Y Chromosome Quotes

It's my turn to see you through,' she whispers, coming back to me and wrapping me in her blanket as I lose my shit all over again. She holds me until I recover my Y chromosome.

I tried all kinds of approaches: sexy, friendly, intimidating—nothing worked. I’m starting to think there’s an invisible force field that prevents honest communication between X and Y chromosomes.

No matter how much I may love—scratch that, loved, past tense—Josh, I was no dummy. Everyone knows the Y chromosome carries with it the instinctive urge to lie under pressure. Which, incidentally, was what Josh was going to be under when I found him. Serious pressure. On his larynx.

The male is a biological accident: the Y (male) gene is an incomplete X (female) gene, that is, it has an incomplete set of chromosomes. In other words, the male is an incomplete female, a walking abortion, aborted at the gene stage. To be male is to be deficient, emotionally limited; maleness is a deficiency disease and males are emotional cripples.

I read an article once that said that when women have a conversation, they're communicating on five levels. They follow the conversation that they're actually having, the conversation that is specifically being avoided, the tone being applied to the overt conversation, the buried conversation that is being covered only in subtext, and finally the other person's body language. That is, on many levels, astounding to me. I mean, that's like having a freaking superpower. When I, and most other people with a Y chromosome, have a conversation, we're having a conversation. Singular. We're paying attention to what is being said, considering that, and replying to it. All these other conversations that have apparently been booing on for the last several thousand years? I didn't even know that they existed until I read that stupid article, and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one. ... So, ladies, if you ever have some conversation with your boyfriend or husband or brother or male friend, and you are telling him something perfectly obvious, and he comes away from it utterly clueless? I know it's tempting to thing to yourself, 'The man can't possibly be that stupid!' But yes. Yes, he can. Our innate strengths just aren't the same. We are the mighty hunters, who are good at focusing on one thing at a time. For crying out loud, we have to turn down the radio in the car if we suspect we're lost and need to figure out how to get where we're going. That's how impaired we are. I'm telling you, we have only the one conversation. Maybe some kind of relationship veteran like Michael Carpenter can do two, but that's pushing the envelope. Five simultaneous conversations? Five? Shah. That just isn't going to happen. At least, not for me.

You have three chromosomes, Bryson. X, Y, and Fuckhead." -- Katz

...when women have a conversation, they're communicating on five levels. They follow the conversation that they're actually having, the conversation that is specifically being avoided, the tone being applied to the overt conversation, the buried conversation that is being covered only in subtext, and finally the other person's body language. .......When I, and most other people with a Y chromosome, have a conversion, we're having a conversation. Singular. We're paying attention to what is being said, considering that, and replying to it. All these other conversations have been going on for the last several thousand years? I didn't even know they existed...... I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one. .....So ladies, if you ever have some conversation with your boyfriend or husband or brother or male friend, and you are telling him something perfectly obvious, and he comes away from it utterly clueless? I know it's tempting fate to think to yourself, "The man can't possibly be that stupid!" But yes. Yes, he can.

'We're not... we haven't been writing poetry and sprinkling rose petals and tripping hand in hand under rainbows, Kay.' 'Just because you have Y chromosomes doesn't mean you can't tell each other how you feel, Dylan. Your penises won't fall off if you do.'

You’ve always been stone solid until now, like Joe Friday with no Y chromosome. Now you’re Nancy Drew on a sugar rush.

I sometimes watch the evening news on television and think all the world’s problems can be boiled down to one thing: the behavior of people with a Y chromosome.

Jack stares at me blankly. ‘A what?’ he asks. I choke back the laugh. ‘A boy. You know? A Y-chromosome holder? You don’t seem to notice them as much as you do the X-carriers.’ ‘What are you talking about?’ Jack asks, ‘A boy? She’s just a kid.’ I hesitate, wondering how Jack is only just doing the maths on this one now. ‘She’s seventeen. She’s not a kid anymore.’ Jack looks like he’s about to go all Incredible Hulk and burst out of his clothes before rampaging through the bar. He jumps off the stool. ‘If any boy ever lays a finger on my sister, I’m going to kill him,’ he says. Again I stare at him in silence, thinking of all the girls Jack has laid fingers and much more of his anatomy on besides. Poor Lila. If she ever wants to have a shot at a normal life, as in one that doesn’t require a vow of celibacy, she needs to stay in London.

Something-something not all men," muttered Callum, who couldn't be bothered to defend his Y chromosome at the moment.

We all start out the same in our mothers' wombs. We, all of us, when floating in the amniotic sea of our earliest oblivion, have gonads. If the Y chromosome didn't swoop in to act on the gonads of some of us and make testes, we would all become women. In biology, the Genesis story is reversed: Adam becomes Adam out of Eve, not the other way around.

Y That perfect letter. The wishbone, fork in the road, empty wineglass. The question we ask over and over. Why? Me with my arms outstretched, feet in first position. The chromosome half of us don't have. Second to last in the alphabet: almost there. Coupled with an L, let's make an adverb. A modest X, legs closed. Y or N? Yes, of course. Upside-down peace sign. Little bird tracks in the sand. Y, a Greet letter, joined the Latin alphabet after the Romans conquered Greece in the first century -- a double agent: consonant and vowel. No one used adverbs before then, and no one was happy.

Or maybe this wasn't a human-faerie translation problem at all. Maybe this was a male-female translation problem. I read an article once that said that when women have a conversation, they're communicating on five levels. They follow the conversation that they're actually having, the conversation that is specifically being avoided, the tone being applied to the overt conversation, the buried conversation that is being covered only in subtext, and finally the other person's body language. That is, on many levels, astounding to me. I mean, that's like having a freaking superpower. When I, and most other people with a Y chromosome, have a conversation, we're having a conversation. Singular. We're paying attention to what is being said, considerating that, and replying to it. All these other conversations that have apparently been going on for the last several thousand years? I didn't even know tht they existed until I read that stupid article, and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one. I felt somewhat skeptical about the article's grounding. There were probably a lot of women who didn't communicate on multiple wavelenghts at once. There were probably men who could handle that many just fine. I just wasn't one of them. So, ladies, if you ever have some conversation with your boyfriend or husband or brother or male friend, and you are telling him something perfectly obvious, and he comes away from it utterly clueless? I know it's tempting to think to yourself, "The man can't possibly be that stupid!" But yes. Yes he can.

