Beware of using the word 'junk' when talking about genes. Not knowing what a gene does doesn't mean it doesn't do something. Also, they may come in handy when an environment changes. 'Junk' DNA should be viewed as a historical archive, a record of the past that may serve as a guide to the future.
This is what I was thinking. The sperm can pass on epigenetic changes and that might be why the y chromosome has more "junk", changes more easily than the x chromosome.
DNA is nature's original unburned Library of Alexandria. We still don't get the file system but some sort of Dewey decimal system we don't understand is still in place.
It's more like chunks of programming code that have been replaced with new code, commented out (meaning, it is never executed), but never actually removed. The problem with that, in programming - and I imagine in genetics too - is that simply reactivating old code doesn't work unless you do it in a very specific way (and you know what you're doing). On the contrary, just reactivating old code will lead to problems, malfunctions, and even the software crashing. Wouldn't wanna do that to my DNA.
Genes by definition are not junk DNA. Junk DNA refers to regions with no known or probable functions. It's a complex subject, but there are very good arguments for junk DNA . It is an expected consequence of genome evolution for example. Most importantly, junk DNA isn't conserved between different groups of people. If it was functional, we would expect the sequences to be more similar between groups.
I laughed years ago when I first heard the term "junk DNA". If bio-molecular processes spend time dealing with the molecules, the 'junk' serves as a delay mechanism. Many analog-and-digital build processes include delay information as part of the recipe; no delays or incorrect delays may truncate the sequence. Someone saying 'junk' might as well say "I haven't realized its purpose or function yet".
Dude, I don't have a clue what you are talking about a fair bit of the time. But I always will give you a thumbs up and try to understand because you put out the most awesome kindness and talk in a way that even i could understand. If you never manage a nobel prize, I hope you get an award for bringing science to non scientific folks. If nothing is awarded, you have i am certain many people simply amazed at who you appear to be. Really kind. Thanks.
Just a tip for him, if he EQ'd certain ranges of the voice, I forget where, it's something like 1K-3K, it could be more understandable. Also, cut out some of the low end. So besides the accent, there are some EQ issues going on here.
One of my favorite cautionary tales of scientific hubris. Before Gene mapping, some scientists speculated the Y chromosome would die out. X chromosomes can repair gaps when they bonded with another X chromosome during fertilization, but Y chromosomes can't, so they would eventually degrade. But in mapping the human genome, they found out Y chromosomes are double redundant and self-repairing.
What is beautiful is watching feminists sinister-ly smile into the camera in their tiktok and are happy when saying it... Jokes on them... we gonna make the artificial womb before men ever die... kill off this current nasty generation of women and start over.
@void________ from what i have read up on as a common consensus is that they keep memories stored for adaptation of the environment and events... eventually it has to erase so much data information.
@@trentreffner5699 Oh k, so if the Y chromosome can delete info, it can also gain new info that may keep it around? And it always has itself as a 'partner' so there's no real danger of extinction?
THANK YOU!!! It really turns me off an argument when someone tries to give an absolute answer even though you can tell not all the data is in yet. So, thank you for just stating "I don't know, no body knows" I can deal with that!
You should've mentioned that bird sex chromosomes (Z and W) work the opposite way of mammals. Males are ZZ. Females are ZW. And the Z chromosome is larger.
Some Female birds are larger and stronger than the males. I think Great Horned Owl and the Peregrine are like that and the Female may take larger prey animals.
You are refreshingly dry 👍🏼. No sarcasm! If you’re in the mood for honest, straightforward coverage of the scientifically published reality… This is a wonderful channel. 🎉
Isn't that how life has evolved to become? That's part of what allows us to pass those useful genes on to our offspring; it may be sloppy and disheveled, but it's a system.
I did my best when we were in design to influence many of the "we'll just stick this here for now" latticework but there were timelines to meet. Honestly, it's a continual surprise to me that you all work as well as you do.
There’s a whole lot of “throw it at the wall and see what sticks”. And even if there’s a selective advantage, unless you have offspring for several hundred generations in that bloodline, it’s not permanent. sickle cell anemia is one such example. The genetic mutation coding for the sickle shaped red blood cells isn’t present in people that arent originally from sub Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and India. It exists in some American Black people today as well…for what should be obvious reasons. It indicates that it far predates the slave trade, as an anti malarial adaptation, since those regions are most highly prone to malarial infection. Judging by the fact that it causes anemia, the case can be made that the evolutionary adaptation to malaria isn’t in its final form. It’s still working out the kinks.
From what I understand, "junk" DNA is basically gene sequences that don't have an *apparent* use in our metabolic processes, for one reason or another. It's like a bunch of placeholder text that just fills space, but this makes me wonder if that really is the case. Perhaps some sequences are really useful and the cells just keep suppressing them because that's what they're supposed to do at the time, but one mutation would "unlock" that gene sequence. Another thing that I thought of was about the apparent randomness of the Y chromosome. Maybe it is that way because it was some sort of Random Number Generator for genes, like a factory of mutations to see what works the best. The good mutations are copied to the X Chromossome and the rest of the DNA and passed down, while the not so good ones remain contained in the Y, in an inactive form
I bet this enables more diversity in male behavior than in females. Basically more chaos and variance to induce risky behaviors and ratchet evolution forward one statistic at a time. If you're practically useless but a pretty woman, you can survive easily. If you're a male with a slow brain and low muscle mass, you're quite fucked unless you're like top 0.1% attractive and wanna be a stay at home dad or something. Put another way, men win more wars but we also lose more wars, and that's how progress is accelerated. Is it worth it? Not the important question. Does it happen? Yes.
The likely reason for Y being wierd is that it can't recombine/sexually reproduce. Every other chromosome is built from a mixture of each of your parents two in meiosis. This allows good/bad genes to be filtered out. since each gene has a 50/50 chance of being kept. Bad genes can be removed without requiring any new mutations. The Y chromosome isn't paired so doesn't have a mechanism to filter bad genes out and is cloned from father to son instead. It has a different mechanism to maintain stability.
It is weird to think how a male mutations biases will develop into age related disease experimentation into the future. If we can pinpoint those areas in our understanding we can reverse/prevent those mutations post conception.
My first thought was that Y was a kind of 'backup'. The X does most of the work. It seems that the X can start to incorporate some Y functions, and for these, that backup is not needed. A redundant Y element could be eliminated without degrading survival, etc. Another Idea is that it is a 'testing ground' for mutations. This video makes me want to learn more. Thanks, Anton!
You are actually wrong about how reproduction works. You have 46 chromosomes (23 pairs) and your sperm or egg only has 23. When an egg and sperm combine these genes combine to give you your 46. They don't actually mix together or anything. Half of your chromosomes are pretty much like you got them from each parent.
I agree, I think it's because so many genetics and science channels on here are clickbait or the youtubers are one of those *"Ackchyually..."* fedora-wearing type of people lol. There's an Australian science youtuber on here who is exactly like that, and he inevitably spreads misinformation all the time.
In Science, generally speaking, when a discovery seems "really weird" it usually means that your assumptions are wrong & you just don't yet understand how something really works.
@@nerfherder4284especially strange considering the monumental amount of research gone into finding dark matter and energy, maybe more than anything else in the last few decades. It's like the physics/astronomy Boogeyman. Which probably just means we're operating on fundamentally flawed assumptions until somebody comes by and gives us a new perspective.
Who knew, humans are not remotely intelligent as they think they are. Worse now that science barely is that and is just a group consensus of what facts are. Almost like all those Councils Christianity had (and ultimately led to their current poor state).
I feel the opposite. Everything about reality is strange beyond belief. It is only in the world of fiction that things are simple and easy to understand.
If you think about the Y chromosome as a patch or DLC for the normal base human genetic code it makes sense that it is very strange. Patches and DLC codes often rely on the base code of a game or other software in very strange and counter-intuitive ways. When you think of the Y chromosome and even aspects of the X chromosome as merely triggers that unlock bonus content then the sex chromosomes make sense contextually.
In games modders often figure out ways to trigger base code in games that no DLC or patch was ever designed to do. Likewise with genetics, perhaps any male gene triggers we need in the future will be able to be activated by environmental or scientific engineering and we will not need to rely on the Y chromosome if it does go away.
@@nathanschaefer5148 evolutionary DNA is iterative... You can think of different species as different "sequels" in a series of games or software programs while change within that species itself would be patches or updates to that game. All animals on earth seem to be built on similar base code but monkeys are an entirely different piece of software/hardware than humans are... We just share common ancestors.
A colleague of my Dad’s went to Antarctica to study a metabolic phenomenon that is different in mammals with X and Y. Blood flow in hypothermic conditions. When external temps drop, the blood in females tends to flow toward and concentrate in the abdomen vs males, where the blood tends to flow toward the extremities. The possible adaptation is obvious. Female metabolism is geared toward sustaining a pregnancy, while males need mobility for finding food, etc.
This is why people think evo-psych is nonsense. It's not an adaptation, it's a result of the chemical structure of oestrogen and how it interacts with the blood. There's no adaptation of 'concentrating in the abdomen/extremities', there's vasoconstriction in the extremities (which both men and women do, disproving your point immediately-- if it was truly an adaptation then men would not vasoconstrict in the extremities in cold temperatures, yet both sexes do to the same degree), but because women's blood is literally thicker and more viscous because of oestrogen, vasoconstricted areas are less passable to it. Again, if it were an adaptation, we'd see differences in the response to cold temperatures by *blood vessels,* but we don't. Even if it existed as you say it does, it wouldn't be a metabolic phenomenon, because volume of blood flow has little to do with metabolism. Evo-psych is literally just finding true statements and then making up stories about them to justify pre-existing beliefs.
that's pretty interesting. could be how humans survived an ice age even though they don't fit underground like small mammals. or it's a statistical anomaly that doesn't really mean anything, but it sounds like a legitimate function
Absolutely love this channel, amazing thank you Anton I'm now hypothesising with my husband about why it would be shrinking. Never stop learning people! ❤
Imagine primitive cavemen stumbling across and ancient, abandoned nuclear reactor and just dismissing all the buttons that they don't know how to operate as 'junk'.
There is a genetic condition called XX male (de la Chapelle syndrome) where the SRY gene has translocated to the X chromosome. If SRY ends up being the only gene left, then XX males would be fully biologically male and the only distinction between them and other males is increased robustness due to having two full X chromosomes. The converse - XY female (Swyer syndrome) - is where the SRY gene is missing from the Y chromosome. It might be possible to permit fertility through gene therapy for XX males, allowing them to fully reproduce as males. The end result would be sort of like having two different male 'species', which would be genetically quite different from each other.
For those of you wondering about "Junk" DNA, there are reasons why many scientists still call it that. You can think of junk DNA as falling into two categories. 1) A gene gets duplicated and one of the copies gets a mutation that makes it non-functional. Since you still have one working copy, you're fine and the failed copy continues to acquire random mutations that don't effect anything, turning it into a pseudo-gene. 2) there are ancient sequences of "selfish" DNA that exists solely for the purpose of copying itself over and over. They create large repetitive sections of the genome and are either reminants of ancient viruses or transposable elements that only really care about increasing its own number. Either way, healthy cells try to suppress them from ever being expressed.
Unfortunately, the straw man argument of what junk DNA means still persists today (thanks ENCODE!). Even many biologists repeat the incorrect claim that it refers to non-coding regions.
@@E4439Qv5 As a matter of fact, there is a weird relationship with transposable elements and cancer. Of course, inserting one of them in the wrong spot can cause cancer, but cancer cells also do a poor job at suppressing them. You get weird genetics events as a result very frequently.
failing to see the value in both of those is evil. a cancer of the mind is just as bad as one of the body, same for denial and inert junk called memory.
@@E4439Qv5 No.Cancer is way more complex than this and actually has noting to do with it. Cancer is when a cell - not a gene - starts reproducing way to much. In order for that to happen, no less than 7 specific genes have to mutate to overcome all 7 hurdles that prevent cancer. Knowing this, it is kind of surprising, how widesprea cancer still is - mutations seem to happen a lot. one theory of a function of these self repeeting DNA parts is keeping boundaries between species up. When for example the semen of one species reaches the egg of another, some non-matching chromosomes fail to partner up. In this case the repettitive DNA sequences start making copies of themselves in the process destroying the DNA and killing the cell rather than some weird abomination resulting. I saw this in a TV science sow. It seems kind of plusible to me though I don´treally want to know what sorts of experiments they conducted to figure that out...
It's never ceases to amaze me how Anton is all over such a broad range of Science topics. Does the man ever sleep? He truly is one of the most impressive science educators anywhere online. Some days I feel smarter just because I'm a subscriber. 😂
As someone who collects "junk", when you need it it's very valuable. There's a lot of stuff you can do with junk if you're creative enough. Seeing the complexity of biology and it's ability to adapt I can't agree that any of my DNA is junk in the traditional sense, just that it doesn't have a use at this particular moment. The problem with collecting junk however is that it can also cause problems if it's not organized or at least out of the way of every day operations. Also, the larger a collection grows the harder it is for it to be mobile. So a balance must still be struck in the end
I was thinking it seemed like a complex system of collecting random virus DNA. It may be a subtle way of genetic development, but I don't really know what I'm talking about. Interesting stuff though! Not Junk at all!
