mind control, bimbo transformation

[B-mage]

none of it will matter in a few thousand years, the Y Chromosome is getting weaker with every generation losing more and more of it's traits to the X Chromosome, basicly over time Men's differences from Women will get weaker and weaker till all humans resemble females and they either produce asexualy or have the ability to change gender responabilites O.o

That is if the Zombie apocolypse doesn't come first...

[Xeno_Angel]

Originally Posted by B-mage

none of it will matter in a few thousand years, the Y Chromosome is getting weaker with every generation losing more and more of it's traits to the X Chromosome, basicly over time Men's differences from Women will get weaker and weaker till all humans resemble females and they either produce asexualy or have the ability to change gender responabilites O.o

That is if the Zombie apocolypse doesn't come first...

Wow, I don't think that will be pretty.

[lolol]

Originally Posted by B-mage

none of it will matter in a few thousand years, the Y Chromosome is getting weaker with every generation losing more and more of it's traits to the X Chromosome, basicly over time Men's differences from Women will get weaker and weaker till all humans resemble females and they either produce asexualy or have the ability to change gender responabilites O.o

That is if the Zombie apocolypse doesn't come first...

Not necessarily. Genes don't jump to different chromosomes (Movement is usually just within the individual chromosome); besides that, sexual reproduction is more-or-less necessary for genetic diversity. The few species that reproduce asexually -- haplodiploidy doesn't count here because unfertilized eggs spawn males -- tend to be insects in isolated regions that don't have much competition within their niche. I don't think humans would go down that evolutionary path partly because there's no selective pressure against sex, partly because sexual recombination protects against disease (Arms races between us and the bacteria/viruses and such).

Besides that, it'd take more than a few thousand years. Hell, an 'instant' in evolutionary terms is something like 500,000 years. XD

[fri2219]

Originally Posted by B-mage

none of it will matter in a few thousand years, the Y Chromosome is getting weaker with every generation losing more and more of it's traits to the X Chromosome, basicly over time Men's differences from Women will get weaker and weaker till all humans resemble females and they either produce asexualy or have the ability to change gender responabilites O.o

Sex allegedly/probably provides a selective advantage in the face of parasites. As long as there are parasites, heterozygotic, heterologous, recombination will provide a selective advantage.

[B-mage]

Originally Posted by lolol

Not necessarily. Genes don't jump to different chromosomes (Movement is usually just within the individual chromosome); besides that, sexual reproduction is more-or-less necessary for genetic diversity. The few species that reproduce asexually -- haplodiploidy doesn't count here because unfertilized eggs spawn males -- tend to be insects in isolated regions that don't have much competition within their niche. I don't think humans would go down that evolutionary path partly because there's no selective pressure against sex, partly because sexual recombination protects against disease (Arms races between us and the bacteria/viruses and such).

Besides that, it'd take more than a few thousand years. Hell, an 'instant' in evolutionary terms is something like 500,000 years. XD

No it's been tracked in recent years, we can't look at the genes from the Y chromosome for the last 1000 years to determine the speed but we are seeing a drop in the genes the Y chromosome carries, last I checked the X chromosome has 1000 some genes and the Y has only 125 or so, also they HAVE proved the Y chromosome used to have more, but again without longer records it's impossible to tell how much or how fast this is occuring, we just know at some point, some day, baring any sudden changes in enviroment that may alter the evolutionary path, men will lose more and more of their differences with women.

Edit: Getting off topic here but I'll just finish with this coppied from a wiki page, not really sure to be true, but still:

"Y chromosome, shrinking

With time, larger and larger areas became unable to recombine with the X chromosome. This caused its own problems: without recombination, the removal of harmful mutations from chromosomes becomes increasingly difficult. These harmful mutations continued to damage Y-unique genes until several finally stopped functioning and became genetic junk; this was eventually removed from the Y chromosome.

Today, the human Y chromosome itself contains only 86 working genes; compare this to close to 1000 working genes on the X chromosome. In some animals, Y degradation is even more severe. The 10-12 Mb dunnart Y chromosome, with only four characterised genes; among them the SRY gene, is the smallest known mammalian Y chromosome."

ok someone talk about mind TF before da man shuts us down :O

[fri2219]

Originally Posted by lolol

Not necessarily. Genes don't jump to different chromosomes (Movement is usually just within the individual chromosome); besides that, sexual reproduction is more-or-less necessary for genetic diversity. The few species that reproduce asexually -- haplodiploidy doesn't count here because unfertilized eggs spawn males -- tend to be insects in isolated regions that don't have much competition within their niche. I don't think humans would go down that evolutionary path partly because there's no selective pressure against sex, partly because sexual recombination protects against disease (Arms races between us and the bacteria/viruses and such).

Besides that, it'd take more than a few thousand years. Hell, an 'instant' in evolutionary terms is something like 500,000 years. XD

Most species on the earth are not charismatic megafauna or plants, and reproduce asexually, since they're Prokarya.

