Its uncontroversial among biologists that many species have two, distinct biological sexes. Theyre distinguished by the way that they package their DNA into gametes, the sex cells that merge to make a new organism. Males produce small gametes, and females produce large gametes. Male and female gametes are very different in structure, as well as in size. This is familiar from human sperm and eggs, and the same is true in worms, flies, fish, molluscs, trees, grasses and so forth.

Different species, though, manifest the two sexes in different ways. The nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans, a common laboratory organism, has two forms not male and female, but male and hermaphrodite. Hermaphroditic individuals are male as larvae, when they make and store sperm. Later they become female, losing the ability to make sperm but acquiring the ability to make eggs, which they can fertilise with the stored sperm.

This biological definition of sex has been swept up into debates over the status of transgender people in society. Some philosophers and gender theorists define a woman as a biologically female human being. Others strongly disagree. Im addressing those who reject the very idea that there are two biological sexes. Instead, they argue, there are many biological sexes, or a continuum of biological sexes.

Theres no need to reject how biologists define the sexes to defend the view that trans women are women. When we look across the diversity of life, sex takes stranger forms than anyone has dreamt of for humans. The biological definition of sex takes all this in its stride. It does so despite the fact that there are no more than two biological sexes in any species youre likely to have heard of. To many people, that might seem to have conservative implications, or to fly in the face of the diversity we see in actual human beings. I will make clear why it does not.

I call this the biological definition of sex because its the one biologists use when studying sex that is, the process by which organisms use their DNA to make offspring. Many philosophers and gender theorists will protest at making the creation of offspring foundational to how we define sex or distinguish different sexes. Theyre surely right that sex as a social phenomenon is much richer than that. But the use of DNA to make offspring is a central topic in biology, and understanding and explaining the diversity of reproductive systems is an important scientific task. Gender theorists are understandably worried about how the biology of sex will be applied or misapplied to humans. What they might not appreciate is why biologists use this definition when classifying the mind-stretching forms of reproduction observed in limpets, worms, fish, lizards, voles and other organisms and they might not understand the difficulties that arise if you try to use another definition.

Many people assume that if there are only two sexes, that means everyone must fall into one of them. But the biological definition of sex doesnt imply that at all. As well as simultaneous hermaphrodites, which are both male and female, sequential hermaphrodites are first one sex and then the other. There are also individual organisms that are neither male nor female. The biological definition of sex is not based on an essential quality that every organism is born with, but on two distinct strategies that organisms use to propagate their genes. They are not born with the ability to use these strategies they acquire that ability as they grow up, a process which produces endless variation between individuals. The biology of sex tries to classify and explain these many systems for combining DNA to make new organisms. That can be done without assigning every individual to a sex, and we will see that trying to do so quickly leads to asking questions that have no biological meaning.

While the biological definition of sex is needed to understand the diversity of life, that doesnt mean its the best definition for ensuring fair competition in sport or adequate access to healthcare. We cant expect sporting codes, medical systems and family law to adopt a definition simply because biologists find it useful. Conversely, most institutional definitions of sex break down immediately in biology, because other species contradict human assumptions about sex. The United States National Institutes of Health (NIH) uses a chromosomal definition of sex XY for males and XX for females. Many reptiles, such as the terrifying saltwater crocodiles of northern Australia, dont have any sex chromosomes, but a male saltie has no trouble telling if the crocodile that has entered his territory is a male. Even among mammals, at least five species are known that dont have male sex chromosomes, but they develop into males just fine. Gender theorists have extensively criticised the chromosomal definition of human sexes. But however well or badly that definition works for humans, its an abject failure when you look at sex across the diversity of life.

The same is true of phenotypic sex, the familiar idea that sex is defined by the typical physical characteristics (phenotypes) of males and females. Obviously, this approach will produce completely different definitions of male and female for humans, for worms, for trees and so forth. Incubating eggs inside your body, for example, is a female characteristic in humans but a male one in seahorses. That doesnt mean that human institutions cant use the phenotypic definition. But it isnt useful when studying the common patterns in the genetics, evolution and so forth of female humans, female seahorses and female worms.

Understanding the complex ways in which chromosomes and phenotypes relate to biological sex will make clear why the biological definition of sex shouldnt be the battleground for philosophers and gender theorists who disagree about the definition of woman. There might be very good reasons not to define woman in this way, but not because the definition itself is poor biology.

Why did sexes evolve in the first place? Biologists define sex as a step towards answering this question. Not all species have biological sexes, and biology seeks to explain why some do and others dont. The fact that no species has evolved more than two biological sexes is also a puzzle. It would be quite straightforward to engineer a species that has three, but none has evolved naturally.

Many species reproduce asexually, with each individual using its own DNA to create offspring. But other species, including our own, combine DNA from more than one organism. Thats sexual reproduction, where two sex cells gametes merge to make a new individual. In some species, these two gametes are identical; many species of yeast, for example, make new individuals from two, identical gametes. They reproduce sexually, but they have no sexes, or, if you prefer, they have only one sex. But in species that make two different kinds of gamete and where one gamete of each kind is needed to make a new organism there are two sexes. Each sex makes one of the two kinds of gamete.

In complex multicellular organisms, such as plants and animals, these two kinds of gamete are very different. One is a large, complex cell, what wed typically call an egg. Its similar to the eggs produced by asexual species, which can develop into a new organism all on their own. Many species of insect and some lizards, snakes and sharks can reproduce using just an egg cell. The other kind of gamete is a much smaller cell that contains very little beyond some DNA and some machinery to get that DNA to the larger gamete. We are familiar with these two kinds of gametes from human eggs and sperm.

Theres no obvious reason why complex multicellular organisms need to have two kinds of gamete, or why these two kinds are so different in size and structure. Its perfectly possible to make three or more different kinds of gamete, or gametes that vary continuously, just as people vary continuously in height. One question that biologists seek to answer, then, is why those forms of sexual reproduction arent observed in complex organisms such as animals and plants.

Earthworms are hermaphrodites: one part of the worm produces sperm and another part produces eggs

When a species produces two different kinds of gamete, biologists call this anisogamy, meaning not-equal-gametes. Some anisogamic species have separate sexes, like humans do, where each individual can produce only one kind of gamete. Other anisogamic species are hermaphrodites, where each individual produces both kinds of gamete. Because they produce two kinds of gametes, hermaphroditic species still have two biological sexes they simply combine them in one organism. When a biologist tells you that earthworms are hermaphrodites, they mean that one part of the worm produces sperm and another part produces eggs.

Some single-celled and very simple multicellular organisms have evolved something called mating types. These are gametes that are identical in size and structure, but in which the genome of each gamete contains genetic markers that affect which other gametes it can combine with. Typically, gametes with the same genetic marker cant recombine with one another. Some species have many hundreds of these mating types, and newspapers often report research into this phenomenon under headlines such as: Scientists discover species with hundreds of sexes! But, formally, biologists refer to these as mating types, and reserve the term sexes for gametes that are different in size and structure.

Why distinguish between these two phenomena? One reason is that the evolution of anisogamy gametes that differ in size and structure explains the later evolution of sex chromosomes, sex-associated physical characteristics and much more. But the existence of mating types doesnt have these dramatic knock-on evolutionary effects. Another reason to keep the distinction is that anisogamy and mating types are thought to have evolved via different evolutionary processes. One theory is that anisogamy appeared when mating-type genome markers somehow became linked to genes that controlled the size of the gamete, or mutated in some way that affected gamete size. These differences in gamete size would then kickstart the evolution of sexes.

The evolution of sex seems to be strongly associated with multicellularity, so the obvious place to look for a shift from mating types to sexes is in organisms that sit at the multicellular boundary such as algae, which sometimes exist as single-celled organisms, and sometimes as colonies of cells. And indeed, there are species of algae where gametes are just a little bit anisogamous, blurring the distinction between mating types and sexes. Theres much we dont know about how sex evolved, and how it might have evolved differently across species. But the point is that sexes and mating types are very different phenomena, with different causes and consequences.

The fact that sex evolved in some species but not others tells us something important about how biologists think about sex. Many cultures take the difference between male and female to be something fundamental, and label other natural phenomena such as the Sun and the Moon as male or female. But for biologists, the separation between male and female is no more fundamental or universal than photosynthesis or being warm-blooded. Some species have evolved these things, and some havent. They exist when they do only because of the local advantages they afforded in evolutionary competition.

So why did some species evolve two, distinct sexes? To answer this question, we need to forget about creatures with complex sex organs and mating behaviours. These evolved later. Instead, think of an organism that releases its gametes into the sea, such as coral, or into the air, such as fungal spores. Next, consider that there are two goals that any gamete must achieve if its to reproduce sexually. The first is finding and recombining with another gamete. The second is producing a new individual with enough resources to survive. One widely accepted idea, then, is that the evolution of sexes reflects a trade-off between these goals. Because no organism has infinite resources, organisms can either produce many small gametes, making it more likely that some of them will find a partner, or produce fewer but larger gametes, making it more likely that the resulting individual will have what it needs to survive and thrive.

Since the 1970s, this idea has been used to model how anisogamic species might have evolved from species with only one kind of gamete. As mutations introduce differences in gamete size, two winning strategies emerge. One is to produce a large number of small gametes too small to create viable offspring unless they recombine with a larger, well-provisioned gamete. The other winning strategy is to produce a few, large, well-resourced gametes that can create viable offspring, no matter how small the recombinant they end up merging with. Intermediate approaches, such as producing a moderate number of moderately well-provisioned gametes, dont do well. Organisms that try to follow the middle way end up with gametes less likely to find a partner than smaller gametes, and more likely to have insufficient resources than larger gametes. When the two successful complementary strategies have evolved, fresh evolutionary pressures make the gametes even more distinct from one another. For example, it can be advantageous for the small gametes to become more mobile, or for the large, immobile gametes to send signals to the mobile ones.

Once anisogamy has evolved, it shapes many other aspects of reproductive biology. Most species of limpet shellfish that you see on rocks at the beach are sequential hermaphrodites. When young and small they are male, and when mature and large they become female. This is believed to be because small limpets dont have sufficient resources to produce large female gametes, but theyre capable of producing the smaller male ones. In some other species, successful males can arrest their growth and remain small (and male) for their entire life.

Chromosomes arent male or female because these bits of DNA define biological sex. Its the other way around

Sequential hermaphroditism occurs in the opposite direction too. Australian snorkellers love to spot the large blue males of the eastern blue groper, but its rare to see more than one. Most groper are smaller, brown females. They are all born female and become sexually mature after a few years, when 20 or 30 cm in length. At around 50 cm, they change sex and acquire other male characteristics, such as being blue. Unlike the limpet, the main problem facing a male groper is controlling a territory on the reef, so becoming male when youre small is a losing strategy.

Biology aims to understand the extraordinary diversity of ways in which organisms reproduce themselves, as well as to identify common patterns, and to explain why they occur. In general, organisms become sexually mature when they reach an optimal size for reproduction. This optimal size is often different for the two sexes, because the two sexes represent divergent strategies for reproduction. The limpet and the groper are two of many examples. In constructing these explanations, biological sex is defined as the production of one type of viable anisogamous gamete. If we defined sex in some other way, it would be hard to see the common patterns across the diversity of life, and hard to explain them.

So-called sex chromosomes, such as the XX and XY chromosome pairs seen in humans, are often brandished as something thats fundamental to sex. Its partly the inadequacy of this definition that drives scepticism about the existence of two, discrete biological sexes. Molecular genetics is likely to require a shift from binary sex to quantum sex, with a dozen or more genes each conferring a small percentage likelihood of male or female sex that is still further dependent on micro- and macroenvironmental interactions, writes the gender scholar Vernon Rosario.

But any biologist already knows that theres more to sex determination than chromosomes and genes, and that male and female sex chromosomes are neither necessary nor sufficient to make organisms male and female. Several species of mammal, all rodents of one kind or another, have completely lost the male Y chromosome, but these rats and voles all produce perfectly normal, fertile males. Other groups of species, such as crocodiles and many fish, have neither sex chromosomes nor any other genes that determine sex. Yet they still have two, discrete biological sexes. The Australian saltwater crocodile, whom we met before, lays eggs that are very likely to develop into gigantic, highly territorial males if incubated between 30 and 33 degrees Celsius. At other temperatures, genetically identical eggs develop into much smaller females.

The reality is that chromosomes arent called male or female because these bits of DNA define biological sex. Its the other way around in some species that reproduce using two discrete sexes, those sexes are associated with different bits of DNA. But in other species this association is either absent or unreliable. Medical institutions use a chromosomal definition of sex because they judge, rightly or wrongly, that this is a reliable way of categorising humans. But humans really arent the best place to start when trying to understand sex across the diversity of life.

So much for genes. But perhaps sex could be defined by the physical characteristics that organisms develop, which then add up to constitute an organisms sex? An organism with more female than male characteristics would be more female than male and vice-versa. Thats a reasonable way to think about sex, and this idea of phenotypic sex is widely used. But if we apply the biological definition of sex, some of the individuals who are in the middle as far as sex-associated characteristics go are bona fide members of one biological sex. Others are not clearly members of either biological sex.

