Latest news with #Y-chromosome
Express Tribune
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Express Tribune
Books for bros, not women
One thing we can probably safely assume about Andrew Tate and his brigade of men's rights activists is that they probably do not have much time for casual reading, devoted as they are to bringing to the limelight that famously overlooked Y-chromosome demographic. However, Tate and his band of merry men may doubtless be delighted to learn that starting June 2026, there will be at least one UK publisher committed to fuelling the dreams of male writers only, making one giant in the barren world of men's rights. Or least men's publishing. Conduit Books, founded by British novelist and critic Jude Cook, aims to focus on publishing literary fiction and memoirs exclusively by men. "This new breed of young female authors ushered in a renaissance for literary fiction by women, giving rise to a situation where stories by new male authors are often overlooked, with a perception that the male voice is problematic," explained Cook to the Guardian. As a taster for the high calibre of work we can expect from the male sector of human population, as opposed to the presumably frothy airport-novel variety being that is the domain of women, the Conduit Books website promises that the upcoming published material will be "Ambitious. Humorous. Political. Cerebral." Cook himself illustrates his and his fellow men's anguish best when he notes, "Excitement and energy around new and adventurous fiction is around female authors – and this is only right as a timely corrective". Not all men Before we award Cook's timely corrective a standing ovation and join him in side-eyeing new and exciting adventurous fiction penned by female authors (unworthy of the attention span of that vanishingly rare commodity: male readers), it is necessary to caution that sadly, it is not time for all men to celebrate. Males born before the nineties can put both their pens and their party hats away, because in addition to dragging sexism back into fashion as a necessary corrective measure, Conduit Books (treading the well-beaten path already paved by stalwarts of the fashion and entertainment industries) also seeks to remain committedly ageist. It is not just any old male writer who will do; Conduit Books' ideal man will be under the age of 35. If you, dear male writer with one foot in the grave, have just blown out the candles on your 36th birthday cake, I'm afraid the prospects are grim. However, Cook stresses that he is by no means as exclusive as hopeful writers may be led to believe: Conduit Books is wide open for any writers who identify as queer, non-binary, neurodivergent, or persons of colour. Just not men who are too old, or women of any age. Or description. Down with women Old age pensioners aside, Cook maintains that granting men such special attention is a necessary measure in the wake of women writers flooding the market over the past 15 years. Whilst he concedes that this renaissance was born in the wake of a male-dominated literary scene in the '80s, '90s and early 2000s, he is determined to swing that pesky pendulum back the other way. Cook's unspoken question is this: what on earth would possess your average male reader to pick up a book written by a woman? There is no singular answer for this, but Cook's fears are not his alone. As any Harry Potter fan is aware, JK Rowling herself was cautioned against using her first name Joanne when Philosopher's Stone was released in 1997 because her publisher feared that an audience of young boys would be unwilling to read a book penned by a woman. For the same reason, Robert Galbraith, Rowling's pseudonym for the Cormoran Strike books, too, is also decidedly male. Cook may have had a UK-specific market in mind when he aired his sad, nostalgic thoughts on male representation on the days of yore, but it is certainly true that those prolific men enjoyed quite the reach. Twenty years ago, could any of us set foot at a Karachi thelay wala's stall without being bombarded by those special whisker-thin-paged pirated copies of John Grisham's courtroom dramas or Stephen King's magnum opus on murderous clowns? Judging by the average Pakistani millennial's voracious knowledge of the American legal system's brutal litigious leanings (thank you, Rainmaker and Runaway Jury) or the varying supernatural horrors wreaking havoc upon the hapless residents of Maine (King, this is your moment in the sun), it would be foolish to ignore the global tentacles of male Western authors. Men like King, Grisham, and even Dan Brown (can any of us forget the literature lover's mania for the Mona Lisa circa 2004?) once reigned supreme. And now, to Cook's chagrin, thanks to the likes of Jodi Picoult and Emily Henry, that top spot has been encroached upon by women. If we need any proof, we need only take a casual glance at this week's New York Times bestselling fiction list (print and E-book combined), which is positively contaminated by female names: Danielle L Jensen, Freida McFadden, Ocean Vuong, Emily Henry, and Kennedy Ryan. Picoult, that queen of modern literary fiction, is not on this week's list, but her 2024 bestselling novel titled By Any Other Name (Cook must have loved this) explored the theme of silenced female voices in history by focusing on the struggles of a modern playwright trying to get her work produced. In other words: with thriller-bestseller magnate Harlan Coben having turned his attention to Netflix instead of churning out more books, male bestsellers are in danger of extinction as women refuse to budge from the top. Has the world gone mad? Have we already reached that saturation point where, in an effort to dismantle centuries'-old patriarchy, we have gone so far the other way that, as Cook hints (but does not say), men's rights are being eviscerated? In a world that already contains Tate and his fanclub, it should hardly come as a surprise that the world of literature, too, should turn the spotlight on diminishing male representation. The sacred treasurers of men's rights around the world have always stood guard for their gender, a fact that is beautifully evident in Pakistani dramas glorifying a "working woman" trotting out a five-course meal for her in-laws after a busy day at work. Cook may have never heard of Pakistani dramas and their utmost regard for the male gender, but he is no wallflower when it comes to looking out for his fellow men. He laments that male-centric narratives such as fatherhood, masculinity and negotiating the 21st century as a man have all taken a backseat as the publishing world's focus remains fixed on women. Does our hero have a point? Can only a man lure another man into picking up a work of fiction? Is the work of a woman unworthy of being read by a man? Is dick lit the answer to chick lit? Judging by the depleting number of adult males who read fiction by choice, perhaps Cook, the Emmeline Pankhurst of male readers, may have unlocked the only doorway to dragging lit bros back into the light.
