Marc Robinson-RechaviThis is going into my undergrad teaching as "yes natural selection still affects humans"
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09031-w
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09031-w
Petrichor ᚄᚔᚅᚐᚁᚆᚃᚒᚔᚂ@marcrr Can you translate the first couple of sentences into Simple for me?
@sinabhfuil Many human pregnancies don't go to term, i.e. miscarriage. It was know that some are due to large genetic mutations. This study shows that many others are due to small but deleterious (bad for health) mutations, many which are new (the mutation happened in the egg or sperm).
The relevance to human evolution is that mutations which are deleterious are still eliminated: miscarriage due to mutation is a form of natural selection.
The relevance to human evolution is that mutations which are deleterious are still eliminated: miscarriage due to mutation is a form of natural selection.
@sinabhfuil Important to understand that unlike in sci-fi, mutation is a normal and frequent event, we each carry ≈100 new mutations which our parents didn't have. Most have no consequences, good or bad.
@marcrr Mother Nature saying "I wonder if… oh well, maybe not"
@marcrr Ah, interesting
Sara@marcrr am I reading this right that they think a lot of early pregnancy loss is down to the father contributing non-viable mutations?
which would be really different than the social narrative around early pregnancy loss, which tends to blame the mother for somehow being "inhospitable"
@sarae I must admit that I'm unaware of that social narrative. For biologists it's long been clear that paternal mutations are a major cause.
@marcrr oh, if you're a pregnant woman who miscarries, I think the usual assumption is that you did something wrong
I have never seen a man blamed for a miscarriage
@sarae ☹️ I tried writing several helpful replies but I don't really have much to say. Us scientists should communicate more and better about genetics, but how much reach will we have in a structurally sexist society?
Thanks for the exchange
Thanks for the exchange
@marcrr yeah, I have learned something here today too
idk maybe this will help in future conversations with friends or relatives who have lost wanted children
the way you and this article have explained it is definitely not anything I had heard about before this morning and I'm feeling sad and frustrated because I know several women who have blamed themselves to the point of suicidality for not being able to carry a pregnancy to term
which was prob not their fault
jeez