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How the human penis lost its spines

By Elizabeth Landau, CNN
March 9, 2011 1:00 p.m. EST

NewsPulse
Most popular stories right now

How the human penis lost its

spines
Scientists are seeking to understand the underlying reasons why humans and chimpanzees have key differences.

Website for those born this

STORY HIGHLIGHTS (CNN) -- You've read the headline, and it probably made you giggle. way

Humans lack a switch in the
genome that would "turn on"
penile spines, sensory whiskers
Go ahead. Get it out of your system. Then take a deep breath and
Tornado apparently touches
consider how evolution affected a few specific body parts, and why.
down in Alabama

Some scientists theorize that the Humans and chimpanzees share more than 97% of DNA, but there TV exec convicted of
absence of spines encourages beheading to learn fate
are some fairly obvious differences in appearance, behavior and
pair bonding
intellect. Now, scientists are learning more than ever about what
Chimpanzees and mice both Columnist David Broder dies
have penile spines and sensory
makes us uniquely human.
whiskers Explore the news with NewsPulse »
We know that humans have larger brains and, within the brain, a
larger angular gyrus, a region associated with abstract concepts.
RELATED TOPICS Also, male chimpanzees have smaller penises than humans, and their
Biological Anthropology penises have spines. Not like porcupine needles or anything, but
Genomics small pointy projections on the surface that basically make the organ
Life Sciences bumpy.
Primates

Gill Bejerano, a biologist at Stanford University School of Medicine,

and colleagues wanted to further investigate why humans and
chimpanzees have such differences. They analyzed the genomes of
humans and closely related primates and discovered more than 500
regulatory regions -- sequences in the genome responsible for
controlling genes -- that chimpanzees and other mammals have, but
humans do not. In other words, they are making a list of DNA that has
been lost from the human genome during millions of years of
evolution. Results from their study are published in the journal Nature.

Think of it like light bulbs and their switches, where the light bulbs are

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genes and the switches are these controlling DNA sequences. If Healthcare Jobs
Sales and Marketing Jobs
there's no bulb, the switch can't turn the light on. Now imagine there's Finance Jobs
one bulb and five switches to turn it on at different times in different
places. If you take one of the switches away, the bulb still works in Quick Job Search
the four other contexts, but not in the fifth.

This study looks at two particular switches. Bejerano and colleagues

took the switch information from a chimpanzee's genome and more options »

essentially "hooked it up" to a reporter gene, a gene whose effects

scientists can track as an organism develops. They injected the
reporter gene in a mouse egg to see what the switch would do.

They found that in one case, a switch that had been lost in humans
normally turns on an androgen receptor at the sites where sensory
whiskers develop on the face and spines develop on the penis. Mice
and many other animals have both of these characteristics, and
humans do not.

"This switch controls the expression of a key gene that's required for
the formation of these structures," said David Kingsley, a study
co-author at Stanford University. "If you kill that gene -- smash the
lightbulb -- which has been done previously in mouse genetics, the
whiskers don't grow as much and the penile spines fail to form at all."

Humans have kept the "light bulb," however -- we have androgen

receptors, but ours don't produce whiskers or penile spines, he said.
Chimpanzees do have small sensory whiskers, not as externally
obvious as in cats or mice, but we don't have them at all.

To sum up: Humans lack a switch in the genome that would "turn on"
penile spines and sensory whiskers. But our primate relatives, such
as chimpanzees, have the switch, and that's why they differ from us
in these two ways.

And humans are somewhat exceptional in this regard -- a lot of male

primates have bumpy penises; mice, which are rodents, have them,
too.

The basic idea of natural selection is that over many generations, an

animal species loses traits that do not contribute to survival or
reproduction, and develops features that do. In humans, this process
takes place over hundreds of thousands to millions of years. So,
there must be a good reason that the guys you know look different.

In fact, speculation abounds about what purpose the spines serve.

One theory is that they are used in sperm competition; if the male's
goal is to get his mate pregnant, he will want to take out her previous
partner's sperm if she's recently had sex. The bumpy penis may be
better for removing that sperm from the female, scientists theorize.

There's probably less debate about why humans reap benefits from
having larger brains than chimpanzees, Kingsley said.

The other "switch" examined in this study probably has to do with the
expansion of brain regions in humans. Kingsley and colleagues
believe they have found a place in their genome comparisons where
the loss of DNA in humans may have contributed to the gain of
neurons in the brain. That is to say, when humans evolved without a
particular switch, the absence of that switch allowed the brain to
grow further.

The earliest human ancestors probably had sensory whiskers, penile

spines and small brains, Kingsley said. Evolutionary events to
remove the whiskers and spines and enlarge the brain probably took
place after humans and chimpanzees split apart as separate species
(Some 5 million to 7 million years ago), but before Neanderthals and
humans diverged (about 600,000 years ago), Kingsley said

We know that Neanderthals had big brains like ours. They probably

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didn't have penile spines, either. There are traces of the Neanderthal
genome in humans today, meaning Neanderthals and humans
probably mated.

