C2Comics Blog

So any time I watch the History channel and they go on about human origins, they invariable take the same track. It is something like:

“One of our forefathers developed the unique ability to (use tools, make fire, explore, etc.) which he then passed to his offspring.”

Now I wasn’t around five millions years ago, so I do not scream “it was a woman!” but usually the mere concept of women even existing and contributing in any way, shape, or form to current society, is almost completely ignored, even in the most basic of biological terms (“it is thought that Australia was first colonized by about 7 different men with their unique ability and thirst for exploration.  Oh, and a couple chicks.”), so I usually do get annoyed.  It could have been a female.  That’s all I want acknowledged.

Now as a biologist I did think there would be more of a push for a male to develop these traits over females. As humans are mammals it could be assumed that before the birth of religion human reproduction occurred similarly to other mammals – males competing for females.  Usually the biggest, best few males of the year have access to most the females that year.  The following year those males are usually replace by younger, fitter male who then have access to the females.  So pretty much all the females would reproduce but only the biggest and best males would be able to reproduce, thus creating a pressure for new advantageous mutations.

But apparently I totally overlooked another pressure.  Since male mammals tend to be larger than females (to allow for better competition between other males) it turns out they hog the best food spots and so females have to becomes more clever.

Turns out that the use of tools, once thought to be a solely human adaptation has been seen in other animals – birds, dolphins, monkeys, and apes.  That isn’t news.  What’s becoming news is that it is mainly females in these groups that are using the tools.

Dolphins?

Chimps?

Weird, but makes sense.

So all this time when I make stuff by hand I used to feel all masculine.  Turns out I should be feeling feminine.

So the concept of resistance to smallpox and resistance to HIV being linked is not really new, but using stem cells from smallpox-resistant individuals to treat HIV? Awesome! Although the writer of the article seems a little naysay-y, the cautions against thinking there is an immediate cure are sound, but it is a potential cure down the line. One doctor mentions they’d rather take antiretroviral drugs than undergo this treatment, however, as HIV can affect different individuals in different ways, perhaps this treatment may begin to be considered on a case-by-case basis. In addition, since a smallpox vaccine is available and has been administered to some individuals, it would be interesting if a study on the rate of HIV infection in these individuals could be done.

In other science news, it seems like every couple of weeks, “sciencenews” puts out an article that smells. This week it’s the ideal that fathers never ever contribute to chromosomal abnormalities! This statement can be discarded almost immediately upon simple observation of chromosomes in mulitple-Y males. While most males typically have one X and one Y, these males may have two or more Y’s in addition to one X chromosome. If the mother is able to give only X’s (as females only have X chromosomes), where, pray tell, is the child getting all these Y’s from? Although one cannot disprove that it’s a divine noodly appendage reaching down and inserting an extra Y into each and every cell, the most obvious conclusion as of now is that the father passes on a chromosomal abnormality, with two Y chromosomes in one sperm.

While the main idea presented in the article, that females undergo a “sloppier” meiosis when making eggs than men do when they create sperm, may be sound, the voicing of this “fact” tends to throw off my suspension of disbelief. The fact supporting this main idea do also seem a little shoddy as well, although scientific articles do tend to be watered down for the layman, which may lead to the exclusion of some facts that would be crucial to a scientific mind. I am curious as to how they are evaluating the processes of spermatogenesis and oogenesis. Are they simply observing oocytes and spermatocytes in meiosis II? In which case, the eggs may have been suspended in that way for years, causing a spontaneous breakdown of the protective proteins that align chromosomes (the alignment of chromosomes being one of the ways eggs and sperm supposedly differ).

The article closes with the idea that abnormal chromosome number (and the resulting spontaneous abortions) may be a way of keeping family size small. Which also seems like someone’s taken a crazy pill (although admittedly, it may have been mother nature), as it seems there would be a number of more energy-efficient ways for humans to maintain small family size (such as being able to reproduce only a few times a year, as many other mammals do). But the “why” of cellular events is always much harder to elucidate than the “what” and the “how”, so any explanation is as good as another in that case, or, at the very least, much harder to argue against.

…but the multiple Y thing….. crazy pills!