Sex, one of the most complex of human traits, is unlikely to be encoded by multiple genes. Rather, a single gene, buried rather precariously in the Y chromosome, must be the master regulator of maleness.I Male readers of that last paragraph should take notice: we barely made it.

Maybe this was a male-female translation problem. I read an article once that said that when women have a conversation, they're communicating on five levels. They follow the conversation that they're actually having, the conversation that is specifically being avoided, the tone being applied to the overt conversation, the buried conversation that is being covered only in subtext, and finally the other person's body language. That is, on many levels, astounding to me. I mean, that's like having a freaking superpower. When I, and most other people with a Y chromosome, have a conversation, we're having a conversation. Singular. We're paying attention to what is being said, considering that, and replying to it. All these other conversations that have apparently been going on for the last several thousand years? I didn't even know that they ~existed~ until I read that stupid article, and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one.

'It's not you, it's me.' 'Oh God. That's exactly what my last three boyfriends said when they dumped me. Is it in the Y-Chromosome User's Manual or something?' He grinned. 'On page five. But, you know, don't tell anyone I told you.'

Hours may have passed before I heard a throat clear behind us, saw Dad appear. His frame blocked out the sun, casting a cool shadow over where we lay. I registered only once he was there that I had slowly shifted so I was lying with my head on Elliot’s stomach, in our secluded stretch of sand. I pushed to sit up, awkwardly. “What are you guys doing?” “Nothing,” we said in unison. I could hear immediately how guilty our joined answer made us sound. “Really?” Dad asked. “Really,” I answered, but he wasn’t looking at me anymore. He and Elliot were having some kind of male Windtalker exchange that included prolonged eye contact, throat clearing, and probably some mysterious form of direct communication between their Y chromosomes. “We were just reading,” Elliot said finally, his voice shifting deeper midway through the sentence. I’m not sure if this sign of his impending manliness was reassuring or damning as far as my dad was concerned. “Seriously, Dad,” I said. His eyes flickered to mine. “Okay.” Finally he seemed to relax and squatted down next to me. “What are you reading?” “A Wrinkle in Time.” “Again?” “It’s so good.

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Ironically, although the Y-chromosome has become synonymous with male aggression, it is intrinsically unstable. Adam is as much cursed as cursing.

We know that every human being on the planet is directly descended from one man who lived in Africa around 60,000 years ago—a person we geneticists call Y-Chromosomal Adam.

Today 8 percent of the men who live within the former territory of the Mongol Empire share a Y chromosome that dates to around the time of Genghis, most likely because they descended from him and

Biologically, humans are divided into males and females. A male Homo sapiens has one X chromosome and one Y chromosome; a female Homo sapiens has two Xs. But ‘man’ and ‘woman’ name social, not biological, categories.

One doesn’t have to invoke dominance to explain why Genghis Khan inseminated so many women that his Y chromosome is common in Central Asia today; it’s enough to observe that he killed the women’s fathers and husbands.

"Let me share a secret with you, Zach. Men have been telling women things for centuries. Then they've been breaking our hearts." ... "Only way," Mercy continued, "for you to gain her trust might be to forget the pride that seems to come embedded in the Y chromosome. You ready to wear your heart on your sleeve and hope she doesn't crush the life out of it?" He met her gaze. "You got a streak of mean in you, Mercy." "Thank you very much."

DMS is energetic and enterprising to a degree that from time to time leaves certain persons (e.g. those burdened with a petty fear of death or torture) uneasy (see my prior speculation as to possibility DMS may have been born with a redundant Y chromosome).

I looked at him beseechingly, with big eyes. You can argue with men but it's far more powerful to appeal to their most basic instincts. Latch on to that part of their Y chromosome that likes explaining things to women, the part of them that likes to help because it makes them feel bigger.

While some male "admirers" of trans women tend to fetishize us for our femininity or our imagined sexual submissiveness, I find trans women hot because we are anything but docile or demure. In order to survive as a trans woman, you must be, by definition, impervious, unflinching, and tenacious. In a culture in which femaleness and femininity are on the receiving end of a seemingly endless smear campaign, there is no act more brave - especially for someone assigned a male sex at birth - than embracing one's femme self. And unlike those male tranny-chasers who say that they like "T-girls" because we are supposedly "the best of both worlds", I am attracted to trans women because we are all woman! My femaleness is so intense that it has overpowered the trillions of lameass Y chromosomes that sheepishly hide inside the cells of my body. And my femininity is so relentless that it has survived over thirty years of male socialisation and twenty years of testosterone poisoning. Some kinky-identified thrill-seekers may envision trans women as androgyne fuck fantasies, but that's only because they are too self-absorbed to appreciate how completely fucking female we are.

Is that dog shit on the bottom of your shoe?’ I sat up a fraction. ‘What?’ ‘Is that dog shit on the bottom of your shoe?’ ‘I don’t know, the lab report’s not back yet,’ I replied drily. ‘I’m serious, is that dog shit?’ ‘How should I know?’ Katz leaned far enough forward to give it a good look and a cautious sniff. ‘It is dog shit,’ he announced with an odd tone of satisfaction. ‘Well, keep quiet about it or everybody’ll want some.’ ‘Go and clean it off, will ya? It’s making me nauseous.’ And here the bickering started, in intense little whispers. ‘You go and clean it off.’ ‘It’s your shoes.’ ‘Well, I kind of like it. Besides, it kills the smell of this guy next to me.’ ‘Well, it’s making me nauseous.’ ‘Well, I don’t give a shit.’ ‘Well, I think you’re a fuck-head.’ ‘Oh, you do, do you?’ ‘Yes, as a matter of fact. You’ve been a fuck-head since Austria.’ ‘Well, you’ve been a fuck-head since birth.’ ‘Me?’ A wounded look. ‘That’s rich. You were a fuck-head in the womb, Bryson. You’ve got three kinds of chromosomes: X, Y and fuck-head.

