Saturday, July 18, 2009

Are men becoming obsolete? -- or -- Everything I need to know I get from the comics, part 4,788

I stumbled across this cartoon awhile back at a webcomic called Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal and thought it was kind of funny:

(You'll want to click to enlarge this one.)

I didn't realize it was cutting-edge science.

But what do I find whilst making my morning survey of the news but this article on ABC News by Radha Chitale: Entitled, "Will Chromosome Y Go Bye-Bye?" with an equally frightening (for me, anyway) subhead, "Is the End of Men Imminent?" the article discusses a new study that suggests that the Y Chromosome is rapidly deteriorating and may disappear entirely... at least within the new few millennia (whew!).

Not all scientists agree, of course. The article quotes Dr. David Page, director of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts -- a male, oddly enough -- who insisted, "The idea that the Y chromosome has just bailed out of an airplane without a parachute simply doesn't fit the facts." An additional excerpt:
But the Y chromosome, which once contained as many genes as the X chromosome, has deteriorated over time and now contains less than 80 functional genes compared to its partner, which contains more than 1,000 genes.
You can fill in your own jokes about which is the truly weaker sex. Or if we must become obsolete, we should go out with a bang -- no -- wait -- you'll jeopardize my PG rating if you keep thinking along these lines!

No comments: