Is it true that doctors can read someone's mind?
Biology
Level
2
- Dr. Elmo is called for a consult of a patient who is suffering from monosomy (Elmo can only count 45 chromosomes in total). Monosomy is a form of aneuploidy with the presence of only one chromosome from a pair. Partial monosomy occurs when only a portion of the chromosome has one copy, while the rest has two copies. Can Dr. Elmo guess the patient's sex (biological sex)?
- Hints:
- Dr Elmo has never met this patient.
- The patient is human.
Female
Dr. Elmo can't guess the patient's sex
The patient must be dead
Male
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1 solution
The only not-completely-lethal to humans monosomy is the Turner syndrome which is caused by the combination X0 (only one chromosome X, no Y chromosomes). The lack of the Y chromosome causes the patient to be female.
The Turner syndrome is lethal during pregnancy in around 99% of cases. Every other monosomy (so the ones that affect the autosomes, the non-sex chromosomes) is lethal in 100% of cases.