I finally realized that I was being unrealistic. I could never be like my heroes. They all had something I didn't. A Y-chromosome.

Surprisingly, palindromes appear not just in witty word games but also in the structure of the male-defining Y chromosome. The Y's full genome sequencing was completed only in 2003. This was the crowning achievement of a heroic effort, and it revealed that the powers of preservation of this sex chromosome have been grossly underestimated. Other human chromosome pairs fight damaging mutations by swapping genes. Because the Y lacks a partner, genome biologists had previously estimated that its cargo was about to dwindle away in perhaps as little as five million years. To their amazement, however, the researchers on the sequencing team discovered that the chromosome fights withering with palindromes. About six million of its fifty million DNA letters form palindromic sequences-sequences that read the same forward and backward on the two strands of the double helix. These copies not only provide backups in case of bad mutations, but also allow the chromosome, to some extent, to have sex with itself-arms can swap position and genes are shuffled. As team leader David Page of MIT has put it, "The Y chromosome is a hall of mirrors.

From the proportion of Mongol royal house Y chromosomes in their sample, Tyler-Smith and his colleagues have been able to calculate just how well Genghis succeeded in his procreative program. An astonishing 8% of males throughout the former lands of the Mongol empire carry the Y chromosome of Genghis Khan. This amounts to a total of 16 million men, or about 0.5% of the world’s total.

Men always think they’re hot. It’s like an inheritable trait attached to the Y-chromosome.” She switched to lecture mode, which was a definite weakness of his. “Even fat, ugly guys think they’re hot, whereas amazingly gorgeous women worry about not being perfect or having stomachs that aren’t taut as drums.” He shrugged. “So I’m fat, ugly, and hot.” “And my stomach is taut as a drum.” He

more plausible explanation is that in this period, it began to be possible for single males to accumulate so much power that they could not only gain access to large numbers of females, but they could also pass on their social prestige to subsequent generations and ensure that their male descendants were similarly successful. This process caused the Y chromosomes these males carried to increase in frequency generation after generation, leaving a genetic scar that speaks volumes about past societies.

I didn’t know that I loved Janet. Didn’t know I could love a woman that intensely. You know more than I do about how I was designed, or so you have hinted. Are my glands mixed up?” “I know quite a lot about your design but I shan’t discuss it with you; you have no need to know. Your glands are no more mixed up than those of any healthy human—specifically, you do not have a redundant Y chromosome. All normal human beings have soi-disant mixed-up glands. The race is divided into two parts; those who know this and those who do not. Stop

in our data around 90 percent of males who carry Yamnaya ancestry have a Y-chromosome type of steppe origin that was absent in Iberia prior to that time. It is clear that there were extraordinary hierarchies and imbalances in power at work in the expansions from the steppe.

We do know that humans got hit hard by the Toba Super Volcano. We were on the brink of extinction. That caused what population geneticists call a ‘population bottleneck.’ Some researchers believe that this bottleneck caused a small group of humans to evolve, to survive through mutation. These mutations could have led to humanity’s exponential explosion in intelligence. There’s genetic evidence for it. We know that every human being on the planet is directly descended from one man who lived in Africa around sixty thousand years ago—a person we geneticists call Y-Chromosomal Adam. In fact, everyone outside of Africa is descended from a small band of humans, maybe as few as one hundred, that left Africa about 50,000 years ago. Essentially, we’re all members of a small tribe that walked out of Africa after Toba and took over the planet. That tribe was significantly more intelligent than any other hominids in history.

The X chromosome does most of the heavy developmental lifting, while the little Y has been shedding its associated genes at a rate of about five every one million years, committing suicide in slow motion. It’s now down to less than 100 genes. By comparison, the X chromosome carries about 1,500 genes, all necessary participants in embryonic construction projects. These are not showing any signs of decay.

The geneticist Daniel Bradley and his colleagues identified a Y-chromosome type that is present in two to three million people today and derives from an ancestor who lived around fifteen hundred years ago.16 It is especially common in people with the last name O’Donnell, who descend from one of the most powerful royal families of medieval Ireland, the “Descendants of Niall”—referring to Niall of the Nine Hostages, a legendary warlord from the earliest period of medieval Irish history.

But on the Y chromosome, the studies found a pattern that was strikingly different. In East Asians, Europeans, Near Easterners, and North Africans, the authors found many Star Clusters with common male ancestors living roughly around five thousand years ago.18 The time around five thousand years ago coincides with the period in Eurasia that the archaeologist Andrew Sherratt called the “Secondary Products Revolution,” in which people began to find many uses for domesticated animals beyond meat production, including employing them to pull carts and plows and to produce dairy products and clothing such as wool.19 This was also around the time of the onset of the Bronze Age, a period of greatly increased human mobility and wealth accumulation, facilitated by the domestication of the horse, the invention of the wheel and wheeled vehicles, and the accumulation of rare metals like copper and tin, which are the ingredients of bronze and had to be imported from hundreds or even thousands of kilometers away.

Scrolling through the rest of the 3,500 documents in Michelle’s hard drive, one comes upon a file titled “RecentDNAresults,” which features the EAR’s Y-STR markers (short tandem repeats on the Y chromosome that establish male-line ancestry), including the elusive rare PGM marker. Having the Golden State Killer’s DNA was always the one ace up this investigation’s sleeve. But a killer’s DNA is only as good as the databases we can compare it to. There was no match in CODIS. And there was no match in the California penal system’s Y-STR database. If the killer’s father, brothers, or uncles had been convicted of a felony in the past sixteen years, an alert would have gone to Paul Holes or Erika Hutchcraft (the current lead investigator in Orange County). They would have looked into the man’s family, zeroed in on a member who was in the area of the crimes, and launched an investigation. But they had nothing. There are public databases that the DNA profile could be used to match, filled not with convicted criminals but with genealogical buffs. You can enter the STR markers on the Y chromosome of the killer into these public databases and try to find a match, or at least a surname that could help you with the search.

