This page has been archived and is no longer updated. Whether an animal will become a male, a female, or a hermaphrodite is determined very early in development. Scientists have worked for hundreds of years to understand the sex-determination system. For instance, in B.

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Health Conditions Related to Chromosomal Changes
We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from. To learn more or opt-out, read our Cookie Policy. Sarah Richardson is a historian and philosopher of science who focuses on the intersections between race and sex and the sciences. In her new book, Sex Itself: The Search for Male and Female in the Human Genome , she explores how cultural gender norms have influenced the study of sex in the genome, and vice versa. Earlier this week, I spoke to her on the phone about sex, gender, and two chromosomes called X and Y. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Susannah Locke: We've been calling the X and Y chromosomes "sex chromosomes" for about years. What's wrong with that? Sarah Richardson: When I first got into this subject, I just assumed that X and Y were always known as the sex chromosomes — meaning that they were naturally and obviously the markers of sex.
Description
The Y chromosome is one of the two sex chromosomes in humans the other is the X chromosome. The sex chromosomes form one of the 23 pairs of human chromosomes in each cell. The Y chromosome spans more than 59 million building blocks of DNA base pairs and represents almost 2 percent of the total DNA in cells. Each person normally has one pair of sex chromosomes in each cell. The Y chromosome is present in males, who have one X and one Y chromosome, while females have two X chromosomes. Identifying genes on each chromosome is an active area of genetic research. Because researchers use different approaches to predict the number of genes on each chromosome, the estimated number of genes varies. The Y chromosome likely contains 50 to 60 genes that provide instructions for making proteins. Because only males have the Y chromosome, the genes on this chromosome tend to be involved in male sex determination and development.
NCBI Bookshelf. Although both mammals and fruit flies produce XX females and XY males, their chromosomes achieve these ends using very different means. The sex-determining mechanisms in mammals and in insects such as Drosophila are very different.