The biology of gender, from DNA to the brain | Karissa Sanbonmatsu

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4.1 • 11.9K Ratings

🗓️ 10 January 2019

⏱️ 13 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

How exactly does gender work? It's not just about our chromosomes, says biologist Karissa Sanbonmatsu. In a visionary talk, she shares new discoveries from epigenetics, the emerging study of how DNA activity can permanently change based on social factors like trauma or diet. Learn how life experiences shape the way genes are expressed -- and what that means for our understanding of gender.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This TED Talk features structural biologist Karissa Sanban Matsu recorded live at TED Women 2018.
0:10.5	So what does it mean to be a woman?
0:15.4	We all have XX chromosomes, right?
0:18.8	Actually, that's not true.
0:22.6	Some women are mosaics. They have a mix of chromosome types with X, with X,
0:26.6	or with X, X, X, or with X, X, X, X,
0:28.6	well, if it's not just about our chromosomes,
0:31.6	then what is being a woman about?
0:34.6	Being feminine, getting married, having kids. You don't have to look far
0:41.3	to find fantastic exceptions to these rules, but we all share something that makes us women. Maybe that
0:50.6	something is in our brains. You might have heard theories from last century
0:56.6	about how men are better at math than women
0:59.5	because they have bigger brains.
1:02.2	Well, these theories have been debunked.
1:04.6	The average man has a brain about three times smaller than the average elephant.
1:09.0	But that doesn't mean the average man is three times
1:11.6	dumber than an elephant, or does it?
1:17.0	Well, there's a new wave of female neuroscientists
1:22.3	that are finding important differences between female and male brains
1:26.2	in neuron connectivity, in brain structure,
1:29.0	in brain activity. They're finding that the brain is like a patchwork mosaic, a mixture. Women
1:37.0	have mostly female patches and a few male patches. Well, with all this new data, what does it mean
	...

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