Nothing in the biological definition of sex requires that every organism be a member of one sex or the other. That might seem surprising, but it follows naturally from defining each sex by the ability to do one thing: to make eggs or to make sperm. Some organisms can do both, while some cant do either. Consider the sex-switching species described above: what sex are they when theyre halfway through switching? What sex are they if something goes wrong, perhaps due to hormone-mimicking chemicals from decaying plastic waste? Once we see the development of sex as a process and one that can be disrupted it is inevitable that there will be many individual organisms that arent clearly of either sex. But that doesnt mean that there are many biological sexes, or that biological sex is a continuum. There remain just two, distinct ways in which organisms contribute genetic material to their offspring.

Whats more, the physical characteristics of an organism can be labelled as male or female only if there is already a definition of sex. Whats so male about a groper being blue as opposed to brown? Many male organisms are brown. Whats so female about incubating eggs in a womb? After all, in many pipefish and seahorse species the male incubates the eggs in his brood pouch. What makes this part of the hermaphroditic earthworm male and that part female? Gender studies scholars have noticed this logical discrepancy, and some have gone on to argue that the sexes must therefore be defined in terms of gender. But from a biological perspective, what makes an observable physical characteristic male or female is not its association with gender, but its association with something more tangible: the production of one or other of the two kinds of gamete.

This explains why the existence of individuals with combinations of male and female characteristics doesnt show that biological sex is a continuum. These organisms have a combination of characteristics associated with one biological sex and characteristics associated with the other biological sex. They do not have some part of the ability to make small gametes combined with some part of the ability to make large gametes. Their phenotypic sex might be intermediate, but their biological sex is not. Being fully biologically male and fully biologically female hermaphroditic can be an effective evolutionary strategy, and we have encountered several hermaphroditic species already. But making both kinds of gametes incompletely would be an evolutionary dead-end.

Like phenotypic characteristics, sex chromosomes can be more or less reliably associated with biological sex. The eastern three-lined skink, an Australian lizard, has sex chromosomes, and under some circumstances XY skinks become male and XX skinks become female, just as in humans. But in cold nests, every skink becomes male, whatever their chromosomes. By becomes male, biologists mean that they grow up to produce small gametes sperm.

No animal is conceived with the ability to make sperm or eggs (or both). This ability has to grow

This effect of temperature on sex is not surprising, as many reptile species produce genetically identical offspring whose sex is determined by incubation temperature. Whats more surprising is that varying the size of the egg yolk in this species of skink can produce both sexes with the wrong sex chromosomes: XX males and XY females. The skink seems to have three mechanisms for determining sex chromosomes, temperature and hormones in the yolk. This is not a mere quirk of nature. The skink is one of many species that actively control the sex of their offspring, responding to environmental cues that predict whether male or female offspring have better chances of surviving and reproducing.

If all species were like the skink, we probably wouldnt label sex chromosomes as male or female. After all, we dont think of extreme nest temperatures as female and intermediate temperatures as male, merely because they produce male and female crocodiles or male and female geckos. We think of sex chromosomes as male or female because we focus on species where they are reliably associated with the production of male or female gametes.

Sex chromosomes play much the same role in sex determination as nest temperatures and hormones. Theyre simply mechanisms that organisms use to turn genes on and off in offspring so that they develop a biological sex. No animal is conceived with the ability to make sperm or eggs (or both). This ability has to grow, through a cascade of interactions between genes and environments. In some species, once an individual acquires a sex, it remains that sex for the rest of its life. In others, individuals can switch sex one or more times. But in every case, the underlying mechanisms are designed to grow organisms that make either male or female gametes (or both). The other changes the body undergoes as it becomes male, female or hermaphroditic are designed to fit the reproductive strategies that this species has evolved.

These mechanisms by which organisms develop or switch biological sex are complex, and many factors can interfere with them. So they produce a lot of phenotypic diversity. Sometimes, organisms grow up able to make fertile gametes, but otherwise atypical for their biological sex. Sometimes, they grow up unable to make fertile gametes of either kind. This is usually an accident, but sometimes by design. In bees, eggs that arent fertilised develop into males, so male bees have half as many chromosomes as female bees. Meanwhile, all fertilised eggs start to develop into females, but most of them never complete their sexual development. The queen sends chemical signals that block the development of the worker bees ovaries at an early stage. So worker bees are female in the extended sense that they would develop into fertile females if they werent actively prevented from doing so. Occasionally, worker bees manage to evade these controls and lay their own eggs. They are not popular with beekeepers, who select against these mutant strains.

The diversity of outcomes in individual sexual development doesnt mean that there are many biological sexes or that biological sex is a continuum. Whatever the merits of those views for chromosomal sex or phenotypic sex, they are not true of biological sex. A good way to grasp this is to imagine a species that really does have three biological sexes. Biotechnologists have proposed curing mitochondrial diseases by removing the nucleus from an egg with healthy mitochondrial DNA, and inserting a new nucleus containing the nuclear DNA from an unhealthy egg and the nuclear DNA from a sperm. The resulting child would have three genetic parents.

Now imagine if there was a whole species like this, where three different kinds of gametes combined to make a new individual a sperm, an egg and a third, mitochondrial gamete. This species would have three biological sexes. Something like this has actually been observed in slime moulds, an amoeba that can, but need not, get its mitochondria from a third parent. The novelist Kurt Vonnegut imagined an even more complex system in Slaughterhouse-Five (1969): There were five sexes on Tralfamadore, each of them performing a step necessary in the creation of a new individual. But the first question a biologist would ask is: why havent these organisms been replaced by mutants that dispense with some of the sexes? Having even two sexes imposes many extra costs the simplest is just finding a mate and these costs increase as the number of sexes required for mating rises. Mutants with fewer sexes would leave more offspring and would rapidly replace the existing Tralfamadorians. Something like this likely explains why two-sex systems predominate on Earth.

We can also imagine a species where biological sex really does form a continuum. Recall that some algae have slightly anisogamous gametes, much closer together than sperm and eggs. We can imagine a more complex organism using this system, with some slightly smaller gametes and some slightly larger ones. Successful reproduction might require two gametes that, when added together, are big enough but not too big. But the sexually reproducing plants and animals that actually exist all have just two, very different kinds of gamete male and female. Theyre not merely different in size, theyre fundamentally different in structure. This is the result of competition between organisms to leave the greatest number of genetic descendants. In complex multicellular organisms such as plants and animals, we know of only three successful reproductive strategies: two biological sexes in different individuals, two biological sexes combined in hermaphroditic individuals, and asexual reproduction. Some species use one of these strategies, some use more than one.