Unlike any other chromosome, the Y is “unpaired”—i.e., it has no sister chromosome and no duplicate copy, leaving every gene on the chromosome to fend for itself. A mutation in any other chromosome can be repaired by copying the intact gene from the other chromosome. But a Y chromosome gene cannot be fixed, repaired, or recopied from another chromosome; it has no backup or guide (there is, however, a unique internal system to repair genes in the Y chromosome). When the Y chromosome is assailed by mutations, it lacks a mechanism to recover information. The Y is thus pockmarked with the potshots and scars of history. It is the most vulnerable spot in the human genome. As a consequence of this constant genetic bombardment, the human Y chromosome began to jettison information millions of years ago. Genes that were truly valuable for survival were likely shuffled to other parts of the genome where they could be stored securely; genes with limited value were made obsolete, retired, or replaced; only the most essential genes were retained (some of these genes were duplicated in the Y chromosome itself—but even this strategy does not solve the problem completely). As information was lost, the Y chromosome itself shrank—whittled down piece by piece by the mirthless cycle of mutation and gene loss. That the Y chromosome is the smallest of all chromosomes is not a coincidence: it is largely a victim of planned obsolescence (in 2014, scientists discovered that a few extremely important genes may be permanently lodged in the Y). In genetic terms, this suggests a peculiar paradox. Sex, one of the most complex of human traits, is unlikely to be encoded by multiple genes. Rather, a single gene, buried rather precariously in the Y chromosome, must be the master regulator of maleness.I Male readers of that last paragraph should take notice: we barely made it.

Arik had already gone two weeks longer than usual for this haircut because of an overseas business trip. Time to get back to his highest priority. “How long until Dominic is back?” “A week, maybe two. I told him to take his time. Granddad doesn’t often take time off, and he’s getting up there in years.” A few weeks? He’d look like a wildebeest if he waited that long. “That’s no good. I need a cut. Are there any male barbers available?” “Afraid to let a girl touch your precious hair?” She smirked. “I can peek at the schedule and see if we can squeeze you in this afternoon.” “I don’t have time to come back. I need it done now.” Usually when he used the word now, people jumped to do his bidding. She, on the other hand, shook her head. “Not happening, unless you’ve changed your mind and are willing to let me cut it.” “You’re a hairdresser.” “Exactly.” “I want a barber.” “Same thing.” Said the girl without a Y chromosome. “I think I’ll wait.” Arik turned away from her, only to freeze as she muttered, “Pussy.” If she only knew how right she was. But, of course, she didn’t mean the feline version. Pride made him pivot back. “You know what. On second thought, you may cut my hair.” “How gracious of you, Your Majesty.” She sketched him a mock bow. Not funny, even if accurate. He glared in reply. “I see someone’s too uptight for a sense of humor.” “I greatly enjoy comedy, when I hear it.” “Sorry if my brand of sarcasm is too simple for you to understand, big guy. Now, if you’re done, sit down so we can get this over with and send you and your precious hair back to your office.

What was it with women and pushing men’s buttons? I get that a woman wants to look attractive. News flash: you already do. We see it. But apparently to women, owning their own beauty isn’t enough. They arm all the weapons in their arsenal to gain the attention of every Y chromosome within a ten-mile radius. Why do they go to all the trouble? Validation. Meanwhile, biology dictates survival of the fittest; battles ensue, wars are fought, and somewhere amid all the carnage, a victor emerges to claim his female. All because said female just wanted to go out and feel pretty that night.

When an X chromosome inactivates, these pseudoautosomal regions are spared. This means that, unlike most X-linked genes, those in the pseudoautosomal regions don’t get switched off. Consequently, normal cells potentially express two copies of these genes in all cells. The two copies are expressed either from the two X chromosomes in a normal female or from the X and the Y in a normal male. But in Turner’s syndrome, the affected female only has one X chromosome, so she expresses only one copy of the genes in the pseudoautosomal region, half as much as normal. In Trisomy X, on the other hand, there are three copies of the genes in the pseudoautosomal regions. As a result, the cells in an affected region will produce proteins from these genes at 50 per cent above the normal level.

The Y chromosome carries very few active genes. There are only between 40 and 50 protein-coding genes on the Y chromosome, of which about half are completely male-specific. The male-specific genes only occur on the Y chromosome, so females have no copies of these.

Oh, Lord. Why was he asking her that? He knew better than to ask a woman what was wrong—because somehow it would end up being his fault. Even if every aspect of her mood was beyond his knowledge or control, it would still end up being his fault—because he had testicles. Whenever a woman was annoyed, somehow it always came around to the Y chromosome.

You shouldn’t be flirting with other guys.” “What? I wasn’t, I was just—” “Talking and laughing and tossing your hair—otherwise known as flirting.” Of all the nerve. “I was not— Who do you think you are?” He leaned in, driving his point home. “Your fiancé.” She lowered her voice. “In case it got past your radar, we’re not actually engaged.” His mouth tightened. A shadow flickered across his jaw. “But everyone thinks we are, and if they see you flirting with every Y chromosome that struts by, nobody’s going to—” “He’s a friend, Murphy. I have lots of male friends, and I do not flirt with them. And even if I did—none of your business, pal, fake engagement or no. Now, if you want a pizza, I suggest you find your table. We close in thirty minutes.

So if I'm Gen Y and you're X, then together we are the chromosome code for male," he mused. "Yes, I am X marks the spot, and you are the dear God, why, why, why.

Sex is child’s play; but gender is serious business. To get to be a member of the male sex is the simplest thing in the world. You just need to be born with an X and a Y chromosome. To get to be a female is equally simple. A pair of X chromosomes will do it. In contrast, becoming a man or a woman is a very complicated and demanding undertaking. Since most masculine and feminine qualities are cultural rather than biological, no society automatically crowns each male a man, or every female a woman. Nor are these titles laurels that can be rested on once they are acquired. Males must prove their masculinity constantly, throughout their lives, from cradle to grave, in an endless series of rites and performances. And a woman’s work is never done – she must continually convince herself and others that she is feminine enough.