@@u-mos8820 That's an interesting thought. I feel that way about most DNA actually. I also see viruses as the transport mechanism for that DNA that serves to maintain a certain level of homogeneity across organisms. Some could see it as cross contamination while I see it more as a decentralized ecological library of which the organism uses to survive. It would also be safer to have sequences brought in from other organisms to evolve rather than developing changes souly internally by chance. They have sequences that are proven to have existed in another organism and that's valuable. It may even be possible, with some minimal amount of organisms, to reconstruct extinct ones by piecing together stored data. But like you said I don't *really* know what I'm talking about, but that's just the natural state of things. Thanks for sparking my brain into going off on a tangent, it's interesting.
We don't have a clear definition of when a genome has been completely sequenced. There are certain regions that are highly repetitive and are hard to sequence with current technologies. Imagine a sentence that repeats two letters over and over again a thousand times. The most used sequencing technologies can only sequence up to a few hundred of these letters. Because the individual sequences don't cover the entire repeat regions, it's hard to characterize how long they are. Normally, we can just take multiple sequences and look for overlaps, which allows us to figure out the sequence in a given region. However, if it's just a couple of letters repeating over and over again, we can't use this method. Since we don't have an established cutoff for determining when we are done, researchers will disagree if a genome is actually completed.
@@edgarburlyman738 that was not what Lamarckian stuff was about it was basically i stretch my neck my babby have long neck it wasn't epigenetics it was just a joke
The mammalian Y chromosone seems to have popped up in proximity of a mass extinction event... this leads to my assumption that it is a mutation that allowed early mammals to super charge their reproduction rates. Mammals had existed for a very long time but were vastly outnumbered by the reptiles, and then something changed and mammalian diversity exploded.
What changed was temperature. Reptiles do very well in humid and hot environments, if they're cold blooded. There are warm blooded snakes for example. What this means is that reptiles dont need to exert energy keeping their internal temperature warm. They just sleep and eat once a day. Mammals have to constantly eat. Reptiles are like a prius or a camry. Easy to maintain in good climate. Mammals are like supercars they need a lot of energy and can go really fast. Mammals regulating their body heat allows them into climates not possible before like tundra and mountains reducing competition. The globe got cooler after the K-T extinction event removing rivals, and cooling the planet allowing mammals to spread fast. I wonder if the y gene's ability to mutate fast allows species with y genes to adapt faster.
@@MasterGhostf i assume the chromosome appeared before the cool down, it and it's increased rate of reproduction and ability to adapt (more sharing of genes) were essential for those early mammals survival prior to the explosion of diversity with the temperature drop.
Wtf are you smoking? Male mammals have been around WITH the dinosaurs. The extinction event just allowed mammals to get access to more resources to reproduce a lot more. Think of how fast mice and rabbits pop out compared to a giant dinosaur with eggs that need to be protected.
That's not what the proponents of junk DNA believe. There are many good reasons to believe that certain regions have no biological importance. Genomes evolve in large part through duplication. If a gene is duplicated, one of the copies can undergo mutations without harming the organism, as the other copy is still intact. The defective pseudogene isn't suddenly excised from the genome, but can continue to accumulate mutations without providing any function. There are many regions with unknown functions, but junk DNA was never meant to describe those.
@@someguy999 Hubris makes one too quick to label something as non-functional without experimental validation. I’d go so far as to state that retaining multiple copies that don’t match perfectly aren’t defects at all but provide options that can turn on or turn off depending on environmental triggers.
@@gtw4546 We aren't talking about small differences that just don't match perfectly. Small differences are the norm when we compare DNA sequences between species or even within populations. If these regions can be turned on or off due to environmental triggers, you would expect the sequences to be conserved (highly similar). In fact, identifying which genes are expressed under different environmental conditions is a routine analysis in biology. This is easily detectable in the lab. Junk DNA describes regions that aren't conserved, so they are undergoing rapid mutation and will often be deleted entirely. If they are important, why doesn't their loss matter at all? No competent biologist would say that not knowing what a region does means it is junk. There is a misconception that junk DNA refers to regions with no known function.
@@gtw4546 I think you're fundamentally misunderstanding this, junk DNA is a valid term for duplicate sets of genes that are without any purpose. I don't think it's hubris to brand obsolete genetic material as useless, much like you don't think it's hubris to call a broken window a useless window.
@@charlethemagne5466 “without any purpose” and “obsolete” are human determinations based on what we currently know - that doesn’t mean that is the truth. That “obsolete” oil lamp can be used to good purpose when it’s needed to replace electric lights during a power outage and having duplicates comes in handy..
Inverted genes sounds like an optimization... for example in Assembly language, it's common to push data onto a "stack" backwards, and later pull it back out, restoring the original order. Since the Y chromosome is created so efficiently, perhaps that's linked to the mechanism of how the gene is copied? We are basically organic computers, after all...
Exactly, except the human computer part, we are way more complex than boolean logic. A computer is to a tally stick what as a cell is to a computer. Yep, just one cell's genetic code would be the most complex software ever written....probably You should check out how DNA, RNA, PNA work together to perform all the functions of a standard VonNeuman and more. It's interesting to say the least, the assembly analogy is apt as far as I can tell. Maybe some step in between machine and assembly would be a better way to describe genetic codes. I'm just learning genetic codes though so this is all brand new to me. I'm spotting patterns that appear to be repeating instructions and even subroutines. It's probably not what is going on though, genes are not C++ or C# or even old 6502 assembly. Right right its youtube I'm rambling.
Problem is RNA polimerase can only move one way, so it actually will produce the actual protein backwards as non-functional. (As far as we now there is not a mechanism for DNA/RNA inversion to fix this "bug")
Sorry conspiracy theories literally having a right chromosome literally losing your y chromosome is related to a lot of health problems and is the reason why men die early
Very interesting. I wonder though if what they think of as "junk dna" will eventually be found to be useful- like the appendix was thought to be useless but now is known to be a functioning organ.
Junk DNA isn't conserved between different species or even populations. This means that if you look at a region of DNA, it just mutates a lot. If it had a function, it would likely be more constrained.
right, there are so many things that have no clear purpose to us, but often times DO have a purpose, and isnt just a vestigial aspect being worked out of the system by evolution.
I'm a career scientist and I find it surprising that some colleagues get so dogmatic about their speculative hypotheses to the point of using terms like "junk" on things that they don't yet fully understand. Maybe that's why the public is losing trust in our work. Science has always been an adventure, embrace it. We don't have all the answers and that's why we keep our minds open to wonder. That which might not make sense to us today might make perfect sense once we change our frame of mind, or maybe it may never make sense in our generation, but we keep working so the next generation of scientists can build on our discoveries - good or bad.
@@이이-n4z8y, I would suggest that's more of a trend than a hard and fast rule. Plenty of exceptions to both genders along that line. I have a theory that it's more related to testosterone. There seems to be a heavy correlation between testosterone production and violent crime as well as risk taking.
Machine developed circuitry can sometimes have extra circuits that go nowhere. But when they are removed the thing stops working. That extra DNA could be helping us in ways we don't yet understand.
Lol circuits are different. If you have a disconnected line, its just a waste of space. A machine cannot create a new physical connection no matter what the software tells it to do !!! DNA is different, it is living and can create !!!!
Chunks of the y chromosome keep getting deleted at random, and those deletions are detrimental, that's why it's shrinking. It's a natural inference that much of what remains must also be junk.
I love how scientists are baffled by the Y Chromosome, but are absolutely confident in their timelines of it's evolution over millions of years. Etc etc etc... over the years I've learned that scientists are like the media. Very few will tell you the truth, and the known facts with honesty about what is unknown. Most will shape the "truth" to fit their theories or political/religious agendas. Just tell us the truth, and give us your opinion based on that separately if you wish, but let me decide what to believe or study in regards to the unknowns...
> Most will shape the "truth" to fit their theories or political/religious agendas. Maybe you're simply stating that is so... to fit your political/religious agendas.
Very interesting to think about. But, we do evolve and change all the time to adapt. Great video Anton! Hope you are doing well and take care! Take care everyone! Be safe out there and stay wonderful! ❤
....yes we evolve....but we dont change to adapt. That is an old concept.... We respond. Stem cell research has proven this....Ref: Dr Bruce Lipton..on stem cell research...about 30-40 years ago now....
Sounds like the Y chromosome became atrophied from less use after the SRY was introduced. The thing is, some humans already display XX male genetics due to a stray SRY activation (I am told this is why you don't get to examine your own chromosomes in genetics class. not a realization you want to have at school). So if the Y chromosome shrinks to nothing, there's a decent possibility that males will be formed through an SRY mutation on an X chromosome after the Y is gone. We're already adapting to this change as a species.
Thing is there are hundreds of extant mammals that will have this same issue, potentially. We don't know which ones will successfully transfer the male-making genes to another chromosome and which won't. A giraffe might make it, but a human might not.
I read an article about genetic defects a couple of days ago. According to the article the gene uses parts of the x or y chromosome to fuse DNA strands together that are cut but shouldn't be cut, but the problem is that these combinations are random. The bigger the gap between segments, the more damage to the child (the severity of the handicap) because it now has a large number of snippets with random code/combinations in a row. Though it beats the child not developing at all in the womb according to the genetic instruction set. Maybe the 'junk' DNA is meant to do this given that also everybody has a different amount of it. It would make mutations also make sense. Small cuts of a few SNP's are generally harmless and can be even for the better if replaced with a combination that increases the chances of survival, and yet also sometimes for the worse. The genetic instruction set just seems to pick whatever combination is next in line from your 'junk' dna to repair these gaps. Perhaps even when radiation or something starts to break DNA down it gets repaired with this 'junk' dna. But since it is random code all kinds problems and mutations arise. Also interesting are the 'pile up regions' which are certain segments in DNA that seem to be locked in and almost always passed to offspring (almost always part of the 50% a child in a certain group gets from a parent) and barely mutate : "While here are some known pile-up regions, the ones that you have might be different. You may not have these known pile-up regions. You may have some other regions in your DNA that are pile-up regions. Different populations have different known pile-up regions. The Excess IBD may have something to do with an evolutionary advantage to that segment of DNA, and so it's been perpetuated through a population. Lots of population over tens of thousands of years have had a chance to develop these. And so you're not always going to see the same pile-up regions as your neighbor. But, within your family, you probably have a lot of the same pile-up regions. But just because you have those doesn't mean that everybody else will have them. Pile-up regions can happen all along each one of our chromosomes. Unfortunately, there's no definitive known list of pile-ups for us to investigate. This is another reason why they are a pain to genealogists. In short, pile-up regions provide DNA matches that, while we may be related, we're not going to be related in a genealogical time frame. These segments have been passed down for hundreds and thousands of years in many cases because they're ubiquitous for that population."
I wonder if our interbreeding with related species (neanderthal/ denisovan) resulted in some of the oddness. We see in mules, ligers etc that interbreeding between species result in strange "mismatch" of genes.
Actually some of this "junk" DNA is from virus DNA from ones that have infected us in the past. Supposedly we could have gotten valuable junk DNA from neanderthals that came from viruses they got and protect us today. Pretty neat if true.
The problem with interbreeding of mixed species is though, that the progeny like the liger is not fertile. This is despite the fact, that Tigers and Lions and even house cats share the same amount of 38 chromosomes. This observation has been formulated into the basic definition of species.: "In biology, a species (PL: species) is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring," And mixing two species with different chromosomes, doesn't produce any offspring at all. Chinese and Russian scientists tried to create a hybrid of a human and a chimpanzee without success. Humans and apes got different chromosomes numbers and different genotypes of course.
Since there have been a number of comments on Anton's use of the term "junk DNA", I would like to backup his use of the concept. First of all, junk DNA does not refer to DNA with no known function! I certainly can't fault the general public for having this idea because many biologists didn't do their homework and mischaracterized what the original authors believed. Many biologists incorrectly assumed that the original authors were describing regions that don't code for proteins and were unaware of non-coding regions when describing junk DNA. This was a completely wrong assumption, that, unfortunately, persists among some biologists today! The biologists who promoted the idea of junk DNA were well aware of non-coding regions and were describing something entirely different. The concept of junk DNA is too complex to go into here, but one key feature is that it isn't conserved between species or populations. It is better described as a region of DNA that undergoes a lot of random mutations and isn't found to be the same in comparative analyses. If it had a function you would expect it to look similar (how else could it perform its function if the DNA isn't even similar?). If it had a key function, the mutations would occur occur in certain regions because the function would be lost if a key region got mutated. This is an over-simplification and there is a lot of room for debate on what is or isn't junk DNA, and how we should define it. However, I would like to clear up to idea that junk DNA has been debunked or that biologists fail to understand the difference between not knowing what a region of DNA does and it being junk.
