Old incels viewed themselves as outsiders whose failure to live up to societal standards gated them from a normal life. Nu incels view themselves as representing the common man who has been screwed over by collective female behavior.
>be comp biologist in 2005
>chimp genome just dropped
>everyone comparing genes, looking for protein differences
>nah, i have a better idea
>find DNA that mouse, rat, and chimp all agree on
>stuff that hasn't changed in 300 million years
>*ultraconserved*
>then check if it suddenly breaks in humans anyway
>run the scan
>49 regions light up
>only 2 of them code for proteins
>mfw the most human parts of the genome aren't even protein genes
>top hit: 118 bases
>chicken vs chimp: 2 changes in 310 million years
>chimp vs human: 18 changes in ~6 million
>name it HAR1
>human accelerated region 1
>cyberpunk name af
>"what does it do?"
>"we'll find out later"
>be wet lab biologist down the hall
>handed a 118-base mystery
>colleague in Brussels is staining embryonic brain tissue
>mail him a probe, "try this"
>months pass
>email arrives
>it lights up in Cajal-Retzius neurons
>7 to 9 weeks gestation, right when the cortex is building its layers
>it's an RNA gene, folds into a new shape in humans
>10 of the 18 changes keep the fold intact
>evolution was being careful
>still can't say what it actually does
>be enhancer lab in 2008
>run your own human accelerated scan
>top hit: HACNS1, another HAR
>stick human version into a mouse embryo with a blue dye reporter
>blue in the paw
>specifically where the thumb and wrist will form
>chimp version barely does it
>swap 13 human mutations into the chimp version
>now it does it
>we may have found part of the genetic story of the human hand
>still not sure of the general human accelerated function though
>be population geneticist
>see everyone celebrating "positive selection"
>notice the mutations are suspiciously biased toward G and C
>gc_biased_gene_conversion.jpg
>recombination can fake a selection signal for free
>build a model to separate them
>somehow the HARs survive the cut
>about a fifth of them are probably just gene conversion
>be the guy who brings this up at every conference
>nobody likes this guy
>but this guy is right
>be autism geneticist in 2016
>if these regions made the human brain
>breaking them should break something human
>check families where parents are related
>find HAR mutations disrupting both copies
>up to 5% of autism cases in those families
>some reviewers: "most of those CNVs hit genes too"
>shrug
>be machine learning guy, 2023
>train a model to read enhancers
>score every human-chimp difference in ~2,600 HARs
>expect all mutations to push the same direction
>43% of HARs have mutations fighting each other
>one turns the enhancer up, the next turns it down
>evolution overshot and corrected
>let's keep pushing
>huh, human DNA folds differently in the nucleus than chimp DNA
>structural rearrangements over a million years ago
>suddenly old enhancers are next to new genes
>"enhancer hijacking"
>post it, feels good, finally solved
>be yale lab, 2025
>map what 1,590 HARs actually touch, human and chimp side by side
>nearly 3,000 targets
>almost all shared between species
>no hijacking, just retuning old genes
>say the other guys were wrong
>post it, this is *not*solved
>be 2025
>we have CRISPR, organoids, and humanized mice
>put human HARs in chimp neurons
>they grow more branches
>put human HARE5 in mice
>more neurons, bigger cortex
>delete HAR123
>mice get worse at unlearning things
>finally testing them one at a time
>~3,000 to go
>be present day, present time
>telomere-to-telomere genomes for every great ape
>find whole new rapidly evolved regions that weren't even in the old reference
>call them HAQERs
>mfw more HARs
>the list keeps growing
>these things keep popping in every genome scan
>mfw the only thing accelerating here is our confusion
>mfw we still don't fully know what HAR1 does