Genes Show Men are Dirty Whores...

[johnny861]

Genes Show Men Slept Around
Genetic research chronicles human reproductive history

New research confirms the stereotype: Men have indeed been sleeping around more than women. The proof is in the genes.

Researchers at the University of Arizona in Tucson have dispelled some widely held beliefs about mating and migration patterns in humans with the compilation of a genetic record of humanity's reproductive history.

The scientists report that men appear to have traveled widely to mate. They also say that men and women differed in their participation in reproduction, while it was previously thought that men and women both played an equal role in mating. And the researchers have found that more men than women get squeezed out of the mating game, while twice as many women as men pass their genes to the next generation.

"It is a pattern that's built up over time," says Jason Wilder, lead author of the study. "The norm through human evolution is for more women to have children than men. There are men around who aren't able to have children, because they are being outcompeted by more successful males."


Male mutation

For their study, Wilder and colleagues looked at the Y chromosome and mitochondrial DNA. The Y chromosome differentiates males from females. Mitochondrial DNA is used to trace the lineage of females.

Scientists have long believed that the reason DNA from the Y chromosome has much less variability than mitochondrial DNA is because a beneficial mutation on the Y chromosome swept through the whole world.

Wilder and colleagues examined this theory by testing Y chromosome DNA and mitochondrial DNA from three far-flung populations of humans: The Khoisan of southern Africa, Mongolian Khalks and highland Papua New Guineans. For each group, DNA from 25 people was tested.

Uncommon ancestors

If in fact a beneficial mutation had swept through males, men's common paternal ancestor would be the same age no matter where the researchers looked. Instead, the age of men's common ancestor differed between the groups.

"Because we don't think the pattern we see was caused by an event that swept across the globe, we had to reexamine our assumptions about whether equal numbers of men and women are mating," says Wilder.

The second common belief that the researchers proved false is that women's genes traveled farther than men's. In fact, the genes of both sexes traveled equal distances.

Previously, scientists thought that women's genes were more widely dispersed due to the common marriage practice of patrilocality, where women moved from their native village to their husband's village.

This would mean that there should be bigger differences between populations in Y chromosome DNA than in mitochondrial DNA. However, through testing 389 people from 10 distinct human populations, the researchers found otherwise.


More variations

Using new technology, the researchers also found many more variations of the Y chromosome than previously thought. The new technique revealed that both types of DNA differ to the same degree among populations.

This implies that even though only half as many males are getting their genes into the next generation, they are traveling around more than women to do it.

And it doesn't mean that mass populations are migrating across continents—more likely it was explorers and sailors who slept around during their travels.

The research will be reported in the journals Nature Genetics and Molecular Biology and Evolution.

[MysteryMeat]

ummm... "new research"???

fucking please.