Human beings have come up with many ways to classify the diversity of individual outcomes from human sexual development. People who want to apply the biological definition of sex to humans should recognise that its ill-suited to do what many human institutions want, which is to sort every individual into one category or another. What sex are worker bees? They are sterile workers whose genome was designed by natural selection to terminate ovary development on receipt of a signal from the queen bee. They share much of the biology of fertile female bees but if someone wants to know Are worker bees really female?, theyre asking a question that biology simply cant answer.

Nor is being a sterile worker a third biological sex alongside male and female. This is easier to see in ants, where there is more than one sterile caste. Workers, soldiers, queens and male flying ants each have specialised bodies and behaviour, but there are not four biological sexes of ant. Workers and soldiers are both female in an extended sense, but not in the full-blown sense that queen ants are female. There is a human imperative to give everything a sex, as mentioned above, but biology doesnt share it.

The biological definition of sex wasnt designed to ensure fair sporting competition, or settle healthcare disputes

Juvenile organisms and postmenopausal human females also cant produce either kind of gamete. Juveniles are assigned to the sex they have started to grow into. But once again, this is more complicated than it seems when we focus only on humans. In almost all mammals, sexual differentiation is initiated by a region of the Y chromosome, so a mammalian egg can become either male or female. In birds, its the other way around the egg carries the sex-determining W chromosome, so sperm can become either male or female. After fertilisation, therefore, we can say that an individual mammal or bird has a sex in the sense that it has started to grow the ability to produce either male or female gametes. With a crocodile or a turtle, though, wed have to wait until nest temperature had its sex-determining effect. But that doesnt mean that we need to create a third biological sex for crocodile eggs!

More importantly, nothing guarantees that any of these organisms, including those with sex chromosomes, will continue to grow to the point where they can actually produce male or female gametes. Any number of things can interfere. From a biological point of view, there is nothing mysterious about the fact that organisms have to grow into a biological sex, that it takes them a while to get there, and that some individuals develop in unusual or idiosyncratic ways. This is a problem only if a definition of sex must sort every individual organism into one sex or another. Biology doesnt need to do that.

In human populations, there are plenty of individuals whose sex is hard to determine. Biologists arent blind to this. The definition of biological sex is designed to classify the human reproductive system and all the others in a way that helps us to understand and explain the diversity of life. Its not designed to exhaustively classify every human being, or every living thing. Trying to do so quickly leads to questions that have no biological meaning.

Human societies cant delegate to biology the job of defining sex as a social institution. The biological definition of sex wasnt designed to ensure fair sporting competition, or to settle disputes about access to healthcare. Theorists who want to use the biological definition of sex in those ways need to show that it will do a good job at the Olympics or in Medicare. The fact that its needed in biology isnt good enough. On the other hand, whatever its shortcomings as an institutional definition, the concept of biological sex remains essential to understand the diversity of life. It shouldnt be discarded or distorted because of arguments about its use in law, sport or medicine. That would be a tragic mistake.

The authors research is supported by the Australian Research Council and the John Templeton Foundation. He would also like to thank Nicole Vincent, Jussi Lehtonen, Stefan Gawronski and Joshua Christie for their feedback on earlier drafts.

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Sex is real - aeon.co

Netflix, the video streaming giant, is in hot water with at least some segments of the American public because of a French film it is currently showing called Cuties (Mignonnes in the original French).

The film is about a group of 11-year-old girls in Paris who form a team to enter a dance competition. But this isnt ballet or jazz. Its twerking.

The initial negative reaction was to promotional images Netflix used: the four young girls posed provocatively in their clingy, midriff-baring tops and tight shorts. But once people watched the film, shock turned to outrage. During a performance, the girls simulate sexual intercourse; bump and grind their hips; bend over in front of the audience; and touch their crotches while they sigh, look skyward and suck on their fingers. And thats just one scene.

If some Americans were shocked by Cuties, they were even more taken aback by the reactions to their reaction. The right versus left cultural divide in the country has grown so deep that theres no longer even a consensus on something as serious as child exploitation, which would have generated broad agreement just a few years ago. Instead, the cultural elites came out in force to snub and insult the rubes who just dont understand great art.

An insufferable opinion piece by Sam Thielman on the NBC News website proclaims that criticism of Cuties is just a cynical ploy in the culture war. Thielman describes the film as a sweet-spirited French coming-of-age drama about an 11-year-old girl looking for friendship among the competitive dancers at her school.

Director Maimouna Doucoure has defended her film as a feminist cautionary tale about the sexualization of girls in todays society. But it was only Cardi B and other adult women twerking just a few short years ago. If we take director Doucoure at her word, that art has now filtered down to children. So how long before we have 8-year-olds singing about their WAPs? Will we be asked to believe thats just a statement, too?

The problem here isnt Netflix; the problem is a culture that celebrates the sexualization of everything including and especially children. And American culture sexualizes children at just about every opportunity.

For example, sex education in schools used to be about teaching human reproduction but has morphed into desensitization to vulgar slang and detailed explanations of explicit sex acts in early grade school and middle school. Planned Parenthood is responsible for a lot of this educational material.

Teen Vogue whose readership, we are told, is the 11- to 18-year-old demographic has featured articles on what gift to get your bestie after her abortion.

A culture that presents children as sexual objects is a culture that exploits them for adult gratification.

Claims to be protecting the children or trying to start a conversation are specious. I accept that the directors intention was to criticize the commodification of females in Western culture, but that wont be the result any more than 13 Reasons Why didnt glorify teen suicide. You cant say you want to discourage X and then make stars out of beautiful people who do X on film, become famous, make tons of money, go to glitzy parties and pose for glamorous magazine shoots. You may think youve fooled the public, but you havent fooled the children. They get therealmessage.

