Death of the Y gene and humanity

I'm just bringing this up because i thought maybe you guys would find it interesting.

There is some speculation by geneticists that the human race will die off not because of lack of food or war but because of the death of the Y chromosome. You see, when the paternal and maternal genes come together, they basically trade off data, but only one kind of gene can trade with another of the same kind. If you guys have seen those lists that number our genes and picture them. Those are the genes that will switch off together. A number 5 gene cannot trade with a number 10 gene it will not work.

The problem is that trading genes is essential, if a gene does not trade for long enough genetic defects occur, and these aren't the ones that cause retardation, these are the kind that will kill the embryo before it even forms.

Basically the gene goes rotten and it dies. Now of course all of the genes except for the Y are able to trade off every time so this really never happens.

What would happen is that it is almost like being told a phone number one day and remembering it 5 hours later. Now, trading genes is sort of like you repeating the numbers in your head. But imagine if you never think about the number again which is hard to do. 5 hours later maybe you remember the several digit number, but the problem is that often you will get a number or two switched or replaced with something else. This would be a total disaster to the genes.

Also this deteriotion of lack of trading will only cause problems after what is theoretically several million years.

Now here is the big problem

With two X's that make a female they are able to trade off and switch. The problem with the Y is since it is an XY the Y cannot trade with the X. So what happens is that the Y mutates an incredibly minute amount every several generations.

The fear with geneticists is that if it mutates too much than the chromosome will not be recognized as even a piece of DNA and will be rejected and the embryo will inevitably be female because if there is only one X it will still be a girl.

So the problem is that eventually the Y chromosome will mutate so much it will be rejected by the embryo, and this is a problem.

 

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feminism-nazism on the rise.

 

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So guys are semi-retarded mutants? Geez that explains everything! What information has been lost through this minute mutation in every generation?

 

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nothing. The Y chromosome only carries the thing that makes a male baby. Everything else is on the other 47 chromosomes.

 

Why is the Y chromosome degenerating?

 

Here is some stuff that may interest you:

There has been no significant loss in the Y chromosome in 6 million years

The Y chromosome has figured out how to save itself: self love

There is always a way out:

So never fear, men will be sticking around for some time yet.

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PS also, this is a Biology thread. Human Science generally deals with psychology, sociology and anthropology.

 

Umm okay i find that questionable. You cannot recombine one gene without another of the same kind. What you mean is that it can recombine itself. Compare it to buying on ebay, if you buying something from someone is recombining, what you mean is putting up a thing to sell, and then buying it from yourself. It will not do anything at the end of the day.

Simply put, you need two y chromosomes to recombine.

 

The Y chromosome has been around far longer than the 6 million year divergence of apes/humans - all modern placentals have Y chromosomes. It has improved with age.

If a deleterious mutation occurs on a Y chromosome, there is no complimentary chromosome to mask/cover-up for the mistake, and thus the outward expression would be a deleterious male of the species. Deleterious males [ones with obvious defects] do not survive long.

Thus, the Y chromosome will only reproduce/spread with positive mutations, not deleterious ones. Positive mutations also immediately confer added benefit to the male, and that male will thus tend to have more offspring than the other males of the species, thus spreading the positive mutation until it becomes fixed [every male has it] in the species.

 

Quite the little skeptic aren't you?

http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=20030619&slug=chromo190


The flip side:

 

The only worry is that eventually, fewer and fewer Y chromosomes will work. They all become defective at some time, some before others. Yes we do have this problem but the arguement is that it is replaced. Imagine if there are 100,000 Y chromosomes out there, now by now maybe 1,000 have died because of this. Yes they will be replaced by more humans. The problem is that now we only have 99,000. The worry is that after a while every one will eventually die off.

Also Y chromosomes cannot recombine with themselves it is impossible. You need two chromosomes of the same kind to recombine together. If there is an XY than where is the second y?

Also, yes all animals have the Y chromosomes. But each time a new species forms the Y chromosome is essentially reset and is 100% healthy again. for humans this is when we became a distinct species from chimps.

Here's an analogy. Imagine if you wrote a binary code with a certain pattern every 7 numbers. lets say, 1000001, this is a bit of the gene, and you repeated it over and over on a sheet of papaer and printed it. What should happen when it recombines, one rectangle of that 7 digit code should get cut off of sheet a, and then should be traded with a different 7-digit code on sheet b, lets say 1000011. That way they have recombined and each sheet is different from before. What you are suggesting is taking sheet a cutting out TWO rectangles and swapping them. Absolutely nothing happens, you have the same code as before. You need two genes/ sheets of paper to recombine.

 

I think we have another ten million years before we have to worry about this. If we don't destroy ourselves before then.

 

That would disappoint a lot of geneticists though

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At least such harmful deletions won't be able to propagate further, which I now notice is similar to what Walter has said.

 

What i meant is that it is not like retardation where if the person never reproduces the gene never gets passed on and theoretically the retardation would die out. The genetic problem is in every single male in the world and is just a ticking time bomb. It doesnt matter if the bomb goes off in a male and he becomes infertile, because every other Y chromosome will do it eventually.

 

I'm sure that's incorrect. What mechanism would cause the cell to not recognize DNA as DNA, as stated in your first post? And I was responding to a very specific line from one of SAM's links; the one I quoted, in fact. I was not responding to your opening comments.

 

It recognizes it as DNA it does not know what to do with it. Like if you put a pig dna chromosome with a human DNA chromosome in a human egg. They would not recombine and join because they would not recognize each other. Each species has certain genetic key that when put together the genes recognize each other and recombine, sort of like a fail safe.

The worry is that the slow mutation of the Y chromosome will mutate this key and the other chromosome will not recognize and reject it.

 

That makes no sense.

 

>.> basically a human chromosome can only trade with a human chromosome. There is a code in our genes like a password that tells a chromosome that it can bond with the other chromosome. The fear is that this code may get screwed up in the Y chromosome and it will no longer be recognized and it will not join with the X

 

Still does not make sense. I would recommend some reading up on "recombination" for starters. Also DNA is DNA. There is chemically no difference between bacterial, human or pig DNA.

 

>.>

Duh.

But there is a difference between the DNA in humans and chimps. If you impregnated a human egg with chimp sperm. You wouldn't have a half and half. The egg would reject the DNA.

That's what i mean by rejected.

Human DNA will only bond to Human DNA, END OF STORY.