Do men face extinction?

For a long time now men have been faced with the absolutely devastating news that the thing that makes you a man, that stumpy little thing that serves very little purpose, is getting smaller and smaller, and may soon disappear completely. Don't panic, I'm not talking about... that... I'm talking about the Y chromosome.

The human chromosomes are arranged into 23 pairs with 22 of those pairs being identical. The 23rd pair determines our sex, and is either an XX, making us female, or XY making us male. When our parents came together on the day of our conception (as horrible as it may be to think about), it was a flip of the coin whether we'd become male, or female. For those of us who were lucky enough to to gain that little Y, we were endowed with a gene which would become responsible for what dangles between our legs which makes us a man.

Over a decade ago now, scientists predicted that Y chromosome, and the genetic information it carries, would soon degrade into non-existence. They came to this conclusion because of evidence suggesting that recombination, which is the sharing and shuffling of pieces of DNA between chromosomes, was very low between the X and the Y. This would result in damaged genes which could not be replaced, eventually leading to its total degradation, giving men an expiration date of around 5-10 million years (which would make our best before slightly after a tin of beans).

In the mad panic that ensued, scientists turned to our common ancestor, the chimp, to determine our fate. These experiments actually showed that the chimps Y chromosome is much smaller than our own. This is because there is a much higher level of necessity for the chimp to produce quality sperm, owing to the female chimps promiscuity. This has resulted in genes for producing sperm being selected for and enhanced, with other non-sperm-related genes on the Y being lost. In this instance, our monogamy could have saved our Y chromosome, as there is a much lower selection pressure for producing sperm, with other qualities also being selected for.

Even with this information, there are still skeptics who believe the Y chromosome is degrading, and has been since it first came into existence. Whilst this may just be some wishful thinking, it's still important to remember, its not the size of the Y, it's how you use it.   

What do you think would happen if we lost the Y chromosome? Would humanity somehow carry on as monosexual? Comment below and let me know, or email newsinscience@gmail.com with any questions.