Nice article. I wasn't aware that different mammals had differing numbers of chromosomes. Live and learn.

The statement that "So it looks like intelligence genes that find themselves on the Y chromosome have been commandeered to make them into fertility genes" really doesn't require further comment. It explains in full how and why some guys think.... :)

Interesting, I don't want to knit-pick, but Australia doesn't really have a monopoly on marsuipials. They were Gandwanaland mammals, so the US also has oppossums, which are also marsuipials. I wonder how many related species there are from the old Gandwanaland? New Guinea also has tree Kangaroos. I respect the point, and we do have unique species here valuable to science.

Jenny Graves demonstrates "find first and ye shall seek" with this excellent article. As we read, an awareness develops gradually and intuitively into our comprehension only to become more aware of how inherently little we know. But that little we know or may come to know additionally is ever subject to further exploration, discovery, and comprehension. Bottom up investigation means taking our weird Australian mammals as being important and tracing up the genes and the sequences that control them.

I remember a few years ago, a well known Australian scientist who shall remain nameless, suggested that in our genome coding we may find messages from alien life forms. Whilst I am not a scientist I thought at the time that this publicity seeking scientist had little understanding and was little more than an unimaginative dill with a literal top down mindset that would blind any effort to find anything.

Awareness now is a unique characteristic of our life, not so much because of how much knowledge there is and isn't, but because of how many people are becoming involved in its production. Interestingly with the evolution of the www, it's not just people finding information so much as it's about people finding people.

This is just a few thoughts in response to a talented Jenny and a well chosen article by OLO . i.e. Bottom up investigation requires a very interesting kind of imagination but it just seems it can reveal what's happening and the possibilities.