Most curious is the way that Y/surname patterns differ between countries. In Britain, on average, a man who has the same surname as another is significantly more likely to have a similar Y chromosome, and therefore a common ancestor, than he would with someone of a different surname. But there’s a twist: The Y similarity depends on the frequency of the surname within the population. If you are a Smith, for example, the rule does not apply.

The McEvoys, for their part, apparently had two dominant founding Y chromosomes, a theory that is supported by records revealing that when the name was anglicized, two ancient families, the Mac Fhiodhbhuidhes and the Mac an Bheathas, were drawn in under the same banner and both became McEvoys. History also indicates that fully three Irish surnames—McGuiness, Neeson, and McCreesh—are all anglicizations of the same Gaelic name Mac Aonghusa (son of Angus), which DNA evidence confirms, as all three groups overlap strongly on one Y.

humans have twenty-three pairs of chromosomes and that the pairs of chromosomes are the same in men and in women, with the exception of pair number 23—the sex chromosomes. In that case, women have two X chromosomes and men have one X and one Y. Moreover, a woman’s two X chromosomes look pretty much like all her other chromosomes. Chromosomes resemble Xs.

And it also seems likely that many Scots are directly descended from the hunter-gatherer communities of the western refuges. Very recent ancestral DNA research shows that more than 40 per cent carry markers from the mitochondrial DNA haplogroups identified as H, H1 and HVO, all of which originated amongst the people of the painted caves. Each of us carries a great deal of information in our DNA but two small parts of our genomes are especially informative about ancestry. Men carry a Y-chromosome marker inherited from their fathers and their fathers before them, away back in time, and they also inherit mitochondrial DNA, or mtDNA, from their mothers and their mothers, again away back in deep time. Women carry only mtDNA but they pass it on to their children of both genders. So, men carry mtDNA too but can only pass on their Y-chromosome marker, their fatherline, to their sons. In the act of reproduction, when the 6 billion letters of DNA we carry are passed on, tiny errors of copying are made. These are known as DNA markers and both their origin and the date when they arose can be calculated. Therefore, it is possible to say with considerable certainty that more than 40 per cent of all Scots, men and women, carry the

Ancestral DNA research suggests that when the last real Viking died in an attack on Dublin in 1171, his marker carried on – with great vigour. A relatively new sub-type of M17 – S375 – is now prominent in the North Isles of Orkney, on the five major islands north of Gairsay. It is also carried by 30 per cent of men with the surname of Gunn who have taken DNA tests. Tradition, genealogy and history all begin to come together to form a narrative. It may be that the prevalence of S375 on the islands of Rousay, Westray, Eday, Sanday and Stronsay is linked to the well-attested phenomenon of social selection, where powerful men in the past sired many children with different women. In that way their Y chromosome markers were spread widely and quickly, much faster than if they had remained monogamous. And few men were more powerful in 12th-century Orkney than Svein Asleifsson.

So to put it plainly, no man can do without the mtDNA, but every woman can do without the Y-chromosome.

But anyhow, who provided the champion Y chromosome that coasted up a lager-and-lemonade river to victory in my ovaries never really came up in Norman’s first twelve years of life.

The Story of Yamada Waka: From Prostitute to Feminist Pioneer, and also Twice Sold, Twice Ransomed, the autobiography of Mrs. L. P. Ray (a former slave who ministered to the homeless in Seattle), it’s clear that there’s no definitive answer. But instead a rogue’s gallery of societal pressures that contributed in varying proportions to the difficulty of simply being born without a Y chromosome in the early twentieth century—abject poverty, lack of education, an appalling age of consent (as low as ten years old), religious condemnation, tribal shaming toward unmarried women who dared to (gasp) be sexually active, illegality of information pertaining to birth control, vicious wage gaps. Oh, and racism.

For heaven’s sake, was there anything of value in the Y chromosome? One ounce of intelligence to go with all that raging testosterone?

The ancestry tests are superficial, but they use a basic premise. The Y chromosome is transmitted from father to son largely without mutations, and it escapes recombination, so it has the best ability to show lineage.” Noah quipped, “Giving new meaning to ‘like father, like son.’ 

Recent DNA evidence shows that Europe experienced a massive population influx from the east, beginning around 4,500 years ago [10]. Several haplogroups were involved in this demic expansion, including the Indian-origin R1a1a. This was almost a total replacement event, which indicates that Indo-Aryans, among others, expanded westward into Europe and to a large extent replaced indigenous European males and their Y-chromosome strata. This indicates military expansion. Conquest. This genetic evidence indicates that several Y-chromosomal (patrilineal) lineages, one of which was the Indian-origin R1a1a, gave rise to the modern European population. Out of these lineages, R1a1a is the most widespread and numerous.

The fact was the trip sounded dangerous, and Pax didn't strike him as a superhero. Ellis wasn't a hero, either, but he had a pistol and the Y chromosome to use it.