So maybe those pieces of DNA are acting like a sort of genetic playground? A relatively safer space where advantageous mutations can occur without completely wrecking necessary functions elsewhere.
@@phoenixjones7191 Mutations can occur anywhere, including where they would "wreck necessary functions". We don't see many mutations in key areas simply because the organism is less likely to reproduce and pass on those mutations. I've heard of proposals that junk DNA may function as a sort of reservoir of raw genetic material for natural selection to act upon, but I haven't seen any compelling evidence that this is indeed the case. The primary mechanisms for evolutionary novelty seems to be through the duplication (and subsequent changes) of existing regions of the genome, especially genes.
The placenta and many other extremely important features of mammals and humans have also been collected from virus, known as retroviruses. It’s not “junk”, only because we don’t know what it does or what it can do
As quickly as we think we have it figured out, we learn something new that changes everything. I wonder what we will know if we survive the next two million years as a species.
I wouldn't be surprised if the Y chromossome was a kickstaters of mutations. From the structure described here it seems very prone to random recombinations, or perhaps the way it is now is the result of said mutations happening along human evolution.
Well I went on a google spree and found no information on this. However it is pretty safe to assume that it is a 1:1 ratio as it would probably be mentioned somewhere otherwise. Also most species have a 1:1 ratio because of Fisher's principle.
Cool video! It's not necessary for the Y chromosome to shrink for an X to mutate sequences that replace the Y functions. At least enough to make hosts competitive. Also, it deems to me that the shrinking can really only occur in areas of the Y chromosome that aren't "important" from an evolutionary pov. As soon as the host cannot produce males, it's a dead end, and other hosts will out compete them. That is, unless an X with the necessary features has already appeared.
Could the Y chromosome be fragile to allow potentially advantageous mutations to occur. To make evolution easier? Could be way off just want to see what you think.
The SRY gene also sometimes jumps over to the X chromosome, resulting in a XX male. I expect that if the Y ever stops sustaining itself, mechanisms like this will allow us to continue reproducing.
These males cannot pass on their genes and within this group some individuals do not have the SRY gene. With XX males Only some of the SRY genes are are attached to the X chromosomes and some just have a few Y genes within their X expression.
It's only weird as it goes against what we were all taught. That teaching is supposed to make us think outside the box. And few of us do this. The quandary of Sciences in general
the interesting part is how the Y chromosomes said to be glowing in the dark? think of the Y chromosome as the "upgrade" feature. its there only as a "key" for that activation. the fact that in animals when its disappeared, naturally they will evolve to mutate one again. its an "upgrade" feature. its funny, that now im planning to change my last name initial to Y . since like the Y chromosom, its only there briefly. take it or leave it.
XX male syndrome is a Wikipedia page. A gene from the Y chromosome ends up on the X chromosome and you end up with a male with a few differences. I had read in the past that they had the possibility of not being sterile but that does not seem to be the norm. Hopefully some gene therapy comes along so they can develop more normally if they chose.
Or you got XY but the body cells don't care and don't listen to the Y chromosom and you still become female. But again most of the time you will have a fertility problem.
We need to be especially careful about identifying a trend and extrapolating it to the distant future. This is certainly true in evolution and genetics. While the Y chromosome may be decreasing in size, we shouldn't assume that this will continue indefinitely. It may simply reflect that there haven't been many fitness consequences, as what's being lost isn't important for reproduction. We should also be looking at the total gene content of the Y chromosome over time. Comparisons with chimps and related species haven't shown much gene loss (I think we lost one gene compared to our close relatives). This may simply be the case of the Y chromosome losing stuff that isn't needed.
Thank you! Sanity! Yes it is an absolute logical fallacy to think that something getting small is going to disappear. More likely the only critical function of the Y chromosome is to trigger male development. Any other part of the Y chromosome that randomly is cut out by mutation will still lead to a healthy offspring who will pass along that shrunken Y chromosome. If ever the critical part is missing an intersexed offspring unable to pass its genes will be produced at best. The "weirdness" is due to it being vestigial in nature, most likely.
i think it's also important to note that in the past hundred years or so all the wars have led to the deaths of a large portion of the male population, if they didn't reproduce before they were gone, their potential genetic contributions are gone forever. and in ww1 and ww2 there were a lot of manly men (i realize that says nothing about their Y chromosome but it makes sense to me why we'd be seeing less pronounced Y). and in the distant past it was probably similar with men being the primary fighting force for any nation, i think most men would've understood that they need to reproduce before going to war but not all of them were able to
The reason why the Y chromosome is decreasing in size is because of a dropoff in fertility; the Y chromosome itself is a useful amalgam of junk genes that are redundant for the sake of acting like a reproductive buffer against genetic drift, malformed mutation, and eventual extinction. The fact its shrinking is a sign we're going to see less human biodiversity in the future, which isn't good.
My son figured that out in the cradle. He's a triple Scorpio, which may have had something to do with his obsessive thirst to solve a great mystery: Where was Mommy's penis? Was it stolen? We had our first mini-anatomy lesson before he was 2 years old. 😂
@@phoenixjones7191 Thank you for sharing your ironi Mrs Jones ..when required to be explained, a joke ceases to be funny but here you go: Video: A deep dive into our sexual reproduction chromosomes Video: 1 minute 8 seconds to 1 minute 11 seconds. Me: Laughing Me: Sharing the joy of laughter with people possessing the ability to see the humour in this. Me: explaining the humorous fact that two words are pronounced the same although different spelling and meanings although in this case “what happens in our jeans/genes”, both are related to this videos topic. To conclude: Me being ironic in return. 🤣 Rgds/A
@@ruthanneseven haha 😆 thx for the laughter. My posting was really solely about the amusement caused by the fact that the topic of the video combined with the other fact that jeans and genes sound the same. If you read my reply (but without my directed sarcasm) to phoenixjones you’ll get the whole funny thing. 😄 B Rgds/A
The wild thing that gets me is imagine if the Y is the oldest gene and its the most mutated maybe to a degree that any original structure is gone by now, sad but something to think about.
@@giakolou2876hypothesised not theorised, you not knowing this difference immediately invalidates wjat youve said as youve not gone beyond reading articles
I love all the guys in the comment section being butthurt about finding out the Y chromosome is technically useless and just makes them more susceptible to genetic diseases 😂
Only in reference to women. All men are essentially built the same lol that’s why every guy can usually understand most things sex related with other men. We all feel think want and list the same shit. Girls never understand why you don’t want her to hang around X guy. Cus you KNOW what he’s doing, for example.
I wonder if the demise of the Y chromosome is in some way related to the age at which becoming reproductively active is involved. Since production of the Y chromosome diminishes with age and a factor with the mice could be that the stress of the environment would preclude reproduction in favour of survival and when conditions returned to a more favourable environment then the population that survived would have been older by the time they got around to reproduction. As to us humans there is evidence that the more comfortable our societies the later we reproduce and in smaller numbers of offspring. 🤔
@@supa3ek for example extract from Oxford Academic "Social determinants of human reproduction", from the abstract "...Couples now have fewer than two children on average in European countries and they tend to postpone these births until later age." (article 16/7/1518/693439) - There are many academic papers discussing this topic.
Some of this info has been around awhile as conjecture. I always enjoy your videos, Anton.,Thank you ! Hope you continue to post . You have a curious mind.
So years ago when they “sequenced the human genome” really meant they looked at the whole thing once. Cool 😂. We really messed up with science media education in the US.
Esp. since in humans a male in good health can produce 200 -300 spermatooza per day. A fertile female in good health will make one egg. per month. Nature does not do that with our cause.
Kinda makes the whole MRNA vaccine thing a little scary, we are barely scratching the surface of how our biology works, and trying to Jumpstart our immune system with a needle is sketchy at best
Well I do think they at least sequenced the genome of Drosophila melanogaster. Adult fruit flies actually live longer than house flies, isn't that strange? A common house fly can last like a month as an adult, while a fruit fly can last around fifty days. The mayfly is bigger than either of them, but dies after two hours (females) to two days (males) from reaching their final molt. On an unrelated note, the newborn baby kangaroo rat is bigger than a newborn kangaroo joey. Just found that interesting.
I think you're somewhat misunderstanding what drives the loss of genetic material and thereby physical traits in an evolutionary frame. Lack of function does not negatively select out genes or traits. Detrimental function does. For example, if something having no function caused to to be selected out, then modern mammalian males wouldnt have nipples. The actual fact is that something with no function, either positive or negative, tends to linger in the genetics and thereby the physical traits governed by those genetics. If nipples caused men to die before mating more frequently for some reason, only then would they be selected out of the gene pool.
Well they are erogenous zones, which is good from a hedonistic perspective, but they can be manipulated to induce lactation in the absence of females, which seems pretty useful.@@kronickintrovert
Anton is correct here. A gene or trait that doesn't confer a benefit is expected to be lost over time. This is well established in evolutionary biology. If you don't use it, you lose it. If it isn't deleterious, it will just persist longer than it would if it caused a reproductive disadvantage. Also, men have nipples because male and female human embryos develop along the same trajectory at first. Nipples are already established before male embryos start developing male traits.
Short vid idea: Why are our genes twisted? I've been looking at pictures for years and never see a point at which twisting is forced, for example if a cross bar latched onto the other side differently. They look as if they could just be straightened out with a counter twist. Or a good ironing. 😊😊
It's to give stability to the DNA strand, it makes it more stable and to "protect" the bases against water. It's actually more twisted and folded than what you usually see in a simplified image representation.
I did write a longer comment; twice. But keep pressing cancel instead of post. Basically pretty sure its because of a bunch of sort of ~'packing' proteins and can actually vary along the chromosome depending on what's going on in the cell at the time. It's like a physical variable compression method and basically like winding a long thin strand of twine into a short fat piece of rope, like double, treble, quadruple wringing out a damp cloth. If memory serves. 🤔
They twist and then fold because they are really, really long! Most of the time they are actually unzipped in certain regions so that proteins or RNA can be produced..
Seeing the scientist using the microscope with gloves then touching their face made me kneejerk. Think it is hilarious when it comes to demos or videos of actors for science companies make sample images/videos they always do stuff like this lol.
A lot of people have a big misunderstanding of how genetics work. Genetics are NOT a code for your body (at least in the way most people think of it, which is overly mechanical)! Several other things play a very important role in the determination of your characteristics, and genetics are just one factor. I'll use sex determination as an example of what I mean. You can think of Male, Female, and Intersex as different end points. Genetics are much more like a marble drop game (the one with a marble and pegs and different results at the bottom). Genes are like pathway blockers, but they aren't perfect. They can just make certain outcomes more common, aka they can help lead the ball into certain paths. The Y chromosome is an important pathway blocker, but there are still dozens of other genes that play a role and can block paths in various different ways, leading to different outcomes. Environmental factors would be the equivalent of shaking the entire mechanism, which can jostle the ball into a different outcome, or sometimes random chance just means the ball will fall into a less expected outcome. Thinking that genes make you the exact way you are today is wildly inaccurate. Genetics are not a blueprint, they are not a programming language, and they are not code. The only times when genetics can TRULY be consider code is in incredibly genetically pure and simple scenarios that HAVE to be created by human intervention and remove all external influences. This just doesn't happen in humans, it literally is impossible. I HIGHLY recommend SubAnima's video titled "You've Been Lied to About Genetics" to gain a more accurate understanding of how genetics work. I did my best to summarize the video here, but it is really worth a watch.
Interesting, as always. I am a long-time fan, and I shudder to think of the flack you'll get in the comments section due to the current political climate.
6:33 I think its purpose is diversity. The chromosome holds the things not needed but used to be the most efficient and survive currently. So versions evolve and change no matter what.
I remember a study published a couple years ago that found that later Neanderthals had lost their Y chromosome entirely, and it had been supplanted by the Sapiens Y chromosome!
A similar thing happened in most Latin American populations 500 years ago. The mitochondrial DNA largely matches earlier pre 1492 populations, while the Y chromosome has a lot more in common with Southern European populations. We all know what happened. . .
Perhaps this "weirdness" might offer some insight on how these chromosomal anomalies occur. Understanding the pairing of Y chromosomes would potentially eliminate some of the worst mother-to-son genetic diseases.
Pairing of Y chromosomes? Wth u talking about lol 😂 Y chromosome doesn’t have a pair, it is passed on from father to son, without pairing or mixing. So if anything you inherited the disease from your father, if it is a Y chromosome dependent.
As a biology graduate Soon to be a student doctor. Junk DNA is not very junk its highly conserved and there are sequences that code for nothing but can be transcribed into working co-enzymes which is kinda scary because what if our Junk DNA is the reason why some genetic cancers develop.
Most cancers and “genetic” cancers are quite literally from peoples diets. You misconceive the entire perspective of how genetics determine this stuff. It’s not “oh my genes are gonna do this” it’s “oh my genes show I’m more susceptible to these sources causing cancers.
@@humphreyjones1828 i must disagree with that notion that its all external factors when in reality we would not see things like childhood cancers as young as 6 years old. Thats not external factor thats entirely genetic and we use tests to determine if you got potential chance of developing a certain cancer not that you will but eventually there will be strong correlation between family history to your own diagnosis.
