Emma Hilton Profile picture
Feb 21, 2022 12 tweets 4 min read Read on X
This is your regular reminder that I am not an entomologist and I do not study beetles.

My handle is derived from a quote about creationism and I research human genetics and genetic disorders, including one that kills males.

Here is a motor neuron I grew in a dish.
I do not study cool things like…

Jewel beetles. Studies of their iridescence (like liquid crystals) has helped paint chemists. It’s also surprisingly good camo (expt: attach bright or dull wings to mealworms and see which get eaten by birds…).
Dung beetles. They roll crap around all day. Their immune systems are a source of some interest.
Whirligig beetles. They have a tight turning circle for an inflexible body. Boat people are intrigued. London cabbies look smugly on.
Bombardier beetles. Toxic explosions of liquid from their tummy. Apparently, they might inform the design of fire extinguishers and nebulisers, but we’re all thinking jet packs, right?
Namibian desert beetles. How we might harvest water from thin air. Note: not by licking them. I don’t think.
Spanish fly. Beetlejuice. Juice for men, if you get my meaning.
Remote-control search-and-rescue beetle. Enough said.
I wish I studied beetles 😂

Source: popularmechanics.com/science/animal…
And how do beetles become male or female?

Well, it was in a beetle species that Nettie Stevens discovered the XY chromosome system.

vox.com/platform/amp/2…
And a key gene in beetle sex determination is called doublesex.

Males have a long form and females have a short form of doublesex.

The short, female form is made by the action of a protein called transformer.

Or TRA for short.

That is, TRA can convert male>female.
And a final beetle sex fact.

A male flour beetle will ‘mate’ with another. Maybe so when this second male mates with a female, he actually contributes the first male’s sperm. Or the first male is clearing out the old before he finds his own female.

Anyway, here you go.

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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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