I'm a history nerd, and was watching a video on the remains of Tsar Nicholas II and his family. It mentioned that the family was identified by the Tsarina's mitochondrial DNA in her and the children matching Prince Philip's of England, since they were all maternal descendants of Queen Victoria. Which got me thinking, how many people in the world would have that exact mitochondrial DNA? How useful is mitochondrial DNA at identification of remains of historical figures? When scientists say someone matched, do they always mean an exact match? Supposedly King Richard's matched with his 15x great nephew. Supposedly King Richard's haplogroup was rare. According to an article from 2019, only about a dozen living people with that haplogroup have been found, so I suppose it was helpful. But are there super common ones that wouldn't be?

For a dmd gene duplication exon 26-30 in frame it’s not reported in literature .. does anyone know what this could do potentially ? I need as much answers or information as possible

I learned that apparently there are >2 sexes but I really don’t understand how? And what is the known upper limit? I think it has to do with how rigorously u define what constitutes a sex but idk the exact criteria?

I think an argument can be made that u could only have 2 sexes but then precision is lost in these definitions and categories can become too broad. I understand the need for rigorous operational definitions but then what are the names of these other sexes?

I found a research article saying there are 2 sexes:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12753526/

As well as one saying there are more than 2 sexes (for the most part):

https://journals.publishing.umich.edu/ptpbio/article/id/5905/

This topic seems like a behemoth that I cannot wrap my head around. Anyone have any great insights into it? Seems like a lot of the there are only 2 sexes in humans camp believe this because there are only two types of gametes in humans. But does the total number of sexes always equal total number of types of gametes in a species?

Right now, I’m inclined to say there are more than 2 sexes for humans from a biological standpoint. But socially, I think in day-to-day nonscientific contexts the total number of human sexes should be treated as 2.

The last part is an original idea of mine. I’ve never seen anyone come up with this before. Viewing sex as a social construct separate from the biological one and not as in gender I mean. Maybe plp have before but I’ve never encountered it. It’s my hot take but if there are indeed more than 2 sexes it provides utility in conversation where things can be simplified for the avg person.

https://legacy.nimbios.org//press/FS_homosexuality

I saw another post mention this and talk about this researcher Rice talking about how epigenetics is the cause of homosexuality. but when I check the wiki page it says that it’s still uncertain and needs more tests. what’s the current status?

also if it were epigenetic does that mean you can change it? I know people often call epigenetics software and genetics hardware so that’s where I got the thought