Why XY?

Day 12 June 2 – Why XY?

So there was nothing special going on at the farm today until 9PM so we just relaxed. At around 11AM some guy drove up shook hands and came inside with a plastic bag. We sat down at the greeting room table and drank a cup of tea; the black plastic bag sitting on the table. Now keep in mind, I don’t speak Arabic, I have no idea what the hell is going on; I just roll with it till I can figure out what they are doing. It became clear with the new guy opened the plastic bag and poured 50,000 Egyptian pounds onto the table(that is a little over 10,000 USD$). Well this surprised me, not in the least what I was expecting. It was all the money he made off the harvest a few days ago. People here only work in cash I found out, the banks don’t work the same way here Egypt. People don’t write checks or wire money, its all cash.
Over lunch I remembered something Mohamed said on the first day and asked about it. He had mentioned an YY male. I’ll be honest, I had too many fun friends in my high school freshman biology class to really learn anything. So I didn’t know what that meant but it was obvious it meant something. Like in that Phil Collins song, “It all means something and yet nothing to me.” So I asked. They explained that they are creating what are known as SuperMales.
This is how it works now. Males are XY and Females are XX genetically. After fish eggs hatch, for twelve days they don’t have sexual organs yet. Fish that have male organs are physically male and fish that are XY are genetically male. A normal male is the wild is both physically and genetically male. Their sex is already decided in their genes but the organs have not yet formed. Because physically male fish grow larger faster, farmers only want to grow and sell male fish. Because of this fact fish farmers add testosterone to the baby fish so even if they are genetically female they will grow male sex organs. While this is safe, it is expensive and only 90% effective, which causes problems with the fish reproduce at the wrong time. Also, people don’t like it that the fish they eat are given hormones.
If people could genetically change the fish so all of the children are males it would be great. If it were possible for two males, two XYs, to have children all of their kids would be male. So the way to make all babies males without using hormones is simple, figure out how two males can have sex!?!?! Well SuperMales are that solution; they are genetically males with female sex organs, guys who have babies. During those twelve days that the baby fish don’t have sexual organs, give them estrogen. That way even if the fish is genetically male they will grow female sexual organs.
Unfortunately, this is not the end of the process. I don’t really understand what the problem is but this is what I got. When you give the estrogen to a bunch of fish about half are genetically male and half are genetically female. Now Supermales are ONLY the ones that are genetically males with female sexual organs. But the only way to distinguish a Supermale from a female is to either genetically test each fish or to see if their offspring are all males. This is a pain in the ass and cots lots of money. Dr. Ishmail had made at one time 30 SuperMales, but he estimates it would take 1000 to be effective on the farm.
On a different subject, at 9PM we walked across the street with Mohamed to the catfish farm Dr. Ishmail owns. There we smashed up the Pituitary gland we collected a few days ago and mixed it with saline water. We then injected this into female fish who’s eggs were not yet ripe. We did this so that tomorrow we would be able to artificially spawn catfish again.
The rest of the day was wonderfully uneventful; I sat around and read my book. I read the entire book Uncle Chris gave me, Riding With the Blue Moth today. Amazing book, It goes for tragic, to depressing, to hopeful, to heartwarming in a few hundred pages. And it’s lots of fun if you are super awesome and have ridden your bike across the country. P.S. I’m bragging but I got 5 As and 1 B this last semester. I got my only B in Marine Biology, Ironic? I think so.


ok so i guess i didn't understand this very well. If you want a good explanation read the comments, Kev Fitz and Mr. Bong know what they are talking about.