Lo! with a little rod I did but touch the honey of romance
Sex would be a very different proposition for humans if — like some animals including chimpanzees, macaques and mice — men had penises studded with small, hard spines.
Now researchers at Stanford University in California have found a molecular mechanism for how the human penis could have evolved to be so distinctly spine-free. They have pinpointed it as the loss of a particular chunk of non-coding DNA that influences the expression of the androgen receptor gene involved in hormone signalling.
The research also suggests a molecular mechanism for how we evolved bigger brains than chimpanzees and lost the small sensory whiskers that the apes — who are amongst our closest relatives and with whom it has been estimated we share 96% of our DNA — have on their face.
artwork { Tom Gallant, Japanese Iris, 2010 | Cut paper, glass, wood }
