Men At Risk: Is The Y Chromosome Disappearing Also?

Thursday, January 9, 2014 - 21:40 in Paleontology & Archaeology

Culturally, it's discussed that being a man in the Western world is going out of fashion. People are instead supposed to be homogenized into some sort of gender-neutral swirl of beliefs and actions, with only slight variation. Even the Y chromosome is dwindling. Is it at risk of being lost? The human Y chromosome contains 27 unique genes, compared to thousands on other chromosomes. Some mammals have already lost their Y chromosome, though they still have males, females and normal reproduction. This has led people to speculate that the Y chromosome is becoming superfluous. But the genes on the Y chromosome are important, they have been maintained by selection.  They're probably not going anywhere. read more

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