Will Chromosome Y Go Bye-Bye?
Is the End of Men Imminent?
By RADHA CHITALE
ABC News Medical Unit
July 17, 2009

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What makes a man a man? Socially, that is a complicated question. Genetically, however, it is as simple as a single Y chromosome.
IS THE MALE Y CHROMOSOME DISAPPEARING?
Is the male Y chromosome disappearing?
(ABC News Photo Illustration)

But guys, that chromosome is in trouble.

In a new study, researchers say there is a dramatic loss of genes from the human Y chromosome that eventually could lead to its complete disappearance -- in the next few millennia. While the Y chromosome's degeneration has been known to geneticists and evolutionary biologists for decades, the study sheds new light on some of the evolutionary processes that may have contributed to its demise and posits that, as the degeneration continues, the Y chromosome could disappear from our genetic repertoire entirely.

"It's certainly possible, but it's difficult to predict when it will happen," said Kateryna Makova, an associate professor of biology at Penn State University, who led the study, which was published Thursday in the journal PLoS Genetics.

Although geneticists and evolutionary biologists agree that the Y chromosome is degenerating -- and far more rapidly than its X counterpart -- they reject the idea of a world far in the future where men are obsolete.