Laura Hollis is a syndicated columnist

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The problem isnt Netflix, the problem is us - Boston Herald

Do young women with early ovarian ageing (EOA), defined as unexplained, and repeatedly few oocytes harvested in ART have an increased risk of age-related events?At follow-up, women with idiopathic EOA had an increased risk of age-related events compared to women with normal ovarian ageing (NOA).Early and premature menopause is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), osteoporosis and death. In young women, repeated harvest of few oocytes in well-stimulated ART cycles is a likely predictor of advanced menopausal age and may thus serve as an early marker of accelerated general ageing.A register-based national, historical cohort study. Young women (37 years) having their first ART treatment in a public or private fertility clinic during the period 1995-2014 were divided into two groups depending on ovarian reserve status: EOA (n=1222) and NOA (n=16385). Several national registers were applied to assess morbidity and mortality.EOA was defined as 5 oocytes harvested in a minimum of two FSH-stimulated cycles and NOA as 8 oocytes in at least one cycle. Cases with known causes influencing the ovarian reserve (endometriosis, ovarian surgery, polycystic ovary syndrome, chemotherapy etc.) were excluded. To investigate for early signs of ageing, primary outcome was an overall risk of ageing-related events, defined as a diagnosis of either CVD, osteoporosis, type 2 diabetes, cancer, cataract, Alzheimers or Parkinsons disease, by death of any-cause as well as a Charlson comorbidity index score of 1 or by registration of early retirement benefit. Cox regression models were used to assess the risk of these events. Exposure status was defined 1 year after the first ART cycle to assure reliable classification, and time-to-event was measured from that time point.Median follow-up time from baseline to first event was 4.9 years (10/90 percentile 0.7/11.8) and 6.4 years (1.1/13.3) in the EOA and NOA group, respectively. Women with EOA had an increased risk of ageing-related events when compared to women with a normal oocyte yield (adjusted hazard ratio 1.24, 95% CI 1.08 to 1.43). Stratifying on categories, the EOA group had a significantly increased risk for CVD (1.44, 1.19 to 1.75) and osteoporosis (2.45, 1.59 to 3.90). Charlson comorbidity index (1.15, 0.93 to 1.41) and early retirement benefit (1.21, 0.80 to 1.83) was also increased, although not reaching statistical significance.Cycles never reaching oocyte aspiration were left out of account in the inclusion process and we may therefore have missed women with the most severe forms of EOA. We had no information on the total doses of gonadotrophin administered in each cycle.These findings indicate that oocyte yield may serve as marker of later accelerated ageing when, unexpectedly, repeatedly few oocytes are harvested in young women. Counselling on life-style factors as a prophylactic effort against cardiovascular and other age-related diseases may be essential for this group of women.No external funding was received for this study. All authors declare no conflict of interest.N/A. The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

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Early ovarian ageing: is a low number of oocytes harvested in young women associated with an earlier and increased risk of age-related diseases? -...

The world is experiencing a pandemic of unprecedented proportions and any assessment on biodiversity, climate change or environment is unlikely to hit the headlines. However, a recent report Living Planet-2020 by over 125 global experts from World Wildlife Fund (WWF) did receive some attention. The headline was a 68% fall in populations of monitored vertebrate species (mammals, birds, fish, amphibians and reptiles) between 1970 and 2016 an 84% wildlife populations found in freshwater habitat. In 2019, a report by Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) concluded that nearly one million animal and plant species are on the verge of extinction, possibly within a few decades.

Natural ecosystems have declined by almost 47%. Seventy-five per cent of the earths ice-free land surface has already been significantly altered, oceans are polluted and over 85% area of wetlands has been lost. These global assessments have identified a few key drivers for the decline of our planets biodiversity-- overexploitation of natural resources, land-use change, climate change and pollution. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) published a report on The state of the worlds biodiversity for food and agriculture in 2019, which showed the declining trend in plant diversity on agricultural land and the growing number of animal breeds under threat. Nearly a third of fish stocks are overfished and a third of freshwater fish species are considered threatened. Thus, there is overwhelming evidence that biodiversity is declining at an unprecedented scale, threatening food production, including meat, dairy and fisheries. Many species that contribute to vital ecosystem services including pollinators, natural enemies of pests, soil organisms and wild food species populations are also on the decline.

When it comes to biodiversity, we generally associate more with iconic species such as tigers, elephants, pandas and polar bears. However, we do not recognize that millions of insects, bacteria and yet to be discovered species are also under threat. It is well known that biodiversity plays a critical role in providing food, fibre, water, energy, medicines and other genetic materials. It is also known that biodiversity is critical for regulation of climate, water quality, pollination services, flood control and storm surges.

We are also increasingly recognising that the loss of biodiversity and habitat destruction are linked to human health. Covid-19 is one in a long list of diseases that originate from wildlife. Other recent outbreaks include SARS, Ebola, avian influenza and swine influenza. As we continue to disturb ecosystems worldwide, we are likely to see more pathogens crossing from wildlife to humans. In fact, 60% of emerging infectious diseases could come from animals and nearly three-quarters of these from wild animals. These diseases can be transferred to humans in multiple ways--sometimes through direct contact with wild animals, and sometimes through intermediary hosts like domesticanimals. One study estimates diseases that originate in animals cause 2.5 billion infections and nearly three million deaths annually. Given that many of the diseases originate from wildlife, preventing the next pandemic might depend on how we manage our relationship with nature. According to UNEP, more biodiverse an ecosystem is, the more difficult it is for one pathogen to spread rapidly or dominate; whereas, biodiversity loss provides opportunity for pathogens to pass between animals and humans. Pathogens tend to be 'diluted' in complex, undisturbed, ecosystems.

Apart from biodiversity, climate change and associated extreme events (droughts, floods, cyclones, hurricanes, etc.) are impacting species distribution, population sizes, the timing of reproduction and migration. There has also been an increased frequency of pest and disease outbreaks resulting from these changes which may have adverse impacts on agricultural production and human wellbeing. Climate change is increasingly exacerbating the impact of other drivers on nature and human wellbeing. The fourth National Climate Assessment, published in the US in 2018 highlighted how higher temperatures, severe weather events and rising seas can contribute to heat-related cardiopulmonary illness, infectious diseases and mental health issues. Societal factors such as poverty, discrimination, access to health care and pre-existing health conditions make some populations even more vulnerable. This is heightened in the Indian conditions, given the high levels of poverty and the pathetic state of public health infrastructure as demonstrated during the current Covid-19 pandemic. Global warming will increase the seasonal window and spatial spread of many vector-borne diseases such as malaria, chikungunya, dengue etc.

The decline in biodiversity and climate change will have a compounded effect on human health. The effects of drivers such as climate change, land and sea use change, overexploitation of resources, pollution and invasive alien species are all likely to exacerbate negative impacts on nature. Climate change is also leading to an increase in the frequency and intensity of droughts, floods, cyclones and may impact food production and nutrition.