@@martin22336 it's never "one thing". That is a common problem with many people's perceptions. That it's X, so it can't be Y. But in the real world it's A, X, Y, W, Z and the whole alphabet. People find that overwhelming so they decide.. i will change my diet (X).. thus I shall live forever. This magic bullet hypothetical thinking is pervasive in human society. When it comes to cancer it can be: genetic error (bad active gene) inherited, it can be environmental (anything from diet to radiation), it can be VIRAL (yes, virus' invading your cells and rewriting DNA often can cause a cell to go cancerous as Viral replication is.. clunky, bad, error prone and any given infected cell may not make any viruses at all or viral components and instead just break and go cancerous instead), or half a dozen other things I can't think about at the moment. A researcher said it best once, every living being gets cancer, but our bodies are designed to destroy it, we call it "cancer" when those mechanisms fail. Right now, every living human has cancerous cells, the young and the old, but our built in kill systems and DNA repair systems work to stop it before it becomes an issue.. until they fail to, then we get "cancer". Overall it's a fascinating topic. There are lines of cancerous human cells which are so incredibly potent that if you are exposed to them, they can infect you. Like a disease, like a bacteria... only it's another human's cells now colonizing your body.
@humphreyjones1828 You are entirely right. Junk DNA is just DNA scientists can't figure out the function of. It is bad science to call them cancer causing, and such laissez-faire terminoloy just confuses the average layperson.
According to Wikipedia on „Y chromosome“, the shrinking is questionable: With a 30% difference between humans and chimpanzees, the Y chromosome is one of the fastest-evolving parts of the human genome.[27] However, these changes have been limited to non-coding sequences and comparisons of the human and chimpanzee Y chromosomes (first published in 2005) show that the human Y chromosome has not lost any genes since the divergence of humans and chimpanzees between 6-7 million years ago.[28] Additionally, a scientific report in 2012 stated that only one gene had been lost since humans diverged from the rhesus macaque 25 million years ago.[29] These facts provide direct evidence that the linear extrapolation model is flawed and suggest that *the current human Y chromosome is either no longer shrinking or is shrinking at a much slower rate than the 4.6 genes per million years estimated by the linear extrapolation model* . The rest of Wikipedia description on the subject is also quite informative.
4:32 You mentioned that it's as if Y is almost made to be mutatable, maybe that's for sexual selection? You know, males can have thousands of offspring, and males also take loads of risks and die young if unsuccessful, but if they survive they get to spread their mutations, hence Y is smaller and more fragile to facilitate speed of mutation? From Alice in wonderland: 'My dear, here we must run as fast as we can, just to stay in place. And if you wish to go anywhere you must run twice as fast as that.'
Problem with this is that the Y chromosome only has very few genes in general, and the way in which they affect the expression of other genes is way too big-picture to allow for much fine tuning.
What you suggest fits with the greater variability of some traits in men, such as intelligence. Greater intelligence in _some men_ increases the chance that the needed abilities will be there in a crisis. The fact that that's achieved at the expense of lesser intelligence in other men is not really a loss. They can still prove useful in that crisis. On the other hand it is more important that women, as the caregivers of children, to have the ability to fulfill that role well. If they don't, their children may die.
I was thinking something like this, males seem to be along the more ~"experimental" throwaway side of the resource allocation pool as compared to the more invested and valuable capabilities of the females in mammals; like internal incubation and breastfeeding.. not to mention that in a cellular kind of sense male zygotes just don't have much going on. Males are like dead ends for their mother's intracellular hardware, like throwing sht at a wall to see what sticks? Quantity over quality and all that. 🤔 Correct me if I'm wrong but with evolution by natural selection; More death (to a point) in a larger more mutant population size would provide more data to the memetic pool of genetic memory (such as it is), no?
Most likely the only genes needed are the one that trigger maleness, so if any randomly disappear the offspring will survive and pass along the shrunken gene where it can shrink again. If it loses what makes it trigger maleness you are either an unviable fetus or you are born intersexed and possibly can't reproduce, meaning the gene won't be passed along. All this means that the Y chromosome can shrink to a point but will likely not disappear.
It is already the case that some XX people develop male sex characteristics without a Y chromosome. It's now a question of whether they will become more numerous in the gene pool, enough to influence the final demise of the Y chromosome?
It's more likely the y will start dying out before the xx males become common. Once less men appear naturally then the xx men will spread their mutation. If the xy males are still popping up as frequently as they are then the xx males don't really have any advantage
@@blakec8549the XX male, or X male is probably not the mutation. The XY male probably is. That is what this study points to. Thats not a suprise either. Close to 1/5th of males dont have a Y when they are finiahed with purberty. The hypothis used to be that the Y was lost during development, now that is in question. I say hyposthis because the professor I learned about more advanced genetics from taught that the Y was just a damaged X and compleatly unneccisary, pointing to X only Males, and the presense of well, litterally every gene we knew of at the time in Y being in X as evidence. Turns out the prof was probably right.
It's an archive of past gene expressions that evolution has determined that we don't currently need , but might soon enough, due to a changing environment, that it's keeping them on deck.
it sounds like the Y is more of a patch than a built-in piece of code, as in the X chromasome only contains the female half, and the Y just writes over it. eventually, likely through simple mutation, X will Mutate to match parts of the "patchwork" and some redundancy check function of the cell will trim it off of the Y, thus slowly but surely deleting the chromasome over time. this likely wouldn't JUST happen with the Y, its likely happening to ALL of them, and given enough time we may be genetically simplified to the point of a single giant chromasome.
@rh906 Gotta love misandry. Hate being supported by misrepresenting scientific hypotheses wasn't clever when the nazis did it with skull shape, it's not clever now.
My theory of evolution is that the task of the males is to generate new traits, while the task of the female is to identify the positive traits and to preserve them. This is a highly efficient setup. The instability and general weirdness of the Y chromosome would seem consistent with this, as it would seem to facilitate the creation of large numbers of different new traits with each generation. And since the males have such a wide diversity of traits (which should map to skills), there will likely always be someone who is well suited for whatever random change in environment might show up. PS, to me the phrase "junk DNA" has always seemed to epitomize the arrogance of contemporary scientists. They can't figure out what something does, so they declare it to be useless junk. Nothing in the body is junk, and everything makes sense. You just don't know enough yet to get it.
Generate traits? That sounds kinda weird, almost sounds like those dummies that think if you work out more your kid will be born to be physically stronger.
"The X chromosome is strong and independent and don't need no Y!" - Xtriarchy activist -------------------------------------------------- In all seriousness... those woke freaks are quite annoying.
Beware of using the word 'junk' when talking about genes. Not knowing what a gene does doesn't mean it doesn't do something. Also, they may come in handy when an environment changes. 'Junk' DNA should be viewed as a historical archive, a record of the past that may serve as a guide to the future.
This is what I was thinking. The sperm can pass on epigenetic changes and that might be why the y chromosome has more "junk", changes more easily than the x chromosome.
DNA is nature's original unburned Library of Alexandria. We still don't get the file system but some sort of Dewey decimal system we don't understand is still in place.
It's more like chunks of programming code that have been replaced with new code, commented out (meaning, it is never executed), but never actually removed. The problem with that, in programming - and I imagine in genetics too - is that simply reactivating old code doesn't work unless you do it in a very specific way (and you know what you're doing). On the contrary, just reactivating old code will lead to problems, malfunctions, and even the software crashing. Wouldn't wanna do that to my DNA.
Genes by definition are not junk DNA. Junk DNA refers to regions with no known or probable functions. It's a complex subject, but there are very good arguments for junk DNA . It is an expected consequence of genome evolution for example. Most importantly, junk DNA isn't conserved between different groups of people. If it was functional, we would expect the sequences to be more similar between groups.
That's a very interesting way of putting it. Helps in understanding the concept a bit more.
That's not junk DNA ... that codes for reverse parking, furniture assembly, BBQ domination etc
Heh heh..
Yes
And drunk driving
😂
Dont forget full grown beard and very strong bond with the boys
And remembering where we parked our cars……
I laughed years ago when I first heard the term "junk DNA". If bio-molecular processes spend time dealing with the molecules, the 'junk' serves as a delay mechanism. Many analog-and-digital build processes include delay information as part of the recipe; no delays or incorrect delays may truncate the sequence. Someone saying 'junk' might as well say "I haven't realized its purpose or function yet".
Using the term junk dna is another way to admit one’s own ignorance! The hormone systems in men are much more complicated than we know or understand.
Only human society produces waste. Nature does not
Junk DNA is another word for science has no clue.
Dude, I don't have a clue what you are talking about a fair bit of the time.
But I always will give you a thumbs up and try to understand because you put out the most awesome kindness and talk in a way that even i could understand.
If you never manage a nobel prize, I hope you get an award for bringing science to non scientific folks.
If nothing is awarded, you have i am certain many people simply amazed at who you appear to be.
Really kind.
Thanks.
Indeed!
Preach!
Just a tip for him, if he EQ'd certain ranges of the voice, I forget where, it's something like 1K-3K, it could be more understandable. Also, cut out some of the low end. So besides the accent, there are some EQ issues going on here.
One of my favorite cautionary tales of scientific hubris.
Before Gene mapping, some scientists speculated the Y chromosome would die out. X chromosomes can repair gaps when they bonded with another X chromosome during fertilization, but Y chromosomes can't, so they would eventually degrade.
But in mapping the human genome, they found out Y chromosomes are double redundant and self-repairing.
What is beautiful is watching feminists sinister-ly smile into the camera in their tiktok and are happy when saying it...
Jokes on them... we gonna make the artificial womb before men ever die... kill off this current nasty generation of women and start over.
If they are self-repairing why are they degrading? Just curious about this stuff.
@void________ from what i have read up on as a common consensus is that they keep memories stored for adaptation of the environment and events... eventually it has to erase so much data information.
@@trentreffner5699 Oh k, so if the Y chromosome can delete info, it can also gain new info that may keep it around? And it always has itself as a 'partner' so there's no real danger of extinction?
@@void________ pretty much... men aren't just going to "fade" from existence. Women are stuck being miserable with us until humans go extinct :D
THANK YOU!!! It really turns me off an argument when someone tries to give an absolute answer even though you can tell not all the data is in yet. So, thank you for just stating "I don't know, no body knows" I can deal with that!
You should've mentioned that bird sex chromosomes (Z and W) work the opposite way of mammals. Males are ZZ. Females are ZW. And the Z chromosome is larger.
Some Female birds are larger and stronger than the males. I think Great Horned Owl and the Peregrine are like that and the Female may take larger prey animals.
Either that or their morphology is reversed and we are all eating giant sperms for breakfast.
Interesting!
This is also the case with Lizard people chromosomes
Male birds usually display the bright plumage.
You are refreshingly dry 👍🏼. No sarcasm! If you’re in the mood for honest, straightforward coverage of the scientifically published reality… This is a wonderful channel. 🎉
Yeah. We dont all want sugar in our coffee. UA-cam is full of loud fake charisma characters. Only VSauce does it right though.
It's crazy how simultaneously precise and specific, while being sloppy and disheveled, biology really is.
Isn't that how life has evolved to become? That's part of what allows us to pass those useful genes on to our offspring; it may be sloppy and disheveled, but it's a system.
You just described me in a nutshell. Nice!😊
Hm error correction with enough weakness to allow for evolution?
I did my best when we were in design to influence many of the "we'll just stick this here for now" latticework but there were timelines to meet.
Honestly, it's a continual surprise to me that you all work as well as you do.
There’s a whole lot of “throw it at the wall and see what sticks”. And even if there’s a selective advantage, unless you have offspring for several hundred generations in that bloodline, it’s not permanent. sickle cell anemia is one such example. The genetic mutation coding for the sickle shaped red blood cells isn’t present in people that arent originally from sub Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and India. It exists in some American Black people today as well…for what should be obvious reasons. It indicates that it far predates the slave trade, as an anti malarial adaptation, since those regions are most highly prone to malarial infection. Judging by the fact that it causes anemia, the case can be made that the evolutionary adaptation to malaria isn’t in its final form. It’s still working out the kinks.
From what I understand, "junk" DNA is basically gene sequences that don't have an *apparent* use in our metabolic processes, for one reason or another. It's like a bunch of placeholder text that just fills space, but this makes me wonder if that really is the case. Perhaps some sequences are really useful and the cells just keep suppressing them because that's what they're supposed to do at the time, but one mutation would "unlock" that gene sequence. Another thing that I thought of was about the apparent randomness of the Y chromosome. Maybe it is that way because it was some sort of Random Number Generator for genes, like a factory of mutations to see what works the best. The good mutations are copied to the X Chromossome and the rest of the DNA and passed down, while the not so good ones remain contained in the Y, in an inactive form
Most code stays inert in a computer, until it is needed. This would likely be so here too.
Setting constraints could certainly be the case as you describe too.
i like to think of it as the junk drawer, full of loads of crap that you never know when it`s going to come in handy! lol
Yes, i don't get where or why the idea that if a specific protein isnt whatever the gene is "coded" to build, then it must just be useless.
