@JaneSpeakman1@HJJoyceEcon Scientist: Oh look, half the people have a dangly thing between their legs and the other half are way less weird looking. I wonder if this division is important?
RW: Nah, I don’t think so.
@JaneSpeakman1@HJJoyceEcon Scientist: But look, the majority of the little people seem to be associated with two big people, one of each type, and the really little people spend a lot of time inside then fixed via their mouth to just one type of big person.
RW: I don’t see it.
@JaneSpeakman1@HJJoyceEcon Scientist: If you look at all the other life around these parts, they also seem to be divided into two main groups of body type. This seems pretty universal, now I look deeper. Are you sure this isn’t important?
RW: Ignore it.
@JaneSpeakman1@HJJoyceEcon Scientist: I really think I should consider whether I’ve discovered something fundamental here. Someone might give me a prize.
RW: I think we should group people not according to whether they *have* dangly or undangly bits, but whether they *want* dangly or undangly bits.
@JaneSpeakman1@HJJoyceEcon Scientist: <doubtful look>
RW: Yes, that makes a lot more sense as a categorisation.
Scientist: OK, but I’m going to carry on studying the Danglies and Undanglies. <gets labcoat on and runs after passing Dangly>
@JaneSpeakman1@HJJoyceEcon RW: <calling> Hang on, how do you know that person is a Dangly?
Scientist: <points to dangly bits>
RW: That’s a bit presumptuous though.
Scientist: <bats dangly bits>
RW: What if this person is really an Undangly?
Scientist: <eyes dart between RW and gently swaying dangly bits>
@JaneSpeakman1@HJJoyceEcon Scientist: I’ve discovered something cool about Danglies. Wanna hear?
RW: You can’t call them that.
Scientist: W..what? Do you remember back there when I swatted one of them?
RW: That wasn’t a Dangly.
Scientist: It dangled.
@JaneSpeakman1@HJJoyceEcon RW: That’s not how we recognise Danglies. We recognise them by their internal sense of Dangliness.
Scientist: I can’t see inside their heads.
RW: They don’t have Dangly brains.
Scientists: <backing away slowly> But you clearly have a lot of dangle going on in your head. I’m off.
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Why male advantage in sport is not a social construct: height.
Height is a key difference between males and females. What is nature v nurture? What does that mean for sport?
Bigger skeletons are most obviously driven by longer bone growth. Key bones like those in your thigh (“long bones”) grow from their end to get longer, making you taller.
The site of bone lengthening is called the “epiphyseal plate” or “growth plate”. Here, cells divide/enlarge, making new tissue that pushes the bone ends apart. This tissue calcifies and is replaced by bone, leading to lengthwise growth.
Let’s set a concrete example: the 10 second barrier (100m sprint).
Wiki - allowing for small errors - tells me that around 200 male sprinters have broken it. We know, of course, that no female sprinter has been close (Flo Jo record 10.49s).
For the following, I’m going to ignore the premise that humans might be close to biomechanical limits over a 100m sprint. It’s just an illustration.
If we follow world record progressions, we see trends (not just in sprinting, the graph below is from a swimming event).
As the latest on Olympic boxer Imane Khelif is reported, a diagnosis of 5ARD is almost certain. I and others first raised the likelihood of this DSD a few months ago.
Understanding how the developmental biology of DSDs interacts with sports categorisation is crucial.
I spoke about this with Andrew Gold during the competition:
And I recently gave a talk at a meeting, on DSDs, male advantage and sports categorisation. I will add some slides below.
In August, we were invited by the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports @WileyGlobal to make an argument for screening for eligibility into the female category.
We proposed a cheek swab screen of DNA, performed before an athlete is thrust into the spotlight, with follow up care in the case of unexpected results.
@WileyGlobal This month, two responses to this editorial have been published side-by-side.