these creatures grow up with a peculiar knowledge. They know that they have been born in an infinite variety. They know, for instance, that in their genetic material they are born with hundreds of different chromosome formations at the point in each cell that we would say determines their "sex". These creatures don't just come in XX or XY; they also come in XXY and XYY and XXX plus a long list of "mosaic" variations in which some cells in a creature's body have one combination and other cells have another. Some of these creatures are born with chromosomes that aren't even quite X or Y because a little bit of one chromosome goes and gets joined to another. There are hundreds of different combinations, and though all are not fertile, quite a number of them are. The creatures in this world enjoy their individuality; they delight in the fact that they are not divisible into distinct categories. So when another newborn arrives with an esoterically rare chromosomal formation, there is a little celebration: "Aha," they say, "another sign that we are each unique." These creatures also live with the knowledge that they are born with a vast range of genital formations. Between their legs are tissue structures that vary along a continuum, from clitorises with a vulva through all possible combinations and gradations to penises with scrotal sac. These creatures live with an understanding that their genitals all developed prenatally from exactly the same little nub of embryonic tissue called a genital tubercle, which grew and developed under the influence of varying amounts of the hormone androgen. These creatures honor and respect everyone's natural-born genitalia –including what we would describe as a microphallus or a clitoris several inches long. What these creatures find amazing and precious is that because everyone's genitals stem from th same embryonic tissue, the nerves inside all their genitals got wired very much alike, so these nerves of touch just go crazy upon contact in a way that resonates completely between them. "My gosh," they think, "you must feel something in your genital tubercle that intensely resembles what I'm feeling in my genital tubercle." Well, they don't think that in so many words; they're actually quite heavy into their feelings at that point; but they do feel very connected –throughout all their wondrous variety. I could go on. I could tell you about the variety of hormones that course through their bodies in countless different patterns and proportions, both before birth and throughout their lives –the hormones that we call "sex hormones" but that they call "individuality inducers." I could tell you how these creatures think about reproduction: For part of their lives, some of these creatures are quite capable of gestation, delivery, and lactation; and for part of their lives, some of them are quite capable of insemination; and for part or all of their lives, some of them are not capable of any of those things – so these creatures conclude that it would be silly to lock anyone into a lifelong category based on a capability variable that may or may not be utilized and that in any case changes over each lifetime in a fairly uncertain and idiosyncratic way. These creatures are not oblivious to reproduction; but nor do they spend their lives constructing a self-definition around their variable reproductive capacities. They don't have to, because what is truly unique about those creatures is that they are capable of having a sense of personal identity without struggling to fit into a group identity based on how they were born. These creatures are quite happy, actually. They don't worry about sorting /other/ creatures into categories, so they don't have to worry about whether they are measuring up to some category they themselves are supposed to belong to.

Sexual dimorphism between species also helps to identify which mating pattern has been the species’ norm over evolutionary time (Baker & Bellis, 1995). For example, male chimpanzees’ testicle size is a whopping 3% of their total body weight, compared to .8% in human males and .02% in male gorillas. The promiscuous mating pattern of chimpanzees suggests that males with small testicles were selected against because they were unable to “wash out” the sperm of larger-testicled competitors. Among polygynous gorillas, one male controls a harem of females with little or no competition from other males, so there is little selection for large testicles and ejaculates. Male humans are between chimpanzees and gorillas in both testicle size and body size dimorphism; this supports the view that over evolutionary time humans have been at least mildly polygynous (Baker & Bellis, 1995). This point is further supported by genetic data concerning variation in Y chromosomes (genes passed only from fathers to sons), showing that just 19 male lineages have dominated in populating the world. One lineage within haplogroup C accounts for about 8% of the male population in Asia, suggesting that one male lineage, probably that of Gengis Khan, dominated mating within that region several hundred years ago.

Men have a Y chromosome. Therefore, as women, we get to ask ourselves why all the time. Why are they such dumbasses seems to be the leading question.

Yet, the Y chromosome seems to contain something so deleterious that our Savior could not have shared it. After all, every copy of the Y chromosome (that is, every male descendant of Adam) would

Therefore Jesus must have (in the flesh) had a perfect Y chromosome! Though

He and Elliot were having some kind of male Windtalker exchange that included prolonged eye contact, throat clearing, and probably some mysterious form of direct communication between their Y chromosomes.

Sex is child’s play; but gender is serious business. To get to be a member of the male sex is the simplest thing in the world. You just need to be born with an X and a Y chromosome. To get to be a female is equally simple. A pair of X chromosomes will do it. In contrast, becoming a man or a woman is a very complicated and demanding undertaking. Since most masculine and feminine qualities are cultural rather than biological, no society automatically crowns each male a man, or every female a woman. Nor are these titles laurels that can be rested on once they are acquired. Males must prove their masculinity constantly, throughout their lives, from cradle to grave, in an endless series of rites and performances. And a woman’s work is never done – she must continually convince herself and others that she is feminine enough. Success is not guaranteed. Males in particular live in constant dread of losing their claim to manhood. Throughout history, males have been willing to risk and even sacrifice their lives, just so that people will say ‘He’s a real man!

In Sicily, which boasts an exceptionally diverse heritage ranging from Punics, Greeks and Romans to Jews, Normans and Swabians, a Y chromosome haplotype can be especially revealing.

Richard Speck, the Chicago mass murderer of nine student nurses, was the only infamous subject found to have an extra Y chromosome.

The ancestor of all men, traceable back through a Y-chromosome line, is thought to have lived some time around 140,000 BC probably in west Africa It is a misconception to believe that Mitochondrial Eve and Y-chromosomal Adam were the only men and women living at those times. Theirs are the only lineages that survive in the male and female lines, while others have died out. But it is, sadly, clear that Adam and Eve never knew each other.

But in his excitement and having eaten too fast, Henri gave himself away in an all too familiar fashion. In the front seat, both the Chief Inspector and Isabelle Lacoste cracked open their windows, preferring the bitter cold outside to what threatened to melt the upholstery inside. 'Does he do that often,' she gasped. 'It's a sign of affection, I'm told,' said the Chief, not meeting her eyes, 'a compliment.' Gamache paused, turning his head to window. 'A great compliment.' Isabelle Lacoste smiled. She was used to similar compliments from her husband and now their young son. She wondered why the Y chromosome was so smelly.

Wow. You don't waste any time, Levi Beckett. But you're really not my type." Her mouth laughed, the sound as clunky and hollow as a broken bell. "Actually from what I've heard, anyone with a Y chromosome and a pulse fits the bill.

Because it turns out you don't need a Y-chromosome to be a super hero... you just need balls.

Most men are idiots though. Easily sucked in by the beauty of the beast with a Y chromosome. However, a lioness is also alluring, and they can tear out a man’s throat.

my standards have dropped so low I'm looking for anything with a Y chromosome and a pulse.

