Sisters - It's Official!

Women do actually start out having internal conflicts at week one of
embryonic development.

We are not going crazy, we actually would be crazy not to feel the way we do.

Just been reading an article in the New Scientist (has done as much for my
intelligence as hoovering does for child behaviour, ah well) and the gist
of it is:

Most chromosomes come in pairs, if this is not the case the embryo dies,
except , of course, the sex chromosomes X and Y. Women get two X's, one
from the mother, one from the father and men get X from the mother and Y
from the father, this determines the sex and occurs during the first week
of embryonic development.

Common knowledge so far, but, the Y chromosome is a rather pathetic little
thing, rather like a wasteland, according to the article, it carries very
few useful genes mainly because women have to be able to survive without it.

The X chromosome on the other hand is a wondrous thing bulging with all
sorts of useful functions to do with flexing muscles, blood clotting,
seeing colours etc. and is the only chromosome that healthy people can
possess in either one or two copies. As said above any embryo receiving
only one copy of a chromosome dies, so clearly X must be pretty potent for
men to be able to survive with only one.

So how do women cope with having two such powerful chromosomes? Well it has
been postulated that women 'turn off' one X in every cell and that all
these inactivated X cells go to make up an entirely different body, the
Barr body, composed of completely different genetic material and this
happens in the first week of development, already the conflict begins.

This may explain why identical female twins often are different genetically
and one can be affected by a genetic disease the other is not because one
is using a damaged X chromosome and the other has switched it off. It may
also be why female embryos split into two in the first place because their
different cells are actually repelling each other and it may, even more
controversially still, be a way of ensuring there is at least one healthy
female when a blighted chromosome has been inherited.

And then of course this may also account for the auto immune diseases which
literally try and rip a body apart or 'eat' itself up.

Sorry, getting carried away, but basically the internal conflict in women
seems to be genetic and not just cultural and is nicely summed up in the
last paragraph:

*Again and again the dual nature of women has broken our neat egalitarian
ideas about the sexes being opposite, or even complementary. We must face
the fact that women are simply more complex than men - and get on with
working out why this can pull a female embryo into two, or make a later
attempt to tear her apart as an adult.*

Apologies for being slightly off topic but thought it interesting re recent
events here.

Much love to all the sisters and their genetic counterparts,
Nicola

           
Received on Fri May 30 2003 - 04:09:34 BST