{"id":32289,"date":"2011-03-06T16:43:47","date_gmt":"2011-03-06T16:43:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/the-genetic-gamesmanship-of-a-seven-sexed-creature-discoblog\/"},"modified":"2011-03-06T16:43:47","modified_gmt":"2011-03-06T16:43:47","slug":"the-genetic-gamesmanship-of-a-seven-sexed-creature-discoblog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/astronomy\/the-genetic-gamesmanship-of-a-seven-sexed-creature-discoblog.php","title":{"rendered":"The Genetic Gamesmanship of a Seven-Sexed Creature | Discoblog"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/740a6_sevensexesorganism1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-16494\" src=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/740a6_sevensexesorganism1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"610\" height=\"385\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><\/a>What could be better than two types of sexes? For one organism, the answer isn&rsquo;t three, but seven! And to top it off, these seven sexes aren&rsquo;t evenly distributed in a population, although researchers have now developed a mathematical model that can accurately estimate the probabilities in this crap-shoot game of sexual determination.<\/p><p>Meet <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Tetrahymena\"><em>Tetrahymena thermophila<\/em><\/a>, which in addition to its seven different sexes&mdash;conveniently named I, II, III, IV, V, VI, and VII&mdash;has such a complex sex life that it requires an extra nucleus. This fuzzy, single-celled critter has a larger macronucleus that takes care of most cellular functions and a smaller micronucleus dedicated to genetic conjugation.<\/p><p>The other odd thing about this one-celled wonder is that the population of the seven sexes are skewed, leading Unversity of Houston researcher Rebecca Zufall and her colleagues to ask: What gives?<\/p><p>To answer that question, they created <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1111\/j.1558-5646.2011.01266.x\/abstract;jsessionid=BE05C24B276A766C5495935EFAFC8784.d02t03?systemMessage=Due+to+scheduled+maintenance%2C+access+to+Wiley+Online+Library+will+be+disrupted+on+Saturday%2C+5th+Mar+between+10%3A00-12%3A00+GMT\">mathematical models of <em>T. thermophila<\/em><\/a> populations, and discovered that different versions of the same gene, or alleles, gave advantages to different sexes. Unlike humans, in which an individual&rsquo;s sex is fully determined by its genes, the genotypes of these creatures provide only <em>probabilities <\/em>of developing ...<\/p><p><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~a\/F5oOQetcw18K9-FfvLlgL7-CHI4\/0\/da\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/740a6_di\" border=\"0\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><\/a><br><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~a\/F5oOQetcw18K9-FfvLlgL7-CHI4\/1\/da\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/740a6_di\" border=\"0\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><\/a><\/p><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/740a6_6sJZb_vQLoE\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/740a6_uMddKE1YHCA\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What could be better than two types of sexes? For one organism, the answer isn&rsquo;t three, but seven! And to top it off, these seven sexes aren&rsquo;t evenly distributed in a population, although researchers have now developed a mathematical model &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/astronomy\/the-genetic-gamesmanship-of-a-seven-sexed-creature-discoblog.php\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"limit_modified_date":"","last_modified_date":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-astronomy"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32289"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32289\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}