Adam's Curse
Adam's Curse: A Future Without Men (also known as Adam's Curse: A Story of Sex, Genetics, and the Extinction of Men) is a 2003 book by Oxford University human genetics professor Bryan Sykes expounding his hypothesis that with the declining sperm count in men and the continual atrophy of the Y chromosome, within 5,000 generations (approximately 125,000 years) the male of the human species will become extinct.
Sykes believes one of the options for the survival of humanity is unisex reproduction by females: female eggs fertilised by the nuclear X chromosomes of another female and implanted using in vitro fertilisation methods. He also introduces the possibility of moving the SRY and associated genes responsible for maleness and male fertility to another chromosome, which he refers to as "the Adonis chromosome", engendering fertile males with an XX karyotype.
Read more about Adam's Curse: Opposing View
Famous quotes containing the words adam and/or curse:
“Had Adam tenderly reproved his wife, and endeavored to lead her to repentance instead of sharing in her guilt, I should be much more ready to accord to man that superiority which he claims; but as the facts stand disclosed by the sacred historian, it appears to me that to say the least, there was as much weakness exhibited by Adam as by Eve. They both fell from innocence, and consequently from happiness, but not from equality.”
—Sarah M. Grimke (17921873)
“She left the web, she left the loom,
She made three paces through the room,
She saw the water-lily bloom,
She saw the helmet and the plume,
She looked down to Camelot.
Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror cracked from side to side;
The curse is come upon me, cried
The Lady of Shalott.”
—Alfred Tennyson (18091892)