this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2024
429 points (98.9% liked)

Today I Learned

17919 readers
391 users here now

What did you learn today? Share it with us!

We learn something new every day. This is a community dedicated to informing each other and helping to spread knowledge.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must begin with TIL. Linking to a source of info is optional, but highly recommended as it helps to spark discussion.

** Posts must be about an actual fact that you have learned, but it doesn't matter if you learned it today. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.**



Rule 2- Your post subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your post subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Posts and comments which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding non-TIL posts.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-TIL posts using the [META] tag on your post title.



Rule 7- You can't harass or disturb other members.

If you vocally harass or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.

For further explanation, clarification and feedback about this rule, you may follow this link.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.

Unless included in our Whitelist for Bots, your bot will not be allowed to participate in this community. To have your bot whitelisted, please contact the moderators for a short review.



Partnered Communities

You can view our partnered communities list by following this link. To partner with our community and be included, you are free to message the moderators or comment on a pinned post.

Community Moderation

For inquiry on becoming a moderator of this community, you may comment on the pinned post of the time, or simply shoot a message to the current moderators.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net 40 points 3 months ago (1 children)

In a genetic sense, it is a dysfunction of the gene that causes this. It's neat because we can actually trace the history of human migrations by looking at the distribution of this particular allele (version of a gene). We have analysed DNA from ancient remains of early Europeans and found that the A allele is absent. It appears like this version of the gene first emerged in an ancient East Asian population.

This gene also determines whether you have dry or sticky ear wax. It's a neat gene because it's uncommon for physical human traits to be controlled by one gene — most human characteristics are controlled by multiple genes (polygenic traits); ginger hair is another example of a monogenic trait. ABCC11 is neat because it affects multiple traits: sweat smell and earwax dryness.

It might also be implicated in breast cancer risk (I can't tell whether that's in an increased risk or decreased risk), but we don't really understand yet how that would work. From skimming the research, I would say we generally don't understand how this gene works at all. We do know some stuff about it and how/why it works, but we're still a decent way off of actually understanding its implications.

[–] isolatedscotch@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 3 months ago (3 children)

hold on what's the connection between the two? what type of earwax is present in people with less body odor?

[–] 1995ToyotaCorolla@lemmy.world 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I don't have an answer for you, but I love how seemingly random it is. Like someone reached into a raffle bowl and was like "Okay ABCC11 you get... Earwax and ...ah. Body odor".

[–] SLVRDRGN@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

Or you get body odor and.. alas, earwax!

[–] CookieOfFortune@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago

Maybe affects the kind of bacteria that can grow on your body? That’s where the smell in your armpits come from and earwax stops bacteria.

[–] flying_sheep@lemmy.ml 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Did you know that you can click the headline to get to an actual article that you can read, which answers this question?

[–] isolatedscotch@discuss.tchncs.de 11 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

guilty! should have read it before commenting blindly

for everyone else reading,

a dysfunctional ABCC11 gene is also connected to drier, less goopy earwax. “So less of that means less body odor, and also translates to dry earwax.”