It's Father's Day, and what does everyone think of on this holiday? What is one thing that we know all fathers have in common, absent dads, neglectful dads, drunk dads, abusive dads, or even caring and responsible dads like the one I had? Why, it's testicles, of course. They all had at least one. So, in honor of the generative apparatus of our paternal predecessors, without which we would not be here, I have put together a few tributes to the testes, commendations to the cojones, a big hand for the balls. There's a little anatomy and physiology, a bit of development, some evolution of the scrotum, and even <shudder> a link to some recipes.
A Father's Day testimonial to the testicle!
↗ The current version of this post is on the live site: https://pandasthumb.org/archives/2004/06/a-fathers-day-t.html
4 Comments
Nick · 20 June 2004
I'm not ashamed to admit it, I've always wondered about this topic. I'd never heard anything more than speculation in terms of proposed explanations, but PZ does an excellent job finding the research (I supposed I should have guessed that someone would be researching this) and reviewing it for us.
Therefore I'm adding it to completely free-for-all and unauthoritative Panda's Thumb Hall of Fame on EvoWiki. I encourage others to add posts that strike them as particularly excellent.
Reed A. Cartwright · 20 June 2004
I like PZ's posts too. Especially the one on the evolution of the ballsack.
Ian Musgrave · 20 June 2004
Interesting factoid. The testis and the brain are the most similar in gene expression pattern. See Guo J, Zhu P, Wu C, Yu L, Zhao S, Gu X. In silico analysis indicates a similar gene expression pattern between human brain and testis. Cytogenet Genome Res. 2003;103(1-2):58-62.
Makes you think doesn't it.
RBH · 21 June 2004