Welcome back to Science You Can Bring Home To Mom! This month, in honor of pride month, we are discussing the science behind gender and biological sex. Just like many other attributes of the human brain, our common understanding of gender is rife with oversimplification and misunderstanding. But digging a little deeper can help us learn to empathize with others and understand ourselves better. As a human attribute, gender is inherently biopsychosocial—it’s influenced by biological, psychological, and social factors. And each of these paradigms is far more complex than it may seem on the surface. Next week, we’ll dissect some…
Comments closedTag: Triple X Syndrome
Last week, I explained that most individuals have 22 pairs of autosomal chromosomes and 1 pair of sex chromosomes (for a total of 46 chromosomes all together). But a subset of people has chromosomal abnormalities in the form of an extra chromosome or a missing chromosome. Most chromosome abnormalities are fatal and result in early miscarriages, but some abnormalities are survivable. One of the most common survivable chromosome abnormalities is Down syndrome, in which there are three copies of chromosome 21 instead of two (known as a trisomy). The extra chromosome copy causes physical, mental, and developmental abnormalities. There are…
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