BioQuakes

AP Biology class blog for discussing current research in Biology

Tag: gender

Evolution of Human Lifespans

human_evolution_scheme

(Locutus Borg, Wikimedia Commons)

Humans have started living longer and healthier lives. According to research conducted by various international teams, the last two centuries have had a greater percent increase in human lifespan than the past millions of years did.

The research teams compared the average lifespan of the most developed societies to the average lifespan of modern-day hunter-gatherer populations, which most closely resemble the lifespan and lifestyle of early humans. The researchers found that developed countries, such as Sweden, have average lifespans of eighty years now (an increase from the mid-thirties range it was in 200 years ago). On the other hand, hunter-gatherer populations such as the Hadza in Tanzania live only ten to twenty years longer than wild primates.

Such drastic improvements in human longevity are attributed to the advent of several post-industrial era features, including modern medicine and supermarkets. However, males trail behind females in terms of lifespan by at least three to four years– something that has not changed since the beginning of primate history.

The exact reason for the lifespan gender gap is unknown. Some hypotheses propose that males are more at-risk because they carry one X-chromosome and one Y-chromosome, as opposed to the females’ two X-chromosomes, which makes males more susceptible to disease. Another possible explanation centers around harmful male-related behavior, such as fighting. What do you think is the most likely reason for the gender gap?

All Organs are Sexual!

Well, in the sense that female non-sexual organs and male non-sexual organs aren’t the same, as they’ve been commonly considered to be. According to a team at the MRC Clinical Sciences Centre (CSC), at Imperial College London, the stem cells that make up your organs do have a sexual identity attached to them, and thus behave differently than their sexual counterparts. In this study, a female fruit fly’s gut was observed to have enlarged after mating, likely due to the increased nutritional intake to rear healthy offspring. The reason this isn’t done all the time is that this makes it more likely for tumors to develop in the gut, so this is only done when the sake of their progeny is at stake.

(This fruit fly may be female, but her intestines were made to identify as male. There’s potentially some conflicted gender identity.)

What’s interesting is that when the female fruit fly was given male gut stem cells, the gut no longer enlarged after mating, and retained the smaller gut size of males. It turns out that the sex organs are not the only organs that have a sexual identity. At least, in fruit flies. No tests have been done on human organs yet, although it is believed that the principle will hold true, albeit in potentially different ways.

(Artist rendition of stem cells)

Medically this is significant since it may lead to explanations or understandings of how and why male and female patients may need different medical treatments since their organs function somewhat differently. Furthermore, it continues to advance our understanding of how males and females are different based on the nuances of the physical workings of their body. Overall, it’s very confusing when you apply this to gender theory.

But humans have had a poor understanding of their own bodies and inner workings for thousands of years. Is it possible that this is on the path to a deeper understanding of our physiology as a gendered species, or that these differences are conditional and minute, as I so far believe?

 

 

Why don’t women see themselves as brilliant?

640px-Kalpana_Chawla,_NASA_photo_portrait_in_orange_suit

Why is the population of women in physics, engineering, music composition, etc. so sparse? It might have to do with current stereotypes.

Up until relatively recently, women were not in the academic work place’ men dominated all of the academic, intelligent, and advanced jobs. However, today, over 50% of molecular biology and 60% of comparative literature degrees go to women. But where are all of the women in political science and philosophy?

Research shows that careers that focus on brilliance tend to have fewer women in it. In other words, jobs that emphasize knowledge you “can’t be taught” are typically filled with men. Sarah-Jane Leslie and Andrei Cimpian became interested in gender representation in fields that focused on talent versus fields that focused on hard work. They surveyed other potential explanations, gender differences at the upper end of the intelligence scale, and how men and women differ in how they think. They hypothesized that women might not be able to work a certain schedule and therefore not have enough time required for certain academic fields, fields which are extremely selective should have more men than women, and men are better at abstract thinking and women are better at emotional understanding. They tested these hypotheses with surveys that ranked reactions to a statement from strongly agree to strongly disagree (Likert scale), collected and compared GRE scores, and included statements that assessed how much participants though thinking abstractly or emotionally was important in their academic field.

Leslie and Cimpian concluded that stereotypes about women (and also African-Americans) undermine their representation in certain jobs because they subconsciously do not feel fit to be in that field. Other factors include schedule flexibility or harassment in the work environment, but above all, it’s all about attitude, not aptitude.

Why do you think women don’t see themselves as brilliant, even though they may be well aware of their intellectual abilities?

https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/scicurious/attitude-not-aptitude-may-contribute-gender-gap?tgt=nr

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