Emma Hilton Profile picture
Aug 31, 2021 8 tweets 3 min read Read on X
I honestly have no idea why scientists aren’t all developmental biologists.

This is what happens when a fly has a mutation that causes legs to grow where its antenna should be.
This is what happens when you cut pigmented and albino frog embryos in half across the midsection, then swap the head/tail ends.
This is what happens when you take the ‘make head/backbone’ cells from one frog embryo and stick them in another.
And this is what happens when you trick a frog embryo into believing a ‘make head’ signal halfway down its body.
This is what happens when a mouse paw can’t process which side is which.
This is what happens when you treat frog embryos with UV light (left; all tummy) or lithium chloride (right; all head).
This is what happens when you chop a limb off a salamander.
This is what happens when you trick a chick into growing for an extra wing.

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More from @FondOfBeetles

Nov 13
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?Image
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. Image
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. Image
Read 21 tweets
Nov 11
Ok, my charity wears off.

Bekker’s presentation of the “Hilton and Lundberg” argument is nonsense.

At no point have either of us, or anyone else we work with, reduced male advantage to simply muscle mass/strength. @TLexercise @Scienceofsport Image
In the contrary, we have consistently argued that male advantage stems from many physical then functional outcomes of male development.

We spent hours (actually days 😂) creating this graphic, trying to highlight key areas of physicality that underpin male advantage.

HowTF is this reduced to “it’s all muscle”?Image
In our original paper, we had a table upfront, highlighting (in a less pleasing presentation) the same type of metrics. Image
Read 7 tweets
Nov 11
I’m going to put my charitable hat on, and try to elucidate - maybe even, as good practice, steelman - an opposition argument.

Specifically, this one: Image
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). Image
Read 18 tweets
Nov 4
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.
Read 15 tweets
Nov 4
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.

The first was an argument against our proposal:
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.11…
@WileyGlobal The second was our response to those arguments:
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.11…
Read 11 tweets
Oct 29
Ricin is extremely bad for people.

So bad, it’s a viable way to way to wipe out populations.

So bad, it’s regulated at the same level of weapon as sarin and mustard gas.

So bad, the ricin lab at my alma mater was more heavily-regulated than the HIV (live, infectious) lab.
Anyone found with some home stash of ricin has no defence.

It comes from castor beans (common enough). But you don’t accidentally grind them up and extract the toxin as a kitchen experiment.
Ricin is a toxin that targets ribosomes. These are the molecules that, in each cell, make proteins.

Proteins are how your cells do their jobs. Stopping proteins being made is very bad.
Read 7 tweets

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