"The fact that Neanderthals were also missing penile spines is at

least consistent with the idea that the mating structures of
Neanderthals and modern humans were compatible enough that
some interbreeding occurred," Kingsley said.

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InsaneO1 sign up
We share common DNA because most life on Earth share it but we were never to
monkeys and never evolved. That is why stupid scientists can never find Missing Link comment
because it never existed. Monkeys can never evolve in to humans!!!!!!
0 minutes ago | Like | Report abuse

dannyish2006
some of us are still in the evolution stage..
1 minute ago | Like | Report abuse

kreamowheat
Must be diggin pretty deep, CNN; since you had to do an article on monkey slongs.
1 minute ago | Like | Report abuse

SheepDetectr
Funny how the fossil record does not support any of these lies in any way shape or form. Animals AND humans appeared
suddenly fully formed. They have found NOTHING with bits and pieces attached. Microevolution is REAL! Changes within the
animals themselves but Macro Evolution is NOT is not true at a... more
1 minute ago | Like | Report abuse

DanoMcRoo
I'll bet Janet Napolitano's penis still has spines!!!
1 minute ago | Like (2) | Report abuse

kevindrew12
I'm bone idle.

3 of 5 3/9/2011 1:47 PM
How the human penis lost its spines - CNN.com http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/03/09/penis.spines.genes/index.html

I'm not lazy, I just can't get an erection.

1 minute ago | Like | Report abuse

ChiTownArkie
As soon as the word "evolution" was mentioned, the GOP and T-baggies started a campaign to debunk the article.
1 minute ago | Like | Report abuse

CharlieTee
Yeah, there's TONS of posts about that!
0 minutes ago | Like | Report abuse

OliBE
I will take the larger penis over the bumpy one. My bed shakes enough already
2 minutes ago | Like | Report abuse

chutch15
For God's sake, if you're going to look at genetics at this level, turn off the switch that causes baldness!
2 minutes ago | Like (1) | Report abuse

IMUSAPatriot
What garbage. Scientists make this assumption that because we "share" 97% of our DNA with chimps that we must have
evolved from them, yet there's still absolutely no evidence of that. During the 60's I remember all the hype surrounding the
search for the "Missing Link"...the fossilized remains of an... more
2 minutes ago | Like | Report abuse

jebarringer
No scientist believes that we evolved "from chimps". That's a common misconception. We and chimps share
a common ancestor, something that was not truly human nor truly chimp.

We have literally tons of fossils of missing links. Another misconception you seem to have fallen for.
1 minute ago | Like | Report abuse

littledaemon
The baby chimp on the left (in the picture) is making a face like he is watching p0rn and ma$turbat1ng. LOL
2 minutes ago | Like | Report abuse

turtlemouth
I find it odd that the science community is only recently allowing for the possibility that Neanderthals and humans interbred. It
makes perfect sense to me - caveman hooks up with cavegirl who looked pretty hot in the light of the campfire but was totally
something else in the cold light of day.Non... more
3 minutes ago | Like (1) | Report abuse

NotUrWay
Elizabeth needs to get laid!
3 minutes ago | Like | Report abuse

faycebooque
You mean you guys don't have penis spines?
3 minutes ago | Like (2) | Report abuse

adenstoss
DNA sequencing of the human genome and research of diseases has been set back years by politicians who deny
recent discoveries as socially incorrect
4 minutes ago | Like | Report abuse

4 of 5 3/9/2011 1:47 PM
How the human penis lost its spines - CNN.com http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/03/09/penis.spines.genes/index.html

sweetndandy
yes-- we are descended from little hairy upright primates that jabbered to each other and lived in africa. deal with
it- and move on.
4 minutes ago | Like (2) | Report abuse

BabeBennett
Some Neanderthal and modern human interbreeding occurred? Ohhhhhhh....THAT explains my brother-in-law....
4 minutes ago | Like (1) | Report abuse

SheepDetectr
Sci-fi articles are the best.
5 minutes ago | Like (1) | Report abuse

lj1355
To believe that this incredible machine we call our body was formed by a series of fluke events through evolution
is unbelievable. I don't care if it has been 10 gazillion years, if there was evolution we would have seen evidence.
Someone show me the link between this monkey and me. Doesn't exist.
5 minutes ago | Like | Report abuse

MagickMan
You got one thing right. "If there was evolution there would be evidence." And there is! Go to a museum
sometime.
1 minute ago | Like | Report abuse

laminate777
The english Bible may say that Eve was taken from Adam's ribs, but in the original Hebrew the word is not actually
rib, but instead "curve". It helps to do some research...
5 minutes ago | Like (2) | Report abuse

CharlieTee
Actually it's old hebrew slang for credit card
2 minutes ago | Like | Report abuse

Styx2bricks
Our alien genetic manipulators decided we no longer needed to be ribbed for her pleasure
5 minutes ago | Like (2) | Report abuse
| View all comments

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