Let's talk mutations.

http://www.biology-online.org/2/9_mutations.htm

Keep in mind that a male makes about 2,000 sperm every few seconds.

Oh, and it doesn't discuss crossing over and the like.

Mind, this isn't evidence for evolution, but evidence for increased variation.

Is this what you are looking for:

Mutation rates in mammalian genomes. http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/99/2/803

Deterministic Mutation Rate Variation in the Human Genome. http://www.genome.org/cgi/content/full/12/9/1350

Analysis of Primate Genomic Variation Reveals a Repeat-Driven Expansion of the Human Genome. http://www.genome.org/cgi/content/full/13/3/358

You might also want to check out my thread with links to papers describing the evolution of new genetic information by mutation and natural selection. http://www.christianforums.com/t81701

Genetics and mutations are some of the most interesting topics in science today, so I'm glad people are becoming more aware of them. I just worry sometimes that we might take it too far...and start playing "God".

I'll put one article here which I found very interesting. It's from Science magazine.

30 September 1997

Males Mutate More Than Females
Old fathers may be a genetic liability for their offspring. By analyzing a gene found on both the male and female sex chromosomes of birds, Swedish researchers have found evidence supporting the idea that older males are a source of the mutations that lead to genetic disease. The result, published in this month's Nature Genetics, also suggests that males have more input into evolutionary change than females.

For the last 90 years, geneticists have noted that children of older fathers tend to suffer from more genetic diseases. The standard explanation has been that fathers pass on more genetic mutations, because their sperm-producing cells divide throughout their lifetimes--as many as 400 times in a 30-year-old man. This provides many more chances for mistakes, as the DNA copies itself, than in egg cells, which only divide about 24 times.


The obvious way to test this idea in humans is to compare the mutation rate on the Y chromosome, which only males carry, with the female X chromosome. The trouble is that in the population overall, there is only one Y chromosome for every three Xs, and natural selection is less effective at weeding out harmful mutations from smaller numbers. Thus, a higher mutation rate on the Y might just reflect this quirk of chromosome numbers.


To avoid this confounding effect, evolutionary geneticist Hans Ellegren of the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala and his graduate student Anna-Karin Fridolfsson turned to birds. In birds, the females have mismatched sex chromosomes, designated "W" and "Z," while males have two "Zs." Therefore, the chromosome arrangement should drive down the apparent mutation rate in the male chromosome--the Z. If the male mutation rate is still higher, it is likely to be a real effect. The team sequenced a gene called CHD from males and females of birds, including warblers, flycatchers, and yellowhammers. Applying a statistical method for analyzing mutation rates, they showed that the gene accumulated mutations in males as much as 6.5 times faster than in females.


Population geneticist Brian Charlesworth, of the University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom, cautions that more work will be needed to verify the Ellegren team's conclusion. Already, though, the new results should tell baby boomers and birds alike to beware: there may be unintended consequences of siring a family when you are a senior citizen.

Copyright © 1997 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Genetics and mutations are some of the most interesting topics in science today, so I'm glad people are becoming more aware of them. I just worry sometimes that we might take it too far...and start playing "God".

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Although the reasonings of bioethics keep such an event at bay, it is rather inevitable. If humans are allowed to continue to to grow and flourish, we will change not only the enviroment around us but ourselves as well. Although this is not necessarily a bad thing, the open use of the technology does give way for it to have... evil applications.

As does the open use of pointy sticks.

LOL

Yes I find it very disturbing when I find out people in their 40-50-60's want children...first off because of great health risks to themselves and then even greater health risks to their children. Plus what kid would want to take care of a senior citizen when their a teen?? Personally, the latest I would ever have a kid is 34, but that's just me.

Angeldove97 said:

I just worry sometimes that we might take it too far...and start playing "God".

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pah. we've almost eliminated language and distance barriers, day and night have almost no meaning, people have gone to the moon and the bottom of the sea, vitamin supplements are used for whatever we lack, eliminate an entire civilization with a single bomb... there's not much where we haven't already acted godlike and are still getting better at it.

genetics are cool in any case... the untreatable/uncureable, like perhaps cancer, parkinson's disease, down's syndrome could be fixed.

Rising Tree said:

Can somebody give me a hand with this question?

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A genome is the complete genetic material for any cell. So I guess it would be a question of the number of cells in a human body.

However, that should be narrowed to those cells that can actually pass on genetic information, so it should be the number of germ cells in a human body.

1.2 trillion sperm are produced in an average man's life.

400,000 ovum is the amount for a woman.

Note: this may not actually be the information you are after. But it seems relevant.

The trillion is the US trillion, 10 ^ 12, by the way.

Rising Tree said:

You know, it just dawned on me--those aren't the numbers I need. What really counts is the number of children born per year. Multiply that number times the mutation rate, and we have the projected number of mutations passed onto the next generation per year.

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That cannot be correct, as on average every human has a couple of mutations.

Rising Tree said:

OK so 1-2 x 10[sup]-9[/sup] annual mutations per genome is the rate. How many genomes do we have to work with?

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Er, no. I'm rusty on genetics (I really should read a book or two on the subject), but the reference given is 1 to 2 x10[sup]-9[/sup] substitutions per site per year, not per genome (AFAIK, a "site" would be a base pair; someone please correct me on this if I am wrong).

This site has some info on mutations, including the mutation rate for humans: http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/M/Mutations.html

They mention that the avg mutation rate for humans is about 120 mutations per cell (but most are in the "junk DNA"). I recall reading somewhere else that the avg number of mutations in protein-coding DNA is around 1-4 per person.

(With an avg of 120 mutations per person, a genome size of 3.2 million base pairs, and a population of over 6 billion wouldn't this mean that their are enough total mutations in the human population to change the human genome a couple hundred thousand times over? Just curious...)

Hooray! Someone who knows what they are talking about. (I thought the genome thing sounded odd, as the Human Genome Project kept coming to mind.).