I bet this enables more diversity in male behavior than in females. Basically more chaos and variance to induce risky behaviors and ratchet evolution forward one statistic at a time. If you're practically useless but a pretty woman, you can survive easily. If you're a male with a slow brain and low muscle mass, you're quite fucked unless you're like top 0.1% attractive and wanna be a stay at home dad or something.
Put another way, men win more wars but we also lose more wars, and that's how progress is accelerated. Is it worth it? Not the important question. Does it happen? Yes.
The likely reason for Y being wierd is that it can't recombine/sexually reproduce. Every other chromosome is built from a mixture of each of your parents two in meiosis. This allows good/bad genes to be filtered out. since each gene has a 50/50 chance of being kept. Bad genes can be removed without requiring any new mutations. The Y chromosome isn't paired so doesn't have a mechanism to filter bad genes out and is cloned from father to son instead. It has a different mechanism to maintain stability.
This sounds way more likely than the "men are more adaptable" stuff ive seen like 4 times in this comment section at this point.
It is weird to think how a male mutations biases will develop into age related disease experimentation into the future. If we can pinpoint those areas in our understanding we can reverse/prevent those mutations post conception.
My first thought was that Y was a kind of 'backup'. The X does most of the work. It seems that the X can start to incorporate some Y functions, and for these, that backup is not needed. A redundant Y element could be eliminated without degrading survival, etc.
Another Idea is that it is a 'testing ground' for mutations.
This video makes me want to learn more. Thanks, Anton!
@@briandash1351after all, you only need to develop your testis once
You are actually wrong about how reproduction works. You have 46 chromosomes (23 pairs) and your sperm or egg only has 23. When an egg and sperm combine these genes combine to give you your 46. They don't actually mix together or anything. Half of your chromosomes are pretty much like you got them from each parent.
Theres something so straightforward about you and your videos Anton, that I absolutely love 🖤 tysm for this!
He is honest, caring, he breaks down complex science in bite size chunks, and stays out of politics. Breath of fresh air.
I agree, I think it's because so many genetics and science channels on here are clickbait or the youtubers are one of those *"Ackchyually..."* fedora-wearing type of people lol. There's an Australian science youtuber on here who is exactly like that, and he inevitably spreads misinformation all the time.
In Science, generally speaking, when a discovery seems "really weird" it usually means that your assumptions are wrong & you just don't yet understand how something really works.
😂 that is how I feel about dark matter and dark energy. It's science code for we don't know.
@@nerfherder4284especially strange considering the monumental amount of research gone into finding dark matter and energy, maybe more than anything else in the last few decades. It's like the physics/astronomy Boogeyman. Which probably just means we're operating on fundamentally flawed assumptions until somebody comes by and gives us a new perspective.
Who knew, humans are not remotely intelligent as they think they are. Worse now that science barely is that and is just a group consensus of what facts are. Almost like all those Councils Christianity had (and ultimately led to their current poor state).
I feel the opposite. Everything about reality is strange beyond belief. It is only in the world of fiction that things are simple and easy to understand.
@@titanomachy2217 I feel the opposite to you lol, i find reality predictably boring and mundane.
If you think about the Y chromosome as a patch or DLC for the normal base human genetic code it makes sense that it is very strange. Patches and DLC codes often rely on the base code of a game or other software in very strange and counter-intuitive ways. When you think of the Y chromosome and even aspects of the X chromosome as merely triggers that unlock bonus content then the sex chromosomes make sense contextually.
In games modders often figure out ways to trigger base code in games that no DLC or patch was ever designed to do. Likewise with genetics, perhaps any male gene triggers we need in the future will be able to be activated by environmental or scientific engineering and we will not need to rely on the Y chromosome if it does go away.
It's the "cutting room floor mod" of genetics.
Kind of like "monkey patching"?
Or god plays too much skyrim with mods
@@nathanschaefer5148 evolutionary DNA is iterative... You can think of different species as different "sequels" in a series of games or software programs while change within that species itself would be patches or updates to that game. All animals on earth seem to be built on similar base code but monkeys are an entirely different piece of software/hardware than humans are... We just share common ancestors.
Thanks for your hard work Anton!
Thanks to your crew and family also.❤
That is intellectual honesty/integrity right there!
You get something wrong, you correct it, tell everyone and quote your sources.
Love you guys!
A colleague of my Dad’s went to Antarctica to study a metabolic phenomenon that is different in mammals with X and Y. Blood flow in hypothermic conditions. When external temps drop, the blood in females tends to flow toward and concentrate in the abdomen vs males, where the blood tends to flow toward the extremities. The possible adaptation is obvious. Female metabolism is geared toward sustaining a pregnancy, while males need mobility for finding food, etc.
Now explain Amani rats which have no Y chromosomes.
@@spamcheck9431they aren't human
This is why people think evo-psych is nonsense. It's not an adaptation, it's a result of the chemical structure of oestrogen and how it interacts with the blood. There's no adaptation of 'concentrating in the abdomen/extremities', there's vasoconstriction in the extremities (which both men and women do, disproving your point immediately-- if it was truly an adaptation then men would not vasoconstrict in the extremities in cold temperatures, yet both sexes do to the same degree), but because women's blood is literally thicker and more viscous because of oestrogen, vasoconstricted areas are less passable to it.
Again, if it were an adaptation, we'd see differences in the response to cold temperatures by *blood vessels,* but we don't.
Even if it existed as you say it does, it wouldn't be a metabolic phenomenon, because volume of blood flow has little to do with metabolism.
Evo-psych is literally just finding true statements and then making up stories about them to justify pre-existing beliefs.
that's pretty interesting. could be how humans survived an ice age even though they don't fit underground like small mammals. or it's a statistical anomaly that doesn't really mean anything, but it sounds like a legitimate function
@@disposabull no one is talking about gender. are you alright?
Your ability to constantly find interesting topics amazes me. Thanks for your always interesting vids. 🙂
Arxiv is your friend.
Absolutely love this channel, amazing thank you Anton I'm now hypothesising with my husband about why it would be shrinking.
Never stop learning people! ❤
Pablo Picasso entered his Blue Period when that shrinking happened to him.
Imagine primitive cavemen stumbling across and ancient, abandoned nuclear reactor and just dismissing all the buttons that they don't know how to operate as 'junk'.
There is a genetic condition called XX male (de la Chapelle syndrome) where the SRY gene has translocated to the X chromosome. If SRY ends up being the only gene left, then XX males would be fully biologically male and the only distinction between them and other males is increased robustness due to having two full X chromosomes.
The converse - XY female (Swyer syndrome) - is where the SRY gene is missing from the Y chromosome.
It might be possible to permit fertility through gene therapy for XX males, allowing them to fully reproduce as males. The end result would be sort of like having two different male 'species', which would be genetically quite different from each other.
How would the two male 'species' be different from each other?
So XX male wouldn't be able to reproduce except through gene therapy possibly? That would possibly eventually lead to extinction, right?
@@void________ X is a fairly large chromosome. So a fertile XX male is going to be genetically rather different from a normal XY male.
@@ariphaos Right, how do? Not able to reproduce? More effeminate? Is it unknowable? Forgive me if my guesses are errant.
Well, we know XXY males are generally sterile, so ymmv.
"It's tiny, it shrunk over time" IT'S AVERAGE IN SIZE MAN
My Y chromosome is bigger than yours !!!
Nature is ending the patriarchy!
@@Sonny_McMacssonnot likely.
@@nerfherder4284 Muh politics ate muh face.
@@Sonny_McMacsson it's actually the result of the reason why patriarchy has evolved, because of male disposability
For those of you wondering about "Junk" DNA, there are reasons why many scientists still call it that. You can think of junk DNA as falling into two categories.
1) A gene gets duplicated and one of the copies gets a mutation that makes it non-functional. Since you still have one working copy, you're fine and the failed copy continues to acquire random mutations that don't effect anything, turning it into a pseudo-gene.
2) there are ancient sequences of "selfish" DNA that exists solely for the purpose of copying itself over and over. They create large repetitive sections of the genome and are either reminants of ancient viruses or transposable elements that only really care about increasing its own number. Either way, healthy cells try to suppress them from ever being expressed.
1 is inert, 2 is cancer
Unfortunately, the straw man argument of what junk DNA means still persists today (thanks ENCODE!). Even many biologists repeat the incorrect claim that it refers to non-coding regions.
@@E4439Qv5 As a matter of fact, there is a weird relationship with transposable elements and cancer. Of course, inserting one of them in the wrong spot can cause cancer, but cancer cells also do a poor job at suppressing them. You get weird genetics events as a result very frequently.
failing to see the value in both of those is evil. a cancer of the mind is just as bad as one of the body, same for denial and inert junk called memory.
@@E4439Qv5 No.Cancer is way more complex than this and actually has noting to do with it. Cancer is when a cell - not a gene - starts reproducing way to much. In order for that to happen, no less than 7 specific genes have to mutate to overcome all 7 hurdles that prevent cancer. Knowing this, it is kind of surprising, how widesprea cancer still is - mutations seem to happen a lot.
one theory of a function of these self repeeting DNA parts is keeping boundaries between species up. When for example the semen of one species reaches the egg of another, some non-matching chromosomes fail to partner up. In this case the repettitive DNA sequences start making copies of themselves in the process destroying the DNA and killing the cell rather than some weird abomination resulting.
I saw this in a TV science sow. It seems kind of plusible to me though I don´treally want to know what sorts of experiments they conducted to figure that out...
It's never ceases to amaze me how Anton is all over such a broad range of Science topics.
Does the man ever sleep? He truly is one of the most impressive science educators anywhere online.
Some days I feel smarter just because I'm a subscriber. 😂
As someone who collects "junk", when you need it it's very valuable. There's a lot of stuff you can do with junk if you're creative enough. Seeing the complexity of biology and it's ability to adapt I can't agree that any of my DNA is junk in the traditional sense, just that it doesn't have a use at this particular moment.
The problem with collecting junk however is that it can also cause problems if it's not organized or at least out of the way of every day operations. Also, the larger a collection grows the harder it is for it to be mobile. So a balance must still be struck in the end
I concur. So called "junk" DNA is just not understood. Sadly I suspect many researchers today have an agenda and simply won't look.
I was thinking it seemed like a complex system of collecting random virus DNA. It may be a subtle way of genetic development, but I don't really know what I'm talking about. Interesting stuff though! Not Junk at all!
Human DNA has predisposed us all towards acting as packrats.
I wonder how much of the "junk" DNA is sometimes accessible in special circumstances.
@@u-mos8820 That's an interesting thought. I feel that way about most DNA actually. I also see viruses as the transport mechanism for that DNA that serves to maintain a certain level of homogeneity across organisms.
Some could see it as cross contamination while I see it more as a decentralized ecological library of which the organism uses to survive. It would also be safer to have sequences brought in from other organisms to evolve rather than developing changes souly internally by chance. They have sequences that are proven to have existed in another organism and that's valuable.
It may even be possible, with some minimal amount of organisms, to reconstruct extinct ones by piecing together stored data.
But like you said I don't *really* know what I'm talking about, but that's just the natural state of things. Thanks for sparking my brain into going off on a tangent, it's interesting.
Always thought that the whole human genome had been sequenced. Very surprised now.
when they say that, it probably only refers to active genes, or alternatively, only the parts that commonly differ between human individuals
We don't have a clear definition of when a genome has been completely sequenced. There are certain regions that are highly repetitive and are hard to sequence with current technologies. Imagine a sentence that repeats two letters over and over again a thousand times. The most used sequencing technologies can only sequence up to a few hundred of these letters. Because the individual sequences don't cover the entire repeat regions, it's hard to characterize how long they are. Normally, we can just take multiple sequences and look for overlaps, which allows us to figure out the sequence in a given region. However, if it's just a couple of letters repeating over and over again, we can't use this method.
Since we don't have an established cutoff for determining when we are done, researchers will disagree if a genome is actually completed.
Yea. It’s funny when we are told something is 100% understood, then we get told 20 years later “just kidding!”
Well DNA is COMPLICATED! And Human DNA even more so! We may have mapped the genome but that doesn't mean we know how it all works!
All right, who put the copy protect measures in our dna 😡@@someguy999
Epigenetic factors are probably far more influential with regard to gene evolution than we currently consider.
guess who's back, back again, Lamarck's back, tell a friend
John Lamarck was right
@@edgarburlyman738 uh no Lamarck was good for what he knew but he was far from right
@@UpChuckThrust if epigenetic heritability is real I consider "John Lamarck was right" to be a factual statement.
@@edgarburlyman738 that was not what Lamarckian stuff was about it was basically i stretch my neck my babby have long neck it wasn't epigenetics it was just a joke
This video is off the charts. Nobody here would understand but thank you so much for it!
The mammalian Y chromosone seems to have popped up in proximity of a mass extinction event... this leads to my assumption that it is a mutation that allowed early mammals to super charge their reproduction rates. Mammals had existed for a very long time but were vastly outnumbered by the reptiles, and then something changed and mammalian diversity exploded.
