GOOD news for men this week: it looks like rumours of their impending demise have been greatly exaggerated.
The diminutive size of the Y chromosome, which carries vital genes for male sex determination, had led some scientists to predict that it would disappear within 5 million years - and with it, the male sex. Some commentators suggested, not without a hint of amused satisfaction, that "mankind" would change forever.
Dinosaurs, of all creatures, have now helped put that male existential fear to bed. Sex determination in the extinct reptiles was probably similar to that in modern birds, where males have paired ZZ chromosomes and females have one Z and a shrivelled W chromosome. New work suggests this system has persisted for at least 200 million years (see "Dinosaurs were sexy, airborne and very hungry"), scuppering the idea that the smaller of a pair of sex chromosomes simply dwindles to nothing.
This finding, that size isn't everything, suggests that men will stick around for a good while yet. Ironic, perhaps, that this comfort should come from the study of creatures that died out millions of years ago.
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