<story><title>Scientists have traced human tail loss to a short sequence of genetic code</title><url>https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/23/world/humans-tails-genetic-mutation-junk-dna-scn/index.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>npstr</author><text>Nature does not refactor. There&amp;#x27;s the laryngeal nerve somewhere in the neck of mammals that has to go around a blood vessel. On Giraffes, this runs all the way down the neck, around said blood vessel, than back up, all that just to connect two places in the upper neck that are inches apart. Evolution writes the ultimate spaghetti code.&lt;p&gt;More info:
&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;berto-meister.blogspot.com&amp;#x2F;2011&amp;#x2F;08&amp;#x2F;unintelligent-design-giraffes-laryngeal.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;berto-meister.blogspot.com&amp;#x2F;2011&amp;#x2F;08&amp;#x2F;unintelligent-des...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>KennyBlanken</author><text>Rarely is human genetics this simple. For ages geneticists thought large swaths of the human genome were &amp;quot;junk&amp;quot; and over time more and more of it has been proven to have a purpose or function, it just wasn&amp;#x27;t readily apparent for various reasons.&lt;p&gt;Think of the human genome as sort of the ultimate dependency hell...</text></item><item><author>joshuamcginnis</author><text>I believe this suggests that we could CRISPR an embryo to knock-out the offending Alu element in the TBXT gene and the child will develop a tail.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>water-data-dude</author><text>Early developmental biology (by “early” I mean early pregnancy) is the shit you Do Not Touch. Each step of development is highly dependent on the previous steps (assuming this bit’s here, that bit’s there, etc.). If you make a change it’s extremely likely to be fatal or have negative consequences like birth defects, and the likelihood of a bad outcome climbs steeply as you move the change earlier and earlier in the process. That’s why pretty much every animal - humans, tigers, whales, lizards - looks the same when they’re a teeny tiny little fetus.&lt;p&gt;My example is testicles! Testicles begin in the same place as ovaries, which made a lot of sense back when we were coldblooded! Having a pair of balls dangling in a soft pouch between your legs isn’t a strategy you adopt if you can help it. In the alternate timeline where lizard people rose to dominate the earth instead of humans they don’t have “Ouch, I’ve been hit in the balls!” humor.&lt;p&gt;But the testicles form next to the kidneys early on in the developmental process (and as we’ve established, you don’t fuck with those stages), so they have to migrate south VERY late in the development! Because they SCHLOOP on down after everything else is pretty much in place, it weakens the abdominal wall, which is why men are more prone to certain types of hernias than women are.</text></comment>
<story><title>Scientists have traced human tail loss to a short sequence of genetic code</title><url>https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/23/world/humans-tails-genetic-mutation-junk-dna-scn/index.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>npstr</author><text>Nature does not refactor. There&amp;#x27;s the laryngeal nerve somewhere in the neck of mammals that has to go around a blood vessel. On Giraffes, this runs all the way down the neck, around said blood vessel, than back up, all that just to connect two places in the upper neck that are inches apart. Evolution writes the ultimate spaghetti code.&lt;p&gt;More info:
&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;berto-meister.blogspot.com&amp;#x2F;2011&amp;#x2F;08&amp;#x2F;unintelligent-design-giraffes-laryngeal.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;berto-meister.blogspot.com&amp;#x2F;2011&amp;#x2F;08&amp;#x2F;unintelligent-des...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>KennyBlanken</author><text>Rarely is human genetics this simple. For ages geneticists thought large swaths of the human genome were &amp;quot;junk&amp;quot; and over time more and more of it has been proven to have a purpose or function, it just wasn&amp;#x27;t readily apparent for various reasons.&lt;p&gt;Think of the human genome as sort of the ultimate dependency hell...</text></item><item><author>joshuamcginnis</author><text>I believe this suggests that we could CRISPR an embryo to knock-out the offending Alu element in the TBXT gene and the child will develop a tail.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dingdingdang</author><text>Nature does not refactor, except when it does as in the case of going from 48 to 46 chromosomes (great apes-&amp;gt;humans). Nice write-up and slightly novel hypothesis at: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;molecularcytogenetics.biomedcentral.com&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;10.1186&amp;#x2F;s13039-016-0283-3&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;molecularcytogenetics.biomedcentral.com&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;10....&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>