What changed was temperature. Reptiles do very well in humid and hot environments, if they're cold blooded. There are warm blooded snakes for example. What this means is that reptiles dont need to exert energy keeping their internal temperature warm. They just sleep and eat once a day. Mammals have to constantly eat. Reptiles are like a prius or a camry. Easy to maintain in good climate. Mammals are like supercars they need a lot of energy and can go really fast. Mammals regulating their body heat allows them into climates not possible before like tundra and mountains reducing competition. The globe got cooler after the K-T extinction event removing rivals, and cooling the planet allowing mammals to spread fast. I wonder if the y gene's ability to mutate fast allows species with y genes to adapt faster.
@@MasterGhostf i assume the chromosome appeared before the cool down, it and it's increased rate of reproduction and ability to adapt (more sharing of genes) were essential for those early mammals survival prior to the explosion of diversity with the temperature drop.
Wtf are you smoking? Male mammals have been around WITH the dinosaurs. The extinction event just allowed mammals to get access to more resources to reproduce a lot more.
Think of how fast mice and rabbits pop out compared to a giant dinosaur with eggs that need to be protected.
We now have a scientific obligation to activate the glow in the dark genes
+
Every time you say "hello wonderful person" it makes my crap day melt away. You are the best
Thanks so much for this! And thank you for posting links to the studies!
When mother nature rolls with legacy code. "Keep it, it's working fine"
Wait. Is DNA all this time just spaghetti code?
It’s an amazing indication of human hubris to label parts that we don’t yet understand as “junk."
That's not what the proponents of junk DNA believe. There are many good reasons to believe that certain regions have no biological importance. Genomes evolve in large part through duplication. If a gene is duplicated, one of the copies can undergo mutations without harming the organism, as the other copy is still intact. The defective pseudogene isn't suddenly excised from the genome, but can continue to accumulate mutations without providing any function.
There are many regions with unknown functions, but junk DNA was never meant to describe those.
@@someguy999 Hubris makes one too quick to label something as non-functional without experimental validation. I’d go so far as to state that retaining multiple copies that don’t match perfectly aren’t defects at all but provide options that can turn on or turn off depending on environmental triggers.
@@gtw4546 We aren't talking about small differences that just don't match perfectly. Small differences are the norm when we compare DNA sequences between species or even within populations. If these regions can be turned on or off due to environmental triggers, you would expect the sequences to be conserved (highly similar). In fact, identifying which genes are expressed under different environmental conditions is a routine analysis in biology. This is easily detectable in the lab.
Junk DNA describes regions that aren't conserved, so they are undergoing rapid mutation and will often be deleted entirely. If they are important, why doesn't their loss matter at all?
No competent biologist would say that not knowing what a region does means it is junk. There is a misconception that junk DNA refers to regions with no known function.
@@gtw4546 I think you're fundamentally misunderstanding this, junk DNA is a valid term for duplicate sets of genes that are without any purpose. I don't think it's hubris to brand obsolete genetic material as useless, much like you don't think it's hubris to call a broken window a useless window.
@@charlethemagne5466 “without any purpose” and “obsolete” are human determinations based on what we currently know - that doesn’t mean that is the truth. That “obsolete” oil lamp can be used to good purpose when it’s needed to replace electric lights during a power outage and having duplicates comes in handy..
Anton, you are a haven for citizen science geeks! You cover everything from astrophysics to zoology.
But this gender research will be manipulated to favour trans people in some way, just like climate science is manipulated to favour climate alarmism
He barely says anything of substance
Outer space to Inner space
I am not surprised by that because women are werid 😂😂
@@lillones than why do you come here?
Excellent & fascinating discussion Anton, and scientifically sound.
Inverted genes sounds like an optimization... for example in Assembly language, it's common to push data onto a "stack" backwards, and later pull it back out, restoring the original order.
Since the Y chromosome is created so efficiently, perhaps that's linked to the mechanism of how the gene is copied? We are basically organic computers, after all...
Exactly, except the human computer part, we are way more complex than boolean logic. A computer is to a tally stick what as a cell is to a computer. Yep, just one cell's genetic code would be the most complex software ever written....probably
You should check out how DNA, RNA, PNA work together to perform all the functions of a standard VonNeuman and more. It's interesting to say the least, the assembly analogy is apt as far as I can tell. Maybe some step in between machine and assembly would be a better way to describe genetic codes. I'm just learning genetic codes though so this is all brand new to me. I'm spotting patterns that appear to be repeating instructions and even subroutines. It's probably not what is going on though, genes are not C++ or C# or even old 6502 assembly. Right right its youtube I'm rambling.
Problem is RNA polimerase can only move one way, so it actually will produce the actual protein backwards as non-functional. (As far as we now there is not a mechanism for DNA/RNA inversion to fix this "bug")
And we are applying it in our code without knowing it. We are truly inspired by nature even when we thought we weren't
Sorry conspiracy theories literally having a right chromosome literally losing your y chromosome is related to a lot of health problems and is the reason why men die early
Very interesting. I wonder though if what they think of as "junk dna" will eventually be found to be useful- like the appendix was thought to be useless but now is known to be a functioning organ.
Junk DNA isn't conserved between different species or even populations. This means that if you look at a region of DNA, it just mutates a lot. If it had a function, it would likely be more constrained.
Don't want to be caught in the "weeds".
they alrdy did but the name stuck
Our “Junk DNA” Is More Important Than We Once Thought.
by PBS Eons.
Hm
The more we learn about genes, the less i think humans should be trying to do any "manual inputs" into the code.
right, there are so many things that have no clear purpose to us, but often times DO have a purpose, and isnt just a vestigial aspect being worked out of the system by evolution.
*Laughs in Michael L:evin's genetic compiler*
This
What if you were offered a genetic change that would allow you to produce all the cheese that you would ever desire? (-:
Opposite for me
I'm a career scientist and I find it surprising that some colleagues get so dogmatic about their speculative hypotheses to the point of using terms like "junk" on things that they don't yet fully understand. Maybe that's why the public is losing trust in our work. Science has always been an adventure, embrace it. We don't have all the answers and that's why we keep our minds open to wonder. That which might not make sense to us today might make perfect sense once we change our frame of mind, or maybe it may never make sense in our generation, but we keep working so the next generation of scientists can build on our discoveries - good or bad.
Women live longer than men. Now we know Y.
I noticed animals with more muscle have smaller y chromosomes maybe mysostines on the X
We have always known why, it's more difficult to be a male.
Yeah but female lives are. More boring boring. What's the point.
@@drstone3418, pardon my ignorance but what are mysostines?
@@이이-n4z8y, I would suggest that's more of a trend than a hard and fast rule. Plenty of exceptions to both genders along that line.
I have a theory that it's more related to testosterone. There seems to be a heavy correlation between testosterone production and violent crime as well as risk taking.
Wonderful as always Anton. Thank you. 😄👍
Machine developed circuitry can sometimes have extra circuits that go nowhere. But when they are removed the thing stops working.
That extra DNA could be helping us in ways we don't yet understand.
Lol circuits are different. If you have a disconnected line, its just a waste of space. A machine cannot create a new physical connection no matter what the software tells it to do !!!
DNA is different, it is living and can create !!!!
Do you have any documentation about that?
That seems like BS. A circuit that goes nowhere is a broken circuit, like a broken circle is a line.
Chunks of the y chromosome keep getting deleted at random, and those deletions are detrimental, that's why it's shrinking. It's a natural inference that much of what remains must also be junk.
@@WhatSmellsLikeToastengineer for a long time. This makes no sense. It wouldn't do "nothing" if it simultaneously breaks the primary circuit...
I love how scientists are baffled by the Y Chromosome, but are absolutely confident in their timelines of it's evolution over millions of years. Etc etc etc... over the years I've learned that scientists are like the media. Very few will tell you the truth, and the known facts with honesty about what is unknown. Most will shape the "truth" to fit their theories or political/religious agendas. Just tell us the truth, and give us your opinion based on that separately if you wish, but let me decide what to believe or study in regards to the unknowns...
Scientist receive money from the gov. The gov wants to push their narratives.
theyre paid to produce desired results not think outside the box
> Most will shape the "truth" to fit their theories or political/religious agendas.
Maybe you're simply stating that is so... to fit your political/religious agendas.
im not smart enough to comment on this
@@Jay-cf6dzno idea, but my X might have something to say about this.
@@Jay-cf6dz I do? But Y do you ask? Y not ask my X instead of me.
Perhaps, but you're one of the smartest people in the comments even so.
You proved yourself wrong!! You found a nice solution
Very interesting to think about. But, we do evolve and change all the time to adapt. Great video Anton! Hope you are doing well and take care! Take care everyone! Be safe out there and stay wonderful! ❤
Individuals don't evolve, only populations. Besides genes being turned on and off epigenetically your genes are the same.
....yes we evolve....but we dont change to adapt. That is an old concept.... We respond. Stem cell research has proven this....Ref: Dr Bruce Lipton..on stem cell research...about 30-40 years ago now....
Sounds like the Y chromosome became atrophied from less use after the SRY was introduced.
The thing is, some humans already display XX male genetics due to a stray SRY activation (I am told this is why you don't get to examine your own chromosomes in genetics class. not a realization you want to have at school).
So if the Y chromosome shrinks to nothing, there's a decent possibility that males will be formed through an SRY mutation on an X chromosome after the Y is gone. We're already adapting to this change as a species.
Thing is there are hundreds of extant mammals that will have this same issue, potentially. We don't know which ones will successfully transfer the male-making genes to another chromosome and which won't. A giraffe might make it, but a human might not.
I read an article about genetic defects a couple of days ago. According to the article the gene uses parts of the x or y chromosome to fuse DNA strands together that are cut but shouldn't be cut, but the problem is that these combinations are random. The bigger the gap between segments, the more damage to the child (the severity of the handicap) because it now has a large number of snippets with random code/combinations in a row. Though it beats the child not developing at all in the womb according to the genetic instruction set. Maybe the 'junk' DNA is meant to do this given that also everybody has a different amount of it.
It would make mutations also make sense. Small cuts of a few SNP's are generally harmless and can be even for the better if replaced with a combination that increases the chances of survival, and yet also sometimes for the worse. The genetic instruction set just seems to pick whatever combination is next in line from your 'junk' dna to repair these gaps.
Perhaps even when radiation or something starts to break DNA down it gets repaired with this 'junk' dna. But since it is random code all kinds problems and mutations arise.
Also interesting are the 'pile up regions' which are certain segments in DNA that seem to be locked in and almost always passed to offspring (almost always part of the 50% a child in a certain group gets from a parent) and barely mutate :
"While here are some known pile-up regions, the ones that you have might be different. You may not have these known pile-up regions. You may have some other regions in your DNA that are pile-up regions. Different populations have different known pile-up regions.
The Excess IBD may have something to do with an evolutionary advantage to that segment of DNA, and so it's been perpetuated through a population.
Lots of population over tens of thousands of years have had a chance to develop these. And so you're not always going to see the same pile-up regions as your neighbor. But, within your family, you probably have a lot of the same pile-up regions.
But just because you have those doesn't mean that everybody else will have them.
Pile-up regions can happen all along each one of our chromosomes. Unfortunately, there's no definitive known list of pile-ups for us to investigate. This is another reason why they are a pain to genealogists.
In short, pile-up regions provide DNA matches that, while we may be related, we're not going to be related in a genealogical time frame.
These segments have been passed down for hundreds and thousands of years in many cases because they're ubiquitous for that population."
I wonder if our interbreeding with related species (neanderthal/ denisovan) resulted in some of the oddness. We see in mules, ligers etc that interbreeding between species result in strange "mismatch" of genes.
Possibly. Except usually hybrid animals like mules are sterile…but of course “life finds a way”
Actually some of this "junk" DNA is from virus DNA from ones that have infected us in the past. Supposedly we could have gotten valuable junk DNA from neanderthals that came from viruses they got and protect us today. Pretty neat if true.
All animals breed with related specifies so this is not any reason for humans to be different from anything else.
The problem with interbreeding of mixed species is though, that the progeny like the liger is not fertile. This is despite the fact, that Tigers and Lions and even house cats share the same amount of 38 chromosomes.
This observation has been formulated into the basic definition of species.:
"In biology, a species (PL: species) is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring,"
And mixing two species with different chromosomes, doesn't produce any offspring at all. Chinese and Russian scientists tried to create a hybrid of a human and a chimpanzee without success. Humans and apes got different chromosomes numbers and different genotypes of course.
Only Europeans and Asians have neanderthal/denisovian. Africans have virtually none though they do have homo erectus DNA
Since there have been a number of comments on Anton's use of the term "junk DNA", I would like to backup his use of the concept. First of all, junk DNA does not refer to DNA with no known function! I certainly can't fault the general public for having this idea because many biologists didn't do their homework and mischaracterized what the original authors believed. Many biologists incorrectly assumed that the original authors were describing regions that don't code for proteins and were unaware of non-coding regions when describing junk DNA. This was a completely wrong assumption, that, unfortunately, persists among some biologists today! The biologists who promoted the idea of junk DNA were well aware of non-coding regions and were describing something entirely different.