Again starting with an unusual Y-chromosome, they noticed its occurrence in a related set of surnames that were linked to branches of the Ui Neill, the clan that had held the High Kingship at Tara, and had expelled the Dál Riata to Argyll. The Ui Neill equivalent of Somerled was Niall Noigiallach, better known as Niall of the Nine Hostages, who lived in the second half of the fourth century AD. This was a time when the Romans were beginning to withdraw from mainland Britain. According to legend, Niall raided and harassed western Britain and specialized in capturing and then ransoming high-ranking hostages, hence his soubriquet. His most famous captive was one Succat, who went on to become St Patrick. Niall’s military exploits carried him over the sea to Scotland, where he fought the Picts who were trying to retake the recent Irish colonies of Dalriada. It was during a raid even further afield, in France, that an arrow from the bow of an Irish rival killed Niall on the banks of the River Loire in AD 405. Niall was succeeded in the High Kingship by his nephew, Dathi, his father’s brother’s son. This was typical of the Gaelic tradition of derbhfine, the rules of inheritance that chose the new king from among the direct male relatives of the old. This served to ensure the patrilineal inheritance of the High Kingship itself

published in 2001, concentrates on tracing our ancestry using the maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA, which also features heavily in The Nature of the Beast. Other books focus on the paternally inherited Y-chromosome and the evolution of sex (Adam’s Curse, 2003), on genealogy and the genetic history of Britain and Ireland (Blood of the Isles, 2006) and America (DNA USA, 2012).

crunching. The amount of introgression from Neanderthals is proportionally lower on the modern X than on the rest of the chromosomes. X chromosomes are only passed on by males half of the time because we also have a Y, but all of the time by women, who have two Xs. The observation that there is less Neanderthal DNA on our Xs implies that the first encounters we had with them that resulted in procreation were male Neanderthals with female Homo sapiens.

I will leave you to imagine a world without men, but there is one immediate benefit from their extinction. Adam's curse is permanently lifted. Sexual selection disappears, for the simplest of reasons - there are no longer two sexes. Sperm no longer fights sperm for access to eggs. There are no sperm to do battle, no Y-chromosomes to enslave the feminine. The destructive spiral of greed and ambition fuelled by sexual selection diminishes and, as a direct result, the sickness of our planet eases. The world no longer reverberates to the sound of men's clashing antlers and the grim repercussions of private and public warfare.

By the way, as regards that dangerous set of genes, you’ve probably heard of them. They are summarized as the Y chromosome. If you’re a carrier, we call you a male.

Suppose, for instance, that a gene appeared on the X chromosome that specified the recipe for a lethal poison that killed only sperm carrying Y chromosomes. A man with such a gene would have no fewer children than another man. But he would have all daughters and no sons.

Kusudi mimba itungwe lazima kuwepo na kromosomu X na kromosomu Y. Kromosomu ni nyuzinyuzi katika kiini cha seli zenye jeni au DNA, ambazo hubeba taarifa kuhusu sifa za kimaumbile zinazorithishwa kwa kiumbe hai kutoka kwa mama na baba wa kiumbe hicho. Kwa upande wa Yesu Kristo, katika hali ya kawaida, kromosomu X ilitoka kwa Maria Magdalena na kromosomu Y ilitoka kwa malaika Gabrieli. Yesu alikuwa Myahudi lakini Kristo ni Mungu. Yesu Kristo alikuwa binadamu kama sisi, lakini alikuwa na utukufu na alikuwa na damu ya Mungu iliyotakasika. Damu kama hiyo ndiyo inayotiririka katika miili ya kila mmojawetu ijapokuwa ni damu ya Adamu, ambayo bado haijatakaswa. Damu ya Yesu si kitu kidogo. Ilipomwagika msalabani ilifunika dunia nzima. Ndiyo maana tukasamehewa. Bila damu hiyo, bila utukufu huo wa Mungu, hakuna binadamu atakayeokolewa, hakuna pepo atakayeondolewa.

At almost three, I was the baby girl, a waif, blond sprouting in competing directions from my scalp. My nose was wider at the bridge than both my sisters’, a source of embarrassment for my father, who, I would later find out, favored the Nordic look in the women he loved. My nose wasn’t the only way I disappointed him. After two daughters, he’d been counting on a son, a male successor to be named Carl. When I was born, he and Mommy simply added a y to the word, like an accusing chromosome: Carly. My

Chen hated it when Pike did that—appearing from nowhere as if the freaky psycho had stepped through a hole in the smog. Only an asshole did stuff like that, sneaking up and scaring people, and Chen had been afraid of Pike since they first met. Chen had taken one look at the guy and known Pike was one of those vicious, double-Y chromosome, beer-commercial slope-brows who loved showing up other people. True, Pike had also given him the tips that led to Chen’s first breakthrough case and the acquisition of the ’tangmobile, but Pike still made him nervous.

I’ll write the recipe down for you.” “I’ll just screw it up, anyway.” Gram laughed. “All you do is mix the ingredients together, pour it in a bag with the salmon and half an hour later give it to Sean to throw on the grill. He cooked the salmon to perfection tonight.” Of course he did. As he’d told her earlier, she had nothing to worry about because the Y chromosome came with an innate ability to master the barbecue grill. “The salad was good, too,” Sean said. “Thanks,” Emma muttered. “Even I can’t screw up shredding lettuce.” The man looked incredibly relaxed for somebody who'd probably been raked over the coals by his aunt and was now relaxing with two women he barely knew. She, on the other hand, felt as if she was detoxing. Jumpy. Twitching. A trickle of sweat at the small of her back. Sean stood and started gathering dishes, but held out a hand when Emma started to get up. “You ladies sit and visit. I’ll take care of the cleanup.” Once he was inside, Gram smiled and raised her eyebrows. “He does dishes, too? No wonder you snapped him up.” It was tempting to point out a few of his less attractive traits, like the fact that he was a sexist baboon who wouldn’t let her drive. But he was doing a good job of convincing Gram he was Emma’s Prince Charming, which was the whole point, so she bit back her annoyance with the Saint Sean routine. “He’s a keeper.

