprice
07/17/09

@NefariousNewt: I wonder if sexism will survive as cybersexism. "Hey there future-babe, how about you make me a sandwich nutrition pill? Why don't future women wear watches? They have digitally-implanted time sensors! AEGH AEGH AEGH [that's what a cyborg laugh sounds like]"
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NefariousNewt
07/17/09

@mbprice: And what of the transgendered? No more women trapped in men's bodies. And anyone claiming they are a "man" trapped in a woman's body -- they will be shunned and derided.
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A Small Turnip
07/17/09

@mbprice: Amazing. Amazing.
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