The concept of junk DNA is too complex to go into here, but one key feature is that it isn't conserved between species or populations. It is better described as a region of DNA that undergoes a lot of random mutations and isn't found to be the same in comparative analyses. If it had a function you would expect it to look similar (how else could it perform its function if the DNA isn't even similar?). If it had a key function, the mutations would occur occur in certain regions because the function would be lost if a key region got mutated. This is an over-simplification and there is a lot of room for debate on what is or isn't junk DNA, and how we should define it. However, I would like to clear up to idea that junk DNA has been debunked or that biologists fail to understand the difference between not knowing what a region of DNA does and it being junk.
So maybe those pieces of DNA are acting like a sort of genetic playground? A relatively safer space where advantageous mutations can occur without completely wrecking necessary functions elsewhere.
@@phoenixjones7191 Mutations can occur anywhere, including where they would "wreck necessary functions". We don't see many mutations in key areas simply because the organism is less likely to reproduce and pass on those mutations.
I've heard of proposals that junk DNA may function as a sort of reservoir of raw genetic material for natural selection to act upon, but I haven't seen any compelling evidence that this is indeed the case. The primary mechanisms for evolutionary novelty seems to be through the duplication (and subsequent changes) of existing regions of the genome, especially genes.
The placenta and many other extremely important features of mammals and humans have also been collected from virus, known as retroviruses. It’s not “junk”, only because we don’t know what it does or what it can do
2:19 "the development of testes". such a smooth delivery. good job anton this is why i subscribe
As quickly as we think we have it figured out, we learn something new that changes everything. I wonder what we will know if we survive the next two million years as a species.
Probably wonders and existential horrors we can't even imagine
I'm astonished it hasn't been sequenced until now.
the Y-chromosome sounds like the initial properties that a more complex program is started up with.
A patch added later
@@monad_tcp I was joking. For the benefit of alien conspiracy theorists hahaha
More likely is that if the Y chromosome's only function is to trigger maleness, then all the other genes can disappear without consequences.
I wouldn't be surprised if the Y chromossome was a kickstaters of mutations. From the structure described here it seems very prone to random recombinations, or perhaps the way it is now is the result of said mutations happening along human evolution.
@@monad_tcp it's a kernel parameter: shouldIBeMale=True. Almost all the actual code that handles everything is already there, it just turns it on.
WOW! I just thought of something! "JUNK DNA" would be a GREAT name for a band!
It's already a song.
Angel of Death ~ Slayer.
We called ourselves Wet Dream. Just kidding.
Blood orgie
Consider genetic garbage😂
That is true!
Hello Anton - do those all X chromosome mice have the same male to female ratio as mice populations with X & Y?
good question
Well I went on a google spree and found no information on this. However it is pretty safe to assume that it is a 1:1 ratio as it would probably be mentioned somewhere otherwise. Also most species have a 1:1 ratio because of Fisher's principle.
because mammals have other means of designating sex.
And because mammalian sex isnt a binary, its a sliding scale.
@@AnonymousAnarchist2 example besides humans
The sliding scale.part. I'm very ignorant on this issue
Cool video!
It's not necessary for the Y chromosome to shrink for an X to mutate sequences that replace the Y functions. At least enough to make hosts competitive.
Also, it deems to me that the shrinking can really only occur in areas of the Y chromosome that aren't "important" from an evolutionary pov. As soon as the host cannot produce males, it's a dead end, and other hosts will out compete them. That is, unless an X with the necessary features has already appeared.
This is an important consideration. The Y chromosome has undergone reduction, but this hasn't affected many genes recently.
Could the Y chromosome be fragile to allow potentially advantageous mutations to occur. To make evolution easier? Could be way off just want to see what you think.
look up male disposability and greater male variability hypothesis
@@priapulida so it’s an actual thing I wasn’t just coming up with something out of nowhere.
Wow interesting. You're a creative thinker
The SRY gene also sometimes jumps over to the X chromosome, resulting in a XX male. I expect that if the Y ever stops sustaining itself, mechanisms like this will allow us to continue reproducing.
These males cannot pass on their genes and within this group some individuals do not have the SRY gene. With XX males Only some of the SRY genes are are attached to the X chromosomes and some just have a few Y genes within their X expression.
Might be already happening.
Well, that wouldn’t work because XX males don’t seem to make sperm plus they have other problems.
It's only weird as it goes against what we were all taught. That teaching is supposed to make us think outside the box. And few of us do this. The quandary of Sciences in general
I feel like everything we have been taught was wrong..
we are indoctrinated to memorize what the book says and don’t ask questions..
Some of us are so far outside the box we think in extra dimensions 😜
@@erasmusvenport8830 I'm with you on way outside the box dimensionally is where it's at 🌋🔥❣️🧘♂️
@@eazypeazy33
Now ther trying to teach us man can be Women. Wich is wrong
Cool video anton 🔥🔥
the interesting part is how the Y chromosomes said to be glowing in the dark? think of the Y chromosome as the "upgrade" feature. its there only as a "key" for that activation. the fact that in animals when its disappeared, naturally they will evolve to mutate one again. its an "upgrade" feature. its funny, that now im planning to change my last name initial to Y . since like the Y chromosom, its only there briefly. take it or leave it.
Thank you for another fantastic video Wonderful Anton- I hope you're having a good day!
XX male syndrome is a Wikipedia page. A gene from the Y chromosome ends up on the X chromosome and you end up with a male with a few differences. I had read in the past that they had the possibility of not being sterile but that does not seem to be the norm. Hopefully some gene therapy comes along so they can develop more normally if they chose.
I ended up with X's and a Y
Klinefelter Syndrome. I was able to reproduce.
Or you got XY but the body cells don't care and don't listen to the Y chromosom and you still become female. But again most of the time you will have a fertility problem.
If you need gene therapy then that's not normal it's genetically engineered
Proven by genetic testing? @@j.b.4340
Thank you for all the subjects you bring to light for those seeking knowledge. You are a beacon and are much appreciated and loved.
We need to be especially careful about identifying a trend and extrapolating it to the distant future. This is certainly true in evolution and genetics. While the Y chromosome may be decreasing in size, we shouldn't assume that this will continue indefinitely. It may simply reflect that there haven't been many fitness consequences, as what's being lost isn't important for reproduction. We should also be looking at the total gene content of the Y chromosome over time. Comparisons with chimps and related species haven't shown much gene loss (I think we lost one gene compared to our close relatives). This may simply be the case of the Y chromosome losing stuff that isn't needed.
Thank you! Sanity! Yes it is an absolute logical fallacy to think that something getting small is going to disappear. More likely the only critical function of the Y chromosome is to trigger male development. Any other part of the Y chromosome that randomly is cut out by mutation will still lead to a healthy offspring who will pass along that shrunken Y chromosome. If ever the critical part is missing an intersexed offspring unable to pass its genes will be produced at best. The "weirdness" is due to it being vestigial in nature, most likely.
i think it's also important to note that in the past hundred years or so all the wars have led to the deaths of a large portion of the male population, if they didn't reproduce before they were gone, their potential genetic contributions are gone forever. and in ww1 and ww2 there were a lot of manly men (i realize that says nothing about their Y chromosome but it makes sense to me why we'd be seeing less pronounced Y). and in the distant past it was probably similar with men being the primary fighting force for any nation, i think most men would've understood that they need to reproduce before going to war but not all of them were able to
The reason why the Y chromosome is decreasing in size is because of a dropoff in fertility; the Y chromosome itself is a useful amalgam of junk genes that are redundant for the sake of acting like a reproductive buffer against genetic drift, malformed mutation, and eventual extinction. The fact its shrinking is a sign we're going to see less human biodiversity in the future, which isn't good.
Lol, I wouldn't call something that's going on for the last 350 million years as a "trend"
@@eljanrimsa5843 Did they really sequence the genes from all those years ago to compare though? In reality, not really.
Where is the genome for making music by slapping my belly
When I turned 15’ish I too also started to understand what happened in my jeans!
Thank you for telling us that tom
My son figured that out in the cradle. He's a triple Scorpio, which may have had something to do with his obsessive thirst to solve a great mystery:
Where was Mommy's penis?
Was it stolen?
We had our first mini-anatomy lesson before he was 2 years old. 😂
@@phoenixjones7191 Thank you for sharing your ironi Mrs Jones ..when required to be explained, a joke ceases to be funny but here you go:
Video: A deep dive into our sexual reproduction chromosomes
Video: 1 minute 8 seconds to 1 minute 11 seconds.
Me: Laughing
Me: Sharing the joy of laughter with people possessing the ability to see the humour in this.
Me: explaining the humorous fact that two words are pronounced the same although different spelling and meanings although in this case “what happens in our jeans/genes”, both are related to this videos topic.
To conclude: Me being ironic in return. 🤣
Rgds/A
@@ruthanneseven haha 😆 thx for the laughter.
My posting was really solely about the amusement caused by the fact that the topic of the video combined with the other fact that jeans and genes sound the same.
If you read my reply (but without my directed sarcasm) to phoenixjones you’ll get the whole funny thing. 😄
B Rgds/A
Dr. Deez definitely should get a Nobel prize.
that would be nuts
The wild thing that gets me is imagine if the Y is the oldest gene and its the most mutated maybe to a degree that any original structure is gone by now, sad but something to think about.
Kinda like the 'egg' before the 'chicken' ?
It’s not tho… if anything it’s the youngest gene… because other animals don’t have this
And infact, it is theorised that it’s actually a mutated X chromosome
@@giakolou2876hypothesised not theorised, you not knowing this difference immediately invalidates wjat youve said as youve not gone beyond reading articles
idk about that
I love all the guys in the comment section being butthurt about finding out the Y chromosome is technically useless and just makes them more susceptible to genetic diseases 😂
The 'Why' chromosome?
👌
The why is easy, the world needs strong masculine men. Weak men cannot rule the world or protect anyone.
Because someone has to rule.
Men it's official, we're just built weird.
Only in reference to women. All men are essentially built the same lol that’s why every guy can usually understand most things sex related with other men. We all feel think want and list the same shit. Girls never understand why you don’t want her to hang around X guy. Cus you KNOW what he’s doing, for example.
I wonder if the demise of the Y chromosome is in some way related to the age at which becoming reproductively active is involved. Since production of the Y chromosome diminishes with age and a factor with the mice could be that the stress of the environment would preclude reproduction in favour of survival and when conditions returned to a more favourable environment then the population that survived would have been older by the time they got around to reproduction. As to us humans there is evidence that the more comfortable our societies the later we reproduce and in smaller numbers of offspring. 🤔
Personally, I doubt it
show us this 'evidence' you talk about !!!
Stop misinformation !!!
”weak men make hard times”
@@supa3ek for example extract from Oxford Academic "Social determinants of human reproduction", from the abstract "...Couples now have fewer than two children on average in European countries and they tend to postpone these births until later age." (article 16/7/1518/693439) - There are many academic papers discussing this topic.
The logic is that because something is getting smaller that it will eventually disappear. What else can you say follows that logic?
Some of this info has been around awhile as conjecture. I always enjoy your videos, Anton.,Thank you ! Hope you continue to post . You have a curious mind.
So years ago when they “sequenced the human genome” really meant they looked at the whole thing once. Cool 😂. We really messed up with science media education in the US.
Esp. since in humans a male in good health can produce 200 -300 spermatooza per day. A fertile female in good health will make one egg. per month. Nature does not do that with our cause.
I rather like to think they just don't consider men humans.
@@rh906 we're not human, we're superheroes
Kinda makes the whole MRNA vaccine thing a little scary, we are barely scratching the surface of how our biology works, and trying to Jumpstart our immune system with a needle is sketchy at best
Well I do think they at least sequenced the genome of Drosophila melanogaster. Adult fruit flies actually live longer than house flies, isn't that strange? A common house fly can last like a month as an adult, while a fruit fly can last around fifty days. The mayfly is bigger than either of them, but dies after two hours (females) to two days (males) from reaching their final molt. On an unrelated note, the newborn baby kangaroo rat is bigger than a newborn kangaroo joey. Just found that interesting.
Video on memorial weekend sunday?
Wish i had that kind of work ethic!
(Yes i know anton doesnt live in the usa)
Did you travel months into the future?
I think you're somewhat misunderstanding what drives the loss of genetic material and thereby physical traits in an evolutionary frame. Lack of function does not negatively select out genes or traits. Detrimental function does.
For example, if something having no function caused to to be selected out, then modern mammalian males wouldnt have nipples. The actual fact is that something with no function, either positive or negative, tends to linger in the genetics and thereby the physical traits governed by those genetics. If nipples caused men to die before mating more frequently for some reason, only then would they be selected out of the gene pool.