Open Reading Frames and iRNA coding regions hop intra/inter chromosomally all the time, and even move to and from organelle genomes fairly frequently. Inter/intra chromosomal re-arrangements not only happen as an side reaction of normal regulation, especially in immune response, but as a product of unequal chromosomal replication and recombination due to retroviruses and other mobile elements such as transposons. If you're interested, look up the work of Barbara McClintock, Howard Temin, and David Baltimore.

The tempo/mode problem of evolutionary clocks has more to do with generation time than physical time. It's too ugly to explain here, but look up what Ernst Mayr has to say about it if you're really motivated. What constitutes an instant is 10 years if you're an insect, or 10 days if you're a bacterium- and the two of them make up 99.9% of the biomass on the planet.

Sorry about the graduate level molecular genetics discussion, I need to get out of my mother's basement laboratory more often.

[Prof_Sai]

Oh, it's the "Men are going to vanish" discussion?

No they aren't. Gender is a useful survival strategy for a variety of reasons, (including parasites, as Fri said.) The Y chromosome might vanish if a better way of defining who is male and who is female pops up. But if it doesn't - it seems to me that a "placeholder" chromosome with no working genes is possible. Genes elsewhere might detect the Y, and make you male if it is present, without the Y itself doing anything - just like some guys I know.

*looks at all the heavily scientidfic posts in this thread*


Does this mean that females of the species are seriously deadlier than the male?

[lolol]

Originally Posted by fri2219

Most species on the earth are not charismatic megafauna or plants, and reproduce asexually, since they're Prokarya.

Open Reading Frames and iRNA coding regions hop intra/inter chromosomally all the time, and even move to and from organelle genomes fairly frequently. Inter/intra chromosomal re-arrangements not only happen as an side reaction of normal regulation, especially in immune response, but as a product of unequal chromosomal replication and recombination due to retroviruses and other mobile elements such as transposons. If you're interested, look up the work of Barbara McClintock, Howard Temin, and David Baltimore.

The tempo/mode problem of evolutionary clocks has more to do with generation time than physical time. It's too ugly to explain here, but look up what Ernst Mayr has to say about it if you're really motivated. What constitutes an instant is 10 years if you're an insect, or 10 days if you're a bacterium- and the two of them make up 99.9% of the biomass on the planet.

Sorry about the graduate level molecular genetics discussion, I need to get out of my mother's basement laboratory more often.

I was assuming megafauna for the sake of discussion, where sex is the rule rather than the exception. I'm not that dense. :P

As for chromosomal jumping, there wouldn't be any reason for jumps to just happen in one direction, right? (Sorry, I'm more familiar with macro-level evo, more used to dealing with genes as the smallest unit. XD)

That makes sense in regards to the clock, I was probably better off saying "geologic time". But either way, my point still holds, because human generation time is extremely long and few huge changes (Like the elimination of maleness) could be made in a thousand years.

Re: B-Mage

All the (human) Y-Chromosome needs to distinguish maleness (I think, someone correct me if I'm wrong) is a testosterone receptor and whatever genes are necessary to develop a rudimentary set of gonads. I hazard to think that mutations in those regions could be so destructive as to irreparably destroy those regions without correction, given that DNA is extremely high-fidelity. A series of mutations like that would be the equivalent of the Cretaceous meteor.

[Squall0986]

Damnit! I can't get this lid back onto the can of worms I opened!

[B-mage]

Originally Posted by Squall0986

Damnit! I can't get this lid back onto the can of worms I opened!

well I kinda opened the can of worms on this "y chromosome dying thing"
in all honesty it's a pointless discussion being made for the sake of debate, there is no proof of the subject in either direction, just enough of both so there is no clear idea which way things will turn out. Some species have gone through similar circumstances with one of them alreayd losing the Y chromosome so to speak, and of course the idea of this happenign seems unlikely and the conditions are hard to believe.

time will tell, we sure won't :P

[Pebbles]

I study biology as a degree so I could explain what happens with the Y chromosome and why IT IS NOT going to vanish but most of you seem to be akin to my senile grandma on this topic of our physiology and the functions of genes.

Wistfully away with the faeries and completely removed from reality.

The Y chromosome possesses it's own error checking methods that are unique to it as some people mentioned it's not an autosome so can't cross check what it actually dose is fold over and check itself, unique ability discovered only recently... Secondly genes can move from one chromosome to another. It's somewhat frequent... wouldn't say it happens every time.

Google Chromosomal Translocation, I also think it's De la Chapelle syndrome where a person who is XX appears as a guy due to Y genes sticking to the X.

Annnd yeah the Y chromosome doesn't need hundreds of genes for the most part the Y genes and SRY is just an antagonist for other genes to activate located on the other autosomes that actually do the grunt work for building guys testis and whatever.

Not to mention there are also reproductive pressures against having a trashed Y chromosome... Begin that it causes Azoospermia and will prevent you spawning so defective and badly corrupted Y chromosomes aren't passed on.

I would go into some fun hypothetical situations but I tend to ramble even more than I'm doing now. Bai bai xxx