Ever had a moment where you suddenly realized something scientific and related it to stuff you’d read on this site?
Was in a bio class the other day, and the teacher’s going on about diseases related to sex chromosomes, briefly mentions something called Klinefelter’s.
She says “a side effect of this is something known as gynocomastia[sic], who knows what that is?” I’m like “It’s men with boobs.” Wrong, she says. “Listen to the word. Gyno. Gyno. What do you think it is?” The class laughs a little and she proceeds with some explanation about how it’s a form of underdeveloped hermaphrodism, describing something equivalent to what you’d see in an organism with two Barr bodies. I’m like whatever, teacher’s wrong, drop it.
Next, she’s like “Another side effect is hypogonadism. That’s when your testicles get really big, so these people have gynocomastia[sic] and hypogonadism, so two vestigial sex organs with enlarged testicles” I can’t take it anymore, and finally explain that gynecomastia comes from gyn meaning woman and mastia meaning breast, and that hypo gonadism would be shrunken testicles, not enlarged ones.
Everyone’s looking at me, going “why on earth would you know that?” I was considering explaining PCT and hypo vs. hyper caloric diets, but figured that would just be weird.
For anyone with genetics knowledge: Same teacher explains that the closer the genes are on a chromosome, the more likely they are to produce recombinants, and that a recombinant is a homozygous recessive organism. I’m beating my head against the textbook. Note to self: don’t write down the lecture.