There does seem to be some slight benefit to males having nipples though, so it's not perfectly neutral
@@lydiawilder5996😂 "slight"
Well they are erogenous zones, which is good from a hedonistic perspective, but they can be manipulated to induce lactation in the absence of females, which seems pretty useful.@@kronickintrovert
Anton is correct here. A gene or trait that doesn't confer a benefit is expected to be lost over time. This is well established in evolutionary biology. If you don't use it, you lose it. If it isn't deleterious, it will just persist longer than it would if it caused a reproductive disadvantage.
Also, men have nipples because male and female human embryos develop along the same trajectory at first. Nipples are already established before male embryos start developing male traits.
@@lydiawilder5996what is the benefit of male nipples
What do ou mean about animals who lost their Y chromosome? We do not have evidence they even had a Y chromosome to begin with.
Short vid idea: Why are our genes twisted?
I've been looking at pictures for years and never see a point at which twisting is forced, for example if a cross bar latched onto the other side differently.
They look as if they could just be straightened out with a counter twist.
Or a good ironing.
😊😊
My guess is that the twist results in better structural integrity, less likely to be damaged by various physical interactions in the environment.
It's to give stability to the DNA strand, it makes it more stable and to "protect" the bases against water. It's actually more twisted and folded than what you usually see in a simplified image representation.
☕️
I did write a longer comment; twice.
But keep pressing cancel instead of post.
Basically pretty sure its because of a bunch of sort of ~'packing' proteins and can actually vary along the chromosome depending on what's going on in the cell at the time. It's like a physical variable compression method and basically like winding a long thin strand of twine into a short fat piece of rope, like double, treble, quadruple wringing out a damp cloth.
If memory serves. 🤔
They twist and then fold because they are really, really long! Most of the time they are actually unzipped in certain regions so that proteins or RNA can be produced..
Seeing the scientist using the microscope with gloves then touching their face made me kneejerk. Think it is hilarious when it comes to demos or videos of actors for science companies make sample images/videos they always do stuff like this lol.
My favourite is stock images of people soldering.
They hold it like a pen.
yes that one is one of the more notable memes in the community. xD@@drunkenhobo8020
A lot of people have a big misunderstanding of how genetics work. Genetics are NOT a code for your body (at least in the way most people think of it, which is overly mechanical)! Several other things play a very important role in the determination of your characteristics, and genetics are just one factor.
I'll use sex determination as an example of what I mean. You can think of Male, Female, and Intersex as different end points. Genetics are much more like a marble drop game (the one with a marble and pegs and different results at the bottom). Genes are like pathway blockers, but they aren't perfect. They can just make certain outcomes more common, aka they can help lead the ball into certain paths. The Y chromosome is an important pathway blocker, but there are still dozens of other genes that play a role and can block paths in various different ways, leading to different outcomes. Environmental factors would be the equivalent of shaking the entire mechanism, which can jostle the ball into a different outcome, or sometimes random chance just means the ball will fall into a less expected outcome.
Thinking that genes make you the exact way you are today is wildly inaccurate. Genetics are not a blueprint, they are not a programming language, and they are not code. The only times when genetics can TRULY be consider code is in incredibly genetically pure and simple scenarios that HAVE to be created by human intervention and remove all external influences. This just doesn't happen in humans, it literally is impossible. I HIGHLY recommend SubAnima's video titled "You've Been Lied to About Genetics" to gain a more accurate understanding of how genetics work. I did my best to summarize the video here, but it is really worth a watch.
No such thing as intersex
Hi wonderful Anton. Thank you for a wonderful service
Interesting, as always. I am a long-time fan, and I shudder to think of the flack you'll get in the comments section due to the current political climate.
Lemme grab the popcorn
Wdym chromosomes could never be a point of contention right......right ?
6:33 I think its purpose is diversity. The chromosome holds the things not needed but used to be the most efficient and survive currently. So versions evolve and change no matter what.
I remember a study published a couple years ago that found that later Neanderthals had lost their Y chromosome entirely, and it had been supplanted by the Sapiens Y chromosome!
You understood it wrong then.
A similar thing happened in most Latin American populations 500 years ago. The mitochondrial DNA largely matches earlier pre 1492 populations, while the Y chromosome has a lot more in common with Southern European populations. We all know what happened. . .
Lol, the unintentional innuendo in the summary at 10:25 "The Y Chromosome; it's tiny, and definitely shrunk over time."
Perhaps this "weirdness" might offer some insight on how these chromosomal anomalies occur. Understanding the pairing of Y chromosomes would potentially eliminate some of the worst mother-to-son genetic diseases.
Mothers do NOT contribute a Y to their sons; only a single X. Sex-linked genetic diseases can come from either parent.
Pairing of Y chromosomes? Wth u talking about lol 😂 Y chromosome doesn’t have a pair, it is passed on from father to son, without pairing or mixing. So if anything you inherited the disease from your father, if it is a Y chromosome dependent.
As a biology graduate Soon to be a student doctor. Junk DNA is not very junk its highly conserved and there are sequences that code for nothing but can be transcribed into working co-enzymes which is kinda scary because what if our Junk DNA is the reason why some genetic cancers develop.
Most cancers and “genetic” cancers are quite literally from peoples diets. You misconceive the entire perspective of how genetics determine this stuff. It’s not “oh my genes are gonna do this” it’s “oh my genes show I’m more susceptible to these sources causing cancers.
@@humphreyjones1828 i must disagree with that notion that its all external factors when in reality we would not see things like childhood cancers as young as 6 years old. Thats not external factor thats entirely genetic and we use tests to determine if you got potential chance of developing a certain cancer not that you will but eventually there will be strong correlation between family history to your own diagnosis.
@@martin22336 it's never "one thing". That is a common problem with many people's perceptions. That it's X, so it can't be Y. But in the real world it's A, X, Y, W, Z and the whole alphabet. People find that overwhelming so they decide.. i will change my diet (X).. thus I shall live forever. This magic bullet hypothetical thinking is pervasive in human society.
When it comes to cancer it can be: genetic error (bad active gene) inherited, it can be environmental (anything from diet to radiation), it can be VIRAL (yes, virus' invading your cells and rewriting DNA often can cause a cell to go cancerous as Viral replication is.. clunky, bad, error prone and any given infected cell may not make any viruses at all or viral components and instead just break and go cancerous instead), or half a dozen other things I can't think about at the moment. A researcher said it best once, every living being gets cancer, but our bodies are designed to destroy it, we call it "cancer" when those mechanisms fail. Right now, every living human has cancerous cells, the young and the old, but our built in kill systems and DNA repair systems work to stop it before it becomes an issue.. until they fail to, then we get "cancer". Overall it's a fascinating topic. There are lines of cancerous human cells which are so incredibly potent that if you are exposed to them, they can infect you. Like a disease, like a bacteria... only it's another human's cells now colonizing your body.
@humphreyjones1828 You are entirely right. Junk DNA is just DNA scientists can't figure out the function of. It is bad science to call them cancer causing, and such laissez-faire terminoloy just confuses the average layperson.
Finally a biologist I can ask: What is a woman?
I thought birds did have sex chromosome just that it's reversed and males have 2 x chromosome and female had the y chromosome
According to Wikipedia on „Y chromosome“, the shrinking is questionable:
With a 30% difference between humans and chimpanzees, the Y chromosome is one of the fastest-evolving parts of the human genome.[27] However, these changes have been limited to non-coding sequences and comparisons of the human and chimpanzee Y chromosomes (first published in 2005) show that the human Y chromosome has not lost any genes since the divergence of humans and chimpanzees between 6-7 million years ago.[28] Additionally, a scientific report in 2012 stated that only one gene had been lost since humans diverged from the rhesus macaque 25 million years ago.[29] These facts provide direct evidence that the linear extrapolation model is flawed and suggest that *the current human Y chromosome is either no longer shrinking or is shrinking at a much slower rate than the 4.6 genes per million years estimated by the linear extrapolation model* .
The rest of Wikipedia description on the subject is also quite informative.
4:32 You mentioned that it's as if Y is almost made to be mutatable, maybe that's for sexual selection? You know, males can have thousands of offspring, and males also take loads of risks and die young if unsuccessful, but if they survive they get to spread their mutations, hence Y is smaller and more fragile to facilitate speed of mutation?
From Alice in wonderland: 'My dear, here we must run as fast as we can, just to stay in place. And if you wish to go anywhere you must run twice as fast as that.'
Problem with this is that the Y chromosome only has very few genes in general, and the way in which they affect the expression of other genes is way too big-picture to allow for much fine tuning.
What you suggest fits with the greater variability of some traits in men, such as intelligence. Greater intelligence in _some men_ increases the chance that the needed abilities will be there in a crisis. The fact that that's achieved at the expense of lesser intelligence in other men is not really a loss. They can still prove useful in that crisis. On the other hand it is more important that women, as the caregivers of children, to have the ability to fulfill that role well. If they don't, their children may die.
I was thinking something like this, males seem to be along the more ~"experimental" throwaway side of the resource allocation pool as compared to the more invested and valuable capabilities of the females in mammals; like internal incubation and breastfeeding.. not to mention that in a cellular kind of sense male zygotes just don't have much going on. Males are like dead ends for their mother's intracellular hardware, like throwing sht at a wall to see what sticks? Quantity over quality and all that. 🤔
Correct me if I'm wrong but with evolution by natural selection; More death (to a point) in a larger more mutant population size would provide more data to the memetic pool of genetic memory (such as it is), no?
Most likely the only genes needed are the one that trigger maleness, so if any randomly disappear the offspring will survive and pass along the shrunken gene where it can shrink again. If it loses what makes it trigger maleness you are either an unviable fetus or you are born intersexed and possibly can't reproduce, meaning the gene won't be passed along. All this means that the Y chromosome can shrink to a point but will likely not disappear.
@@Inkling777the vast majority of the genes that encode that are not in the Y chromosome. You have smart/dumb genes and then you are a girl or boy
It is already the case that some XX people develop male sex characteristics without a Y chromosome. It's now a question of whether they will become more numerous in the gene pool, enough to influence the final demise of the Y chromosome?
It's more likely the y will start dying out before the xx males become common. Once less men appear naturally then the xx men will spread their mutation. If the xy males are still popping up as frequently as they are then the xx males don't really have any advantage
@@blakec8549the XX male, or X male is probably not the mutation. The XY male probably is.
That is what this study points to.
Thats not a suprise either. Close to 1/5th of males dont have a Y when they are finiahed with purberty. The hypothis used to be that the Y was lost during development, now that is in question.
I say hyposthis because the professor I learned about more advanced genetics from taught that the Y was just a damaged X and compleatly unneccisary, pointing to X only Males, and the presense of well, litterally every gene we knew of at the time in Y being in X as evidence. Turns out the prof was probably right.
@@blakec8549 As they are usually sterile they can't pass on the trait and influence following generations.
@@JM-The_Curious usually but not always. If less XY males are born those very rare occurrences will have a larger impact on the future gene pool.
It's an archive of past gene expressions that evolution has determined that we don't currently need , but might soon enough, due to a changing environment, that it's keeping them on deck.
it sounds like the Y is more of a patch than a built-in piece of code, as in the X chromasome only contains the female half, and the Y just writes over it. eventually, likely through simple mutation, X will Mutate to match parts of the "patchwork" and some redundancy check function of the cell will trim it off of the Y, thus slowly but surely deleting the chromasome over time. this likely wouldn't JUST happen with the Y, its likely happening to ALL of them, and given enough time we may be genetically simplified to the point of a single giant chromasome.
Or rather females are the human/mammal part and males are the unfortunately needed component needed to continue the species.
@@rh906that sounds very depressing.
@@rh906 Sounds about right to me
@rh906 Gotta love misandry. Hate being supported by misrepresenting scientific hypotheses wasn't clever when the nazis did it with skull shape, it's not clever now.
I listen at 2x... my brain absorbs the info better. Normal speed i get frustrated waiting for words
My theory of evolution is that the task of the males is to generate new traits, while the task of the female is to identify the positive traits and to preserve them. This is a highly efficient setup. The instability and general weirdness of the Y chromosome would seem consistent with this, as it would seem to facilitate the creation of large numbers of different new traits with each generation. And since the males have such a wide diversity of traits (which should map to skills), there will likely always be someone who is well suited for whatever random change in environment might show up.
PS, to me the phrase "junk DNA" has always seemed to epitomize the arrogance of contemporary scientists. They can't figure out what something does, so they declare it to be useless junk. Nothing in the body is junk, and everything makes sense. You just don't know enough yet to get it.
Nice theory!!
Nice theory
Generate traits? That sounds kinda weird, almost sounds like those dummies that think if you work out more your kid will be born to be physically stronger.
Does any of this discussion have any possible connection to the Neanderthal 'missing' Y Chromosome I keep reading about?
The Y Chromosome - Small, but powerful and also kinda weird but it gets the job done.
honey badger.
Right but the second half of the video basically says the Y chromosome was dropped by evolution on some island rats.
"The X chromosome is strong and independent and don't need no Y!" - Xtriarchy activist
--------------------------------------------------
In all seriousness... those woke freaks are quite annoying.
@@TzarBomb what