The WWF report concluded that the destruction or alteration of the worlds natural systems threatens to undo the extraordinary gains in human health and well-being achieved over the past century. India will experience an increase in human population to about 1.5 billion in the coming decades, along with economic growth, and the need to lift hundreds of millions out of poverty; this will have serious implications for natural resources. We lack high-quality assessments like the global assessments mentioned above on the combined impact of climate change and biodiversity loss on human health, food production, freshwater availability. Given this absence, appropriate location-specific solutions cannot be developed. Finally, global level solutions and the necessary actions are available from the United Nations Paris Climate Change Agreement, Convention on Biodiversity and UN Sustainable Development Goals. Recently, the UN highlighted that our best vaccine for the future is to protect nature and biodiversity. Unfortunately, in the current pandemic and possibly in the post-pandemic era, climate change, biodiversity loss and environmental degradation will not be priorities and will likely result in severe negative consequences for health, food production and freshwater supply.

(The writer is a retired Professor of Indian Institute of Science)

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The impact of biodiversity loss, climate change on human health - Deccan Herald

Theory September 22, 2020 Raju Das

Given the enormous problems that humanity is facing, it is reasonable to expect to see a future society that is radically different from, and superior to, the current one, that is a society which is genuinely democratic in the economic and non-economic spheres of life. And to produce a better society, we need better ideas, even if ideas are surely not enough. Furthermore, to learn good ideas, it is important to ask good questions. In this context, one might consider students in colleges and universities more specifically. Their active participation in the learning process is crucial to their intellectual success. Such participation can come in many forms, one of which is asking the educators probing questions. So for both intellectual and practical reasons, it is important that students ask good questions.

The question is: what sorts of questions should students ask their educators? A few of these questions are presented below.

Where exactly do you stand on the question of private property in the means of production (e.g. land, mines, factories, labs, knowledge)?

Do you think that the means of production should be collectively controlled by men and women of different races and nationalities who perform the manual and/or mental labour to produce the things/services that society needs for its reproduction?

What is the main form of social division in the current society? Is that division based on property or something else? What intellectual rationale do you provide for your view, and what political conclusions do you draw from them?

Do you think that the means of production are to be used to meet human needs rather than to produce profit?

Do you think that the means of production are to be used, and society should be run, in ways that are ecologically sustainable and that counter the tendencies toward geographically uneven development within and across countries, as well as those tendencies toward social-cultural oppression, curtailment of democratic rights, imperialism/neo-colonialism, war, and fascism?

It is admirable that professors talk about specially oppressed groups such as women (even if they are often middle class type women) and racialized minorities (often from middle class background). But when it comes to class relations (broadly, the relations of exploitation of the property-less by the propertied), why is there almost always a quasi-silence, or evasion?

Why is it that if some smart student raises the dirty c word (class), he/she is accused of classism, and many other bad things (too rigid, economistic, etc.)?

Is it not true that the majority of the worlds men and women are those who have little/no property and who therefore must work for a wage and/or as petty producers?

Are the worlds major problems not dominantly rooted in the economic and political relation between those who control property and those (the majority) who do not?

While in nearly every academic social science and humanities course there are loads of readings and discussions on this and that identity, this or that problem of this or that part of society, including the environment and its animals/birds, and its many inanimate objects, why is it that the problem behind the problems the problem of class and capitalism-as-a-form-of-class receives the least amount of emphasis? Why are topics of courses so narrowly construed? Must the courses in social sciences and humanities not be about the totality of society to a significant extent?

How do you see societys institutions?

Can these institutions help us produce a new society, which is beyond the rule of money and capital? And if not, why not, and what is to be done about this?

Is the state fundamentally neutral in relation to the basic classes, i.e. in relation to those who control productive resources and those who do not? Is its fundamental role not to preserve the existing property relations by the use of force and/or the threat of force?

A university should be a place for all sorts of perspectives. Professors can be from the right or center, etc. It is important to respect academic freedom. But do students not have the right to know where their professors stand, intellectually? They do. Students might therefore ask many questions to their educators:

Do you believe that society is a harmonious place, that what has been happening traditionally should be allowed to continue, that people should look after themselves, that one is free to die because of the lack of means of subsistence, and that everything should be left to the hidden hand of the market (the ideas of the right)?

Do you believe that things should be more or less left to the market but when market failures occur, governments should intervene, and that governments should also, to some extent, look after the poor and the marginalized (the liberal ideas)?

If governments should intervene, what is the outer limit of such intervention? Can you imagine political regulation of capitalism (by the state and workers unions) beyond social democracy, or is social democracy (combination of social democracy and individual-level action) the outer limit of your politics?

More specifically: what is your preferred form of social arrangement?

Do you imagine a society that is a slightly better capitalism (i.e. a capitalism, where there is slightly more economic and geographical equality, and where there is much less oppression of women and racialized and other minorities, and where there is much less ecological damage)?

Or do you imagine a society that is fundamentally different from the existing one, a future society that is beyond the rule of capital, where there is economic and political democracy, and where productive resources are controlled by common people? And what intellectual rationale can you provide for your preference?

And if society has to change in fundamental ways, which social group is the most important agent in such a project?

Academic honesty demands that professors clearly state their stance on these questions, so one can relate their stance to all the things that they say in the classroom.

What sorts of philosophical views do you hold?

Do you think that there are things in the world (e.g. stock market, built environment, forests, factories, etc.) that are independent of how we think about them; that things are more or less not social-mental constructions?

What do you make of the idea that men and women must first of all eat, drink, have shelter and clothing, before they can engage in politics, science, art, religion, watch movies on Netflix, and give lectures, and that therefore material conditions in life the totality of such things including our interaction with nature, social production of things we need and the unequal relations within which such production happens are the primary explanation of things happening in our lives, even while material conditions are affected by other aspects of society?

Why do you often assume that social processes happen on the head of a pin? Why indeed is university instruction often so geographically parochial? Why is there not enough critical geographical imagination?

With respect to the latter point: why is it that in so many college and university courses, social processes in certain regions of the world (for example, Western Europe and North America) are often no matter how implicitly taken as the norm, while there is little conscious attempt to take a multi-scalar internationalist approach, the idea that social processes happen at local, regional, national and international scales, with the international scale world market having a causal primacy; that what happens in Western societies is deeply connected to what happens in the global periphery (where, by the way, most of the worlds people live), and vice versa, and that there is geographical unevenness in nearly everything that human beings experience as a product of the interaction between universal (a-spatial) mechanisms and place-specific mechanisms?

Philosophically speaking, ones social position does have an impact on ones ideas: social being sets limits on ones consciousness (including ones conception of ones self and others). Given that often professors are middle class men and women from cities, it is important to ask: to what extent is their instruction shaped by this fact, that is by (urban) middle class concerns? To what extent do academic courses on society really deal with the lives of common men and women from rural and urban areas?