Telegraph
20-03-2025
- Telegraph
Breakthrough DNA technique could solve hundreds of cold cases
Hundreds of cold cases including murders and rapes could be solved by a new DNA-testing technique which helped catch the killer of a retired postmistress 12 years after she was murdered. Scientists say Y-STR analysis, which can detect tiny fragments of male DNA, is being underutilised in investigations – despite providing the breakthrough in the case of Una Crown, who was stabbed to death at her bungalow in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, in January 2013. David Newton, 70, a retired kitchen fitter, was charged with her murder in 2024 after the Y-STR method was used to match his DNA to samples taken from the 86-year-old widow's bloodied fingernails after she died. Newton, who had been arrested and released during the original murder investigation when the technique was in its infancy, was found guilty in February 2025. He was jailed for life and ordered to serve at least 21 years in prison. 'Y-STR is such a powerful technique in our fight against violence against women and girls,' said Dr Debbie Sharp, from the Forensic Capability Network (FCN), which coordinates scientific work in policing. 'I think we could solve hundreds more cases.' Y-STR analysis works by focusing on the characteristics of the Y-chromosome which appears in the DNA of people who are genetically male. Unlike DNA-17, the standard process commonly used in criminal cases, Y-STR testing is able to pinpoint male DNA when it is mixed in with, and masked by, large amounts of female genetic material, making it particularly useful in some cases of rape and serious sexual assault. 'Absolutely worth the investment' The technique helped to exonerate Andrew Malkinson, who had been wrongly jailed for a rape he did not commit in 2003. After 17 years in prison, Mr Malkinson was cleared on appeal after DNA evidence implicated another man. However, Y-STR testing is not as statistically robust as the DNA-17 method. Where a crime scene sample matches a suspect's profile using DNA-17, the likelihood that it is not that person can be as high as one-billion-to-one. Under Y-STR, the probability of a match is typically 1 in 28,000. Dr Sharp, a forensic biologist, is leading a FCN programme to boost the statistical certainty of Y-STR testing. Under the scheme, scientists are collecting anonymous Y-STR samples from men living in Britain to establish the frequency with which certain features of the Y-chromosome appear in the population. 'Building a UK reference collection will help us to provide much more compelling statistics – not only to help juries make decisions in cases, but also to encourage guilty suspects to plead guilty at an earlier stage,' she said. The project, known as 'Swab Out Crime', already has 4,000 Y-STR specimens taken from men's saliva – but needs at least 6,000 more. 'We don't even ask donors for their names or their dates of birth,' said Dr Sharp. 'We only ask for information about ethnicity and place of birth for the donor and a couple of their male relatives.' The long-term aim is to establish a database containing Y-STR profiles from people arrested by police so it can be automatically searched for a potential match with Y-STR obtained from a crime scene or a victim. The system would operate along the lines of the national DNA database which holds DNA profiles of more than 6 million individuals. At present, the only way of discovering who an unknown Y-STR profile from a crime belongs to is to swab individual suspects or carry out a mass screening programme. 'We have permission to build the IT capability to collect Y-STR samples from arrestees but we don't have the funding,' said Dr Sharp. 'It's in the millions, but it's absolutely worth the investment.'