A group of researchers recently compared the DNA of a large group of Cohanim to the DNA of a large group of Israelites. the researchers were stunned to discover that—despite being spread across the world—the genetic markers of the Cohanim were so specific that they were all almost certainly descended from just a few male individuals. They came from Africa, from Asia, from Europe—and though their appearance ran the gamut from light-skinned and blue-eyed to dark-skinned and brown-eyed, most of them shared very similar Y chromosome markers. This controversial data even allowed the researchers to estimate when the originators of the Cohanim genes were alive. According to the researchers, that would have been 3,180 years ago, between the exodus from Egypt and the destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem—or exactly when Aaron walked the earth.

gripping feeling, and no, there has been nothing like it. It’s got to be dangerous, all this heart overload. No wonder Soapie tried to protect her from it. No wonder Greta wouldn’t ever let her pick up the newborn Sandrine. She sits and strokes the little shell-like ear, the soft cheek, the little button of a nose. It’s as though she’s been born again herself, some new raw part of her emerging from the wreckage of her grief and her longing. It makes her want to cry, how close she came to missing out on this. She and Jonathan move through the first few days, sleep-deprived and stunned. He is excellent at keeping people away. He won’t let Andres and Judith Schultz drop by with their baby gift, and he avoids the nice condo dwellers who smile at him in the bright sunny passageways and politely inquire about the new baby. Greta says this is a good thing and is exactly what he should be doing: using his handy Y chromosome to protect

I can’t believe you still do stuff like this. Are you ever going to grow up?” “I still do it,” Corey said. “Because you’re a guy. Girls don’t climb walls. Not real girls, anyway. Just tomboys whose closets are filled with tank tops and jeans and sneakers. Who still consider braids and ponytails high fashion. Who wouldn’t know how to apply makeup on a dare.” “Knock it off, Hayley,” Daniel said. I was wearing makeup. Just not a lot. I had my hair down, too, and although I was wearing jeans, they were my fancy ones, paired with a new fitted tee and ankle boots. It might have been the T-shirt slogan that she objected to--BRUNETTE IS THE NEW BLONDE--but I didn’t buy it to set her off. “Am I the only one around here who thinks Maya has a hidden Y chromosome?” Hayley said. “If she does, she’s hiding it pretty good,” Corey said, giving me a lascivious once-over. Hayley scowled at me and opened her mouth to say something else. Daniel started to cut her off, but Corey beat him to it. “Lessons later,” he said. “First, we need to see if this girl is as good a climber as she thinks she is. Challenge time. A race to the top. Maya versus anyone who dares take her on.” “That’ll be a short list,” I said. Corey grinned. “Not when they hear the prize.” He turned to the others. “Anyone who beats our Sweet Sixteen gets to kiss her. The lineup forms behind me.” Brendan got behind him. Daniel grinned at me and joined. The other guys filed in. “Oh my God,” I said. “What are you guys? Twelve?” “No,” Brendan said. “Just really, really immature.

Am I the only one around here who thinks Maya has a hidden Y chromosome?” Hayley said. “If she does, she’s hiding it pretty good,” Corey said, giving me a lascivious once-over.

Maybe this was a male-female translation problem. I read an article once that said that when women have a conversation, they’re communicating on five levels. They follow the conversation that they’re actually having, the conversation that is specifically being avoided, the tone being applied to the overt conversation, the buried conversation that is being covered only in subtext, and finally the other person’s body language. That is, on many levels, astounding to me. I mean, that’s like having a freaking superpower. When I, and most other people with a Y chromosome, have a conversation, we’re having a conversation. Singular. We’re paying attention to what is being said, considering that, and replying to it. All these other conversations that have apparently been going on for the last several thousand years? I didn’t even know that they existed until I read that stupid article, and I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one. I felt somewhat skeptical about the article’s grounding. There were probably a lot of women who didn’t communicate on multiple wavelengths at once. There were probably men who could handle that many just fine. I just wasn’t one of them. So, ladies, if you ever have some conversation with your boyfriend or husband or brother or male friend, and you are telling him something perfectly obvious, and he comes away from it utterly clueless? I know it’s tempting to think to yourself, “The man can’t possibly be that stupid!” But yes. Yes, he can. Our innate strengths just aren’t the same. We are the mighty hunters, who are good at focusing on one thing at a time. For crying out loud, we have to turn down the radio in the car if we suspect we’re lost and need to figure out how to get where we’re going. That’s how impaired we are. I’m telling you, we have only the one conversation.

The mid-sixth century (close to 550) was the time when bubonic plague entered Britain, along trade routes from the Mediterranean. Significantly, it would have been Britain (the west and centre of the island) which it hit, rather than England (the south-east), because only Britain maintained trade links with the empire. And it would be less likely to spread to the Saxons since they did not consort with Britons and, living outside the established Roman towns and cities, may have lived at a lower density. It would have been virtually simultaneous with the mortālitās magna that hit Ireland, according to the Annals of Ulster, devastating the aristocracy (and no doubt every other class). Maelgwn, king of Gwynedd in Wales, also died of plague in 547 or 549, according to the Annales Cambriae. A folk memory of this dreadful disease, and the depopulation it caused, would remain in the Arthurian legend of the Waste Land, combining famine with military defeat, and a mysterious wound (to the king) in the groin area—one of the characteristics of bubonic plague. There is even a little genetic evidence that strikingly bears this out. Comparing the pattern of Y-chromosome DNA from samples in a line across from Anglesey to Friesland, a recent study found that the Welshmen were to this day clearly distinct from those in central England, but that the English and Frisian samples were so similar that they pointed to a common origin of 50–100 per cent of the (male) population; this could have resulted from a mass migration from Friesland.50 On the usual assumption that the Roman-period population of the island had reached 3 to 4 million, it seems hardly possible that anything other than an epidemic could have so eliminated the Britons from the ancestry of central England. So English supervened.

He made himself as small as possible behind the parapet, holding the gun awkwardly above it, and aimed by the screensight image patched to his glades. His trigger finger pressed Enter. The weapon took over, it aimed him. In a second the head-up image showed four bodies, sprawled, stapled down like X- and Y- chromosomes.

She said stupidity runs in the Y chromosome. I learned in biology that the X chromosome is for the females and Y for the males, s—

Sexual relations are driven not by what is good, in evolutionary terms, for men or for women, but for their chromosomes. The ability to seduce a woman was good for Y chromosomes in the past; the ability to resist seduction by a man was good for X chromosomes in the past.