Academia is full of critical this and critical that (e.g. critical sociology, critical human geography, critical business studies, etc). What does critique mean to you and why are the philosophical and social-theoretical reasons for critique? Why is critique often confined to critique of special oppression rather than critique of the total society or social totality capitalism? And when there is any critique of capitalism, why is it that critique is often confined to the (rather mild) critique of neoliberalism (a specific form of capitalism) rather than capitalism as such? Is the scope of your critique confined to the critique of those aspects of society which, in your own view, can be changed (a little)? What do you make of the idea that at this current stage of human society, changing the parts requires changing the whole?

These are not merely political questions. They are deeply theoretical (explanatory) questions: to explain anything in the world, one has to examine the issues surrounding control over property, the state, nature of peoples collective agency as it is rooted in relations of production and exchange, and so on. To be able to explain the world, one has to agree that there are objectively-existing structures of relations and processes, whose contingent reproduction is then influenced by how people think and act, and that things in our life are not creations of thought, although ideas can play an important role in social change. In explaining anything immigration, fishing, global warming, deforestation, body, conditions of indigenous people, pandemics, etc. one has to relate them to the wider totality of which they are parts. But then, do educators believe in the idea of a totality? Most do not.

Often society is divided by professors into numerous groups (e.g. women, refugees, mad people, people in jail, heterosexual people, etc.), without the recognition that they can be interrelated in terms of the conditions under which they live their lives; that each of these groups is connected to the overall social-material (class) character of society of which they are a part, and that the criterion that is used to define each of these groups is rooted in the ways in which society operates and reproduces itself through its relations of production and exchange and through the political system and cultural mechanisms of producing consent to the system. In other words, there is little recognition of the fact that by studying a given group (or indeed a given place), one can say something about the totality of which the group (or the place) is a part. Perhaps underlying this sectoral and parochial approach is the political principle that the society as a whole cannot be changed and that only this or that small part of it can be changed, and only in relatively small ameliorative ways.

To understand anything properly, one has to have a theory, because it is theory that helps one connect the different parts of society to another, and to produce a coherent picture of society. But do most educators even believe in the need for theory? Many are just keen on their students to go and see the world for themselves. Alas, without a theory, one will see many things without really seeing anything (much).

Students must therefore demand that they be taught rigorous theory of society as a whole and theory of specific parts of society (e.g. child poverty or womens oppression), as well as theory of theorizing (i.e. philosophy, including ontology and epistemology). They must demand that a large part of every course they take must deal with critical issues surrounding the materiality of capitalist society that we live in and its politics, and the philosophical issues of materialism and dialectics.

They have got every right to know where their professors stand theoretically and politically. They have the right to demand that the courses they take equip them with the theoretical tools which would prompt them to ask the type of questions posed above. Students must demand that the scope of pedagogical diversity be expanded beyond identity politics and decolonization; the scope of courses, readings, lectures and classroom discussions must be widened so the kind of questions that are posed above can be addressed in a collegial atmosphere. Society is dominated by relations and processes of capitalist production and exchange which necessarily lead to imperialism, so the dominant emphasis in the academic courses should be on the capitalist character of society, which reproduces itself partly by feeding into divisions based on gender, race, sexual orientation and so on, and partly through various retrograde cultural mechanisms. Academic courses should help students critically theorize the totality of capitalist society in its five major dimensions (economic, political, cultural, ecological and geographical), and to empirically study it, both from the standpoint of describing and explaining it and thus finding an order in society, and radically transcending it.

Students must reject the idea that the education systems main roles are to: a) provide technical and organizational skills to students so they can increase production and surplus (profit, interest, rent, etc.) for the business class, and b) provide ideas that dissuade the majority from demanding control over production and the surplus, as well as control over the communal affairs of society (currently managed by politicians and officials wedded to the interest of the rich). The basic purpose of knowing is to know what is happening and why, so one can take action to create a different future. Technical and other such skills are important. All forms of society need to expand production. But production happens, and can only happen, within certain historically-specific relations of production, and these relations are currently unequal, exploitative and oppressive. So there is a need to explore the character of these relations.

Academia appears to be other than what it is, just as society dominated by capital does; thus there is a contradiction between what is real and what appears to be real. Our teachers/professors usually do not encourage us to ask difficult questions which might reveal the contradiction. But educators must be educated. Educators with a sense of humility should like to be educated by their students. Students must assume the role of educators on a regular basis. An inversion in roles is needed on a regular basis, so education becomes an act of collaboration. This is especially at the graduate (Masters and doctoral) level.

Students must take responsibility for their own education. They could, for example, form reading groups and read certain books/articles/blogs and discuss certain topics on their own. The rationale for this would be that such readings and topics are excluded or are only given lip service in a classroom. Another major source of education is, of course, students intent to change the society, and, where possible, their actual participation in the process of change both on campus and off-campus. An important part of this politics must be a demand that no person remains unemployed and that everyone receives an appropriate compensation, and that the commodification and creeping corporate control over education and its bureaucratization as well as mixing of religion and religion-based politics and education, must stop at once. Education is a human need, and it must be met without the mediation of the market or government interference. The fact that, after years of education, which often lands many students in huge debt, the majority of students will remain un- or under-employed, this material fact does adversely impact their learning process. After all, one has to eat, drink, have shelter, clothing and medicine and access to transportation, etc. before one can fruitfully engage in the learning process. The demand for a satisfactory education and the demand for improved material conditions are closely linked.

There is no illusion that when students begin to take responsibility for their education partly by organizing their own reading group meetings, some members of the academic community will criticize them for engaging in intellectual activities that do not conform to the norm. When that happens, one should know that one is doing something right, so just ignore the criticisms and invite the critics to the meetings. It is possible, and indeed necessary, for students to educate themselves partly outside of the normal classroom and to connect the two spheres to see the relation between their learning and their passionate intent grounded in reason and evidence, to see a fundamentally different world. And, as and when students take partial responsibility for their education, there are teachers who will join them as their friends and co-learners. It is true that many will not support such activities. But then who says that the appropriateness of an action necessarily depends on how many people accept the idea of such an action?

This article also published on the Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal website.

Raju J Das teaches radical political economy, international development, state-society relations, and social struggles at York University, Toronto. Das is on the editorial board of Science & Society and the editorial advisory board of Dialectical Anthropology. His most recent book, published in 2017, is Marxist Class Theory for a skeptical world (Brill, Leiden).

