warning Hi, we've moved to USCANNENBERGMEDIA.COM. Visit us there!

Neon Tommy - Annenberg digital news

Y Chromosome Still Stable, New Research Says

Jianyu Zhao |
April 24, 2014 | 11:45 a.m. PDT

Executive Producer

NIST
NIST
The Y chromosome, which determines whether a mammal will be a male has been found being stable for the past 25 million years, according to a new research published in the journal Nature. 

Compared to the larger X chromosome, the Y pales both in size and the amount of genes it contains.In the last 1950s, many geneticists predicted that the Y chromosome probably would be vanishing in 10 millions years for “very few expressed genes actually resided on the Y.” Such an idea led people wonder wether there would be males any more.

David Page, one author of the new paper, and his colleagues questioned the idea and examined the evolutionary history of the Y chromosome.They found that the Y still remains many genes that are indispensable to the survival of human beings. 

Read more at Scientific American.

Reach Executive Producer Jianyu Zhao here.



 

Buzz

Craig Gillespie directed this true story about "the most daring rescue mission in the history of the U.S. Coast Guard.”

Watch USC Annenberg Media's live State of the Union recap and analysis here.

 
ntrandomness