Multimedia Gallery
Echidna, South Stradbroke Island, Australia
This photo of an echidna was taken on South Stradbroke Island in Australia.
Scientists have long suspected that the sex chromosome that only males carry, the Y chromosome, is deteriorating, but until now, no one has understood the evolutionary processes that control this chromosome's demise. Now, a pair of Pennsylvania State University scientists, including a National Science Foundation graduate research fellow, has discovered that the Y chromosome is evolving at a rapid rate, resulting in a dramatic loss of genes that eventually could lead to the chromosome's complete disappearance. To learn more, see the Penn State news release Male Sex Chromosome Losing Genes by Rapid Evolution, Study Reveals. (Date of Image: August 2006) [See related image Here.]
Credit: Anton Nekrutenko, Penn State University
See other images like this on your iPhone or iPad download NSF Science Zone on the Apple App Store.
Images and other media in the National Science Foundation Multimedia Gallery are available for use in print and electronic material by NSF employees, members of the media, university staff, teachers and the general public. All media in the gallery are intended for personal, educational and nonprofit/non-commercial use only.
Images credited to the National Science Foundation, a federal agency, are in the public domain. The images were created by employees of the United States Government as part of their official duties or prepared by contractors as "works for hire" for NSF. You may freely use NSF-credited images and, at your discretion, credit NSF with a "Courtesy: National Science Foundation" notation.
Additional information about general usage can be found in Conditions.
Also Available:
Download the high-resolution JPG version of the image. (880 KB)
Use your mouse to right-click (Mac users may need to Ctrl-click) the link above and choose the option that will save the file or target to your computer.