Research had suggested that the Y chromosome, responsible for the secretion of male hormones which in turn leads to the development of the male of the species, was deteriorating so rapidly that in 5 million years time it might not even exist at all.
However a new study has suggested that this decay has declined in speed.
The theory that the Y chromosome could be extinct was posited by Professor Jennifer Graves of Australian National University who suggested that it could be gone in 5 million years time. And genetics professor Brian Sykes went one step further in his book Adam’s Curse: A Future without Men, saying that it could be gone in as little as 100,000 years.
Jennifer Hughes at the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, reassures men though that they are not about to become an endangered species anytime soon.
“The Y is not going anywhere,” she has told BBC News. “We can’t rule out the possibility it could happen another time but the genes which are left on the Y are here to stay.”
Photo: Getty.
