Bainbridge: The X in Sex

From Scienticity

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David Bainbridge, The X in Sex : How the X Chromosome Controls our Lives. Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, 2003. 205 pages, with bibliographic references and index.

Awhile back, I decided to make alphabetical review directories, and of course as soon as I did I became focused on the missing letters. I opened up my library’s catalog and did a title search with just the letter "X". And sure enough, The X in Sex by David Bainbridge popped up.

Now, at first I was a little skeptical. And the cover increased that skepticism; I mean, it might be the back, but that’s still a naked woman! Fortunately, that’s when the subtitle caught my eye: How the X Chromosome Controls Our Lives.

Awesome! I read Matt Ridley’s Genome a few years back (awesome book, by the way), and the chapter about the sex chromosomes hinted at X-Y rivalry. He said he explored it further in his earlier published The Red Queen, but when I finally read that earlier book this year I was disappointed to find it didn’t focus on the chromosomes. But this book, The X in Sex, is only about how the X and Y chromosomes came to be and how they affect people. I had high hopes.

And, it turns out, Bainbridge is a wonderful popular science writer! The book is rather short--224 pages--and it reads like a fascinating lecture series with an intelligent and charismatic professor. As I read it, I could almost see him pacing in front of a chalkboard, making wild hand gestures. Now, the book has very long chapters, which usually drives me insane in a science book, but there are lots of subsections that provide natural breathing points. And quite honestly, I didn’t put this one down too often: it was just too interesting.

At this point, you’re probably thinking: what could possibly be so interesting about a chromosome? But for the record, I haven’t taken a science course since high school, so obviously I only read science books aimed at a general audience. This one wasn’t technical so much as anecdotal; sure, there were some detailed parts, but Bainbridge talks you through them like a pro.

In order to convince you that the book is worth your time, I’m going to tell you some of the most interesting things I learned. Like when I was reading Death By Black Hole, I’d come across passages and think “Gee, that’d be a good cocktail conversation starter!” Here we go:

While everyone associates hemophilia with royalty, and thus thinks of it as something resulting from incest, it actually isn’t. It’s attached to the X chromosome, and since men only get one X chromosome, if they get a diseased one they don’t have a healthy one to cancel it out (are you with me so far?). Soooo the reason so many European royal family members had hemophilia was that Queen Victoria’s father passed it along to her, and her children spread out to lots of different European families.

Do you know why calico cats are almost always female? This is really cool, but it requires some backstory. Ok: women have two X chromosomes-one from their mother and one from their father. But these two X’s are different, so the body has to figure out a way to decide which X chromosome to ‘listen to.’ And so, not completely randomly but close enough, in a female fetus each gene will ’switch off’ one X chromosome. With calico cats, that means that some of their X chromosomes have the gene for orange/marmalade/whatever you want to call that colour and some don’t. And the ‘patchiness’ of X chromosomes switching on and off is what makes their fur patchy!

I found this book fascinating and easily understandable, and for anyone curious about how genetics affects people, I think you’ll really enjoy this one! The funny stories were actually funny (which is surprisingly rare in science writing) and Bainbridge’s intelligence shines through. I highly recommend it.

-- Notes by EVA