Researchers have found that most lesbian and gay youths want the same things their straight friends want: to spend their adult life in a long-term relationship raising children. And when it comes to straight couples, a man picks a wife just like Mom.
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Worms can be tinkered with genetically to make them become gay, but all fruit flies need is to get roaring drunk.
In New Scientist, Peter Aldhous reports that researcher Kyung-An Han got fruit flies drunk on the fumes from an ethanol-doused cotton pad placed in the bottom of their container. When the flies were good and soused, they lost their normal inhibitions and displayed gay tendencies.
Does the same thing happen with people? Aldous quotes researcher Ulrike Heberlein as saying, “What is cool is that there is such a similarity. I am surprised by the parallels.”
Art credit: freeimages.co.uk
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A study of men in Ontario, Canada provides a new twist on the connection between sexual orientation and right or left-handedness. Earlier studies showed that gay men (and lesbians) were 39% more likely than heterosexuals to be left-handed. This new data provides evidence that gay or bisexual men also have an elevated incidence of extreme right-handedness.
To complicate matters, another factor is involved?the often-reported finding that having older brothers may be a predictor for men being gay. The new study results indicate that the number of older brothers moderates the relationship between handedness and sexual orientation, meaning that extreme right-handedness finding is only seen in men with no or few older brothers. Confused yet?
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University of Utah biologists genetically manipulated nematode worms so the animals were attracted to worms of the same sex?part of a study that shows sexual orientation is wired in their brains.
Biologist Erik Jorgensen says, “[Our] conclusion is that sexual attraction is wired into brain circuits common to both sexes of worms, and is not caused solely by extra nerve