A call out to Geneticists / Biologists

[BelaLugosisShed]

On twitter last night and a poster ( Female, gender critical) claimed that human ova actually have a complete set of sex chromosomes rather than half - ‘23 in the outer layer and 23 inside’ and that we don’t actually need Male sperm to reproduce . She claims that it’s a big conspiracy that silences research.

Does anyone know if what she says is even partly correct / not some possible genetic mutation etc. ?
It sounds like science fiction.

My biology is too rusty to help here but I do remember reading that we don't 'need' males to reproduce, but possibly not for that reason... can't remember... Interesting stuff. (Following.)

what are these 'inner and outer layers' they refer to?

Umm based on my understanding (and remembering!)... oogenesis pauses between foetal development and ovulation, and at this stage they do have 46 - but just prior to ovulation they finish and when ovulation occurs they only have 23.

I'll see if I can find some info...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK10008/

I'm a biologist, though except for the occassional yeast or fungus Eukaryotes are not my field of expertise really.
Is she talking about polar bodies maybe?Polar body

I'm a molecular biologist.

It's bollocks.

(Also, what BeyondWitch posted^).

That's what I thought, igneo - though how they got "outer layer" and "inside" from that, I'm not sure

A little science can be a dangerous thing.
Sounds like they heard something and misinterpreted it.

What an interesting link, Beyond!

Still and all, OP, the human race has not been capable of parthogenesis, as far as we have been able to determine, for the whole of human history.

So I think your poster may just be a bit...into the woo-woo.

Like the people who claim that men can't be women because of sacred feminine essence or somesuch, as opposed to because females aren't born with penises.

It's not often I'm called on to remember oogenesis - it's usually spermatogensis on the "we all start off female" posts

Everybody else's science always looks more interesting during writing up time champion

I'm just remembering from 2nd year human bio - I'm on my third now and just starting my dissertation (which is nothing to do with reproduction either )

This sort of links into my Ph.D area of research. You can create embryos parthenogenetically, which are diploid And have two sets of maternal chromosomes. It does not and cannot happen naturally in mammals though. If it did happen, the embryo would fail, due to double doses of maternally imprinted genes. This leads to all sorts of horrendous embryo deformities

Oh I just saw this...
www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-42976858

Which specifically says, even in the news article aimed at everybody (not just scientists)...
"The process is very tightly controlled and timed in the human body - some eggs will mature during the teenage years, others more than two decades later.
An egg needs to lose half its genetic material during development, otherwise there would be too much DNA when it was fertilised by a sperm.
This excess is cast off into a miniature cell called a polar body, but in the study the polar bodies were abnormally large."

I went to a university that was, then, home to the MRC centre for reproductive immunology. I recall a lecture where it was mentioned that experiments had suggested that in some mammal species, the uterus needed to have the immunological challenge of non-self antigens on the surface of the zygote in order to achieve successful implantation.

I love FWR! Adds to my knowledge every day! Thank you, women.

OMG! Immaculate conception finally explained!

Val McDermid wrote a thriller about 20 years ago about this: lesbians reproducing without males, with some lab intervention. I assumed she'd invented the science, but maybe not

Blue Genes, it was called.

What islets said. Before the egg cell matures it has a full set of chromosomes, however, the reason all female (or all male) mammalian embryos don't develop properly is the need for genetic imprinting. I have a PhD in genetics, although not in this field, I did work down the corridor from a lab that focussed on genetic imprinting.

Genetic imprinting explained ☺ghr.nlm.nih.gov/primer/inheritance/updimprinting

Clicky link (I hope)
ghr.nlm.nih.gov/primer/inheritance/updimprinting

Thanks all 😍
Isn’t genetics fascinating?
I’ve been trying to find the tweet to link but can’t 🧐

Aah, found it >