Darn that pesky Y chromosome, anyway

Carolynn · Post by **Carolynn** » Wed Sep 28, 2011 8:39 am

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/274 ... weaker-sex

I have heard this one before, but forgot where. And remember there are 3-4,000 genes on the X chromosome, and 100 or less on the Y...........

However the RNA may be where the hardiness comes from. I guess the relative numbers may still apply?

Annnnyyyway......

Carolynn

Lydia · Post by **Lydia** » Wed Sep 28, 2011 1:02 pm

My SO (Paula) characterizes the Y-chromosome as simply a defective X-chromosome.

Hugs,

Lydia

Ralitsa · Post by **Ralitsa** » Wed Sep 28, 2011 1:24 pm

Lydia, I think that is not so far from the truth. There is an interpretation of genetic development which postulates that females are normal, and males are a result of the missing genes on the y chromosome failing to be expressed. Probably that is a serious over-simplification. And it implies that females would have existed for many generations before males, if males were derived from defective females. But since both males and females are required to make the following generation they must necessarily have developed simultaneously.
Anyway, it is very interesting that the y chromosome seems to be a stripped down version of the x. If I were chauvanistic I would say it's the x without all the problems. And if I were a feminist I would say the y is a defective x. And if I were a mathematician I would say that when x2+y2=r2 then we are going around in a circle.

Lydia · Post by **Lydia** » Thu Sep 29, 2011 2:09 pm

Not everybody has this X-Y condition. Birds are female (W-Z) digametic, i.e., females have a W and a Z chromosome, but males are a homozygous W-W. Reptiles have no specific sex chromosomes, but the sex is determined by the temperature of early development. If my memory serves me right a low temperature produces females, while a higher temp makes males (Or is it the other way around - I'll have to look it up).
However the two sex system is basic from the most primitive life forms up. The mixture of DNA from two different individuals is essential for evolutionary adaptive changes to take place.
Even naturally hermaphroditic species use ways to insure cross- rather than self-fertilization.

Sorry for becoming pedantic

Hugs,

Lydia

Absaroka · Post by **Absaroka** » Fri Sep 30, 2011 7:30 am

I had a friend who was a pediatric nurse who used to say that it was common knowledge that boys had less resistance to infection than girls. She also felt this could be analyzed along racial lines, and used to say that a black baby girl would be mildly ill with something that would leave a white baby boy on deaths door.

My take on the gender differences are that men and women biologically have different strengths. Women live longer and can survive a lot of things better than men. A healthy woman has a higher percentage of body fat than a healthy man, meaning women can survive famine better also. So take heart from that, women with a strong figure.....

Men on the other hand are stronger when facing immediate threats. What it really comes down to is that men are expendable, women are not. The chivalrous ideal of women and children first has it's roots in societal survival strategies. Of course when we are not in survival mode sometimes new strategies are called for.

I guess that you could say that if we were compared to insects, the worker bees have staged a coup and taken over the hive.