4.2 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 6 April 2021
⏱️ 14 minutes
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Over a century ago, one part of our DNA got labelled the "sex chromosomes." Science journalist and Radiolab producer Molly Webster explains the consequences of that oversimplification. This is an excerpt from the TED Radio Hour episode The Biology of Sex. To listen to the whole episode, and to browse many other episodes from the podcast, find the TED Radio Hour wherever you're listening to this.
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0:00.0 | Ted Audio Collective |
0:11.0 | Hey everyone, welcome to Ted Health, this is Elise Hugh. |
0:14.0 | Today we're sharing a segment from an episode of the Ted Radio Hour on the Biology of Sex. |
0:20.2 | If you enjoy it, dive into the whole episode and many others in the Ted Radio Hour catalog, |
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0:47.8 | It's the Ted Radio Hour from NPR, I'm Manouche Summerodi. |
0:51.8 | And on the show today, the Biology of Sex. |
0:54.8 | Because it's more complicated than just female or male, xx or xy. |
1:00.8 | One of the things that I was super surprised about was finding out the spectrum of biological sex. |
1:07.8 | You know, we say x is female, y is male or xx is female and xy is male. |
1:12.8 | I mean, that's how we cheer someone if they're having a boy or if they're having a girl when they announce that they're pregnant. |
1:21.8 | People love those gender reveal parties. |
1:24.8 | Yeah, yeah. |
1:27.8 | This is Radio Journalist Molly Webster. |
1:30.8 | And what I came to find out was that you can be a whole compilation of x's and y's. |
1:36.8 | So you can be x x y, be x y y, you can be x o. |
1:41.8 | I mean, it just goes on. |
1:43.8 | And I was like, things that I thought were just like immutable biological truths can be changed in some way. |
1:51.8 | A lot of these kinds of questions came up for Molly while she was working on a series called Go Nads. |
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