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What Questions Must Students Ask Their Educators, and Why? - The Bullet - Socialist Project

A bear stands in a field of hemlock parsley at Eagle Beach two years ago before the bears demolished most of the plants. (Courtesy Photo / Doug Jones)

Species of the carrot family (formerly named Umbelliferae, now Apiaceae) are still called umbellifers informally, referring to the structure of the flat-topped inflorescence, called an umbel. The nominate example of this family is the domestic carrot, which typically has a thick, straight, tapered taproot containing of about 15% carbohydrates, some vitamins and minerals and a lot of water,according to one source. Carrots were originally domesticated in Asia, over 1,000 years ago. Parsley, parsnip and celery are other familiar members of the family. They have many wild relatives, of which perhaps seven genera are said to occur in the Juneau area.

The roots of these species are sometimes described as taproots and sometimes as clusters of fleshy roots; and sometimes the same species is described has having both kinds of root systems. Frustrated by the vagueness and possibly conflicting descriptions, I dug up a few specimens of four fairly common species to see for myself. Because I dont know how long or how vertical a root must be, in order to be called a taproot, here I will just mention there being a main root, if a thick one occurs at the base of the stem. Thick and fleshy roots, in general, are storage organs for these plants, a source of energy for growth and reproduction.

[Wild Shots: See reader-submitted photos of Mother Nature in Alaska]

Out on local beaches and gravelly meadows, we find beach lovage (Ligusticum scoticum). The roots of beach lovage are a popular bear food, as seen recently in the meadow near the Boy Scout Camp. In the big meadow at Eagle Beach this year, lovage plants had been common but were almost entirely demolished by hungry bears. The roots were gone, leaving a few reddish leaf stalks near the hole. Elsewhere in North America, other lovage species are sometimes called bear-root in Native languages, reflecting harvesting by bears. My excavations indicated that lovage usually has a short (about an inch or two just a little snack!) main root, bearing several thick, fleshy side roots, in total perhaps equivalent in size to a small-to-medium carrot.

Those side roots may be likely to break when a bear digs for the main root, leaving fragments that can regenerate; a big, carroty main root might not be able to do that, because the whole thing probably would be dug up. Various Native groups that harvest some of these carrot-family relatives take just the main root, leaving the side roots for future growth. Could it be that short main roots with storage in side roots are somehow an adaptation (in part) to the risks of being dug up a way of surviving, via regenerating fragments, thats not available to strictly single-main-rooted forms?

We have two species of Angelica: sea-coast angelica or seawatch (A. lucida) and, less commonly, kneeling angelica (A. genuflexa). Both are dug up by bears, which eat the roots and sometimes the lower stem and leaf stalks. My little excavations indicated that there is usually a short main root with some fleshy side roots.

Hemlock parsley (Conioselinum pacificum) that I excavated all had a short main root supporting a cluster of fleshy roots, but another local naturalist found one with a long main root. A year or two ago, there were many reports of bears digging up this plant in the Eagle Beach meadow. This year, in the same part of the meadow, I found that, while bears had taken almost every lovage root in part of the meadow, some hemlock parsley was still standing there.

Cow parsnip (Heracleum lanatum) has a hefty, sometimes both fat and long, main root, sometimes with side roots, but I have not seen evidence of bears digging up this plant. Ive seen the seeds in bear scats, where they eventually germinate quite well. In addition to domestic livestock, marmots, bears, deer, moose and many other animals in other areas are known to eat the upper, vegetative and floral parts, which one report says provide a decent source of protein. Stems and leaves are reported to be a major food source for bears in Montana. However, Ive not observed vertebrate use of this species here; other local naturalists have documented that the leaves are eaten by marmots; stems and leaves may be eaten occasionally by bears and rarely by mountain goats. That begs a question: why are there so few observations of wildlife use of this very common plant here?

[Trails offer signs of autumns beginning]

The stems and leaves of sweet-cicely (Osmorhiza) are part of bear diets at least in some regions, but the two or three local species are not very common here and Ive not seen signs of vertebrate usage.

Pacific water-parsley (Oenanthe sarmentosa) is suspected of being poisonous, largely by taxonomic association with highly toxic relatives. However, cattle are reported to eat the foliage without ill effects. I found no information about wildlife usage.

Cicuta douglasii (Douglas water-hemlock) is extremely poisonous to grazing livestock and probably bears and moose, too, although I have found no reference to wildlife usage. The roots and base of stem are said to particularly toxic. This is not the same as the species called poison hemlock, Conium maculatum, which reportedly does not grow near Juneau.

Humans eat many of these species, presumably avoiding the most toxic ones; however, some toxins are found in other carrot-relatives be careful of eating these species. Ligusticum roots and leaves have made good human food, although it has been used by certain Native cultures to poison fish. Heracleum flowering stems can be eaten, if peeled; but the juices of this plant contain furanocoumarins that on human skin may be activated by sunlight to produce nasty blisters. Angelica stems and leaf stalks are edible; Conioselinum roots are used by humans in some regions. Roots and leaves of Osmorhiza are said to be edible. Despite rumors of toxicity, Oenanthe roots and stems are eaten by people in some places.

Note: hemlock derives from old English words meaning straw or stalk and plant; in other words, a plant with hollow stems. That has nothing to do with our local tree of the same name. The hemlock tree got its name, supposedly, because of a perceived similarity of the smell of its crushed foliage to the smell of the poison hemlock plant.

Mary F. Willson is a retired professor of ecology. On The Trails is a weekly column that appears in the Juneau Empire every Wednesday.

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What's on taproot: Carrots and their wild relatives - Juneau Empire

Localization of Repressor Activator Protein 1 (RAP1) to the telomere is essential for its telomeric functions. RAP1 homologs either directly bind the duplex telomere DNA or interact with telomere-binding proteins. We find that Trypanosoma brucei RAP1 relies on a unique double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) binding activity to achieve this goal. T. brucei causes human sleeping sickness and regularly switches its major surface antigen, variant surface glycoprotein (VSG), to evade the host immune response. VSGs are monoallelically expressed from subtelomeres, and TbRAP1 is essential for VSG regulation. We identify dsDNA and single-stranded DNA binding activities in TbRAP1, which require positively charged 737RKRRR741 residues that overlap with TbRAP1s nuclear localization signal in the MybLike domain. Both DNA binding activities are electrostatics-based and sequence nonspecific. The dsDNA binding activity can be substantially diminished by phosphorylation of two 737RKRRR741-adjacent S residues and is essential for TbRAP1s telomere localization, VSG silencing, telomere integrity, and cell proliferation.

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TbRAP1 has an unusual duplex DNA binding activity required for its telomere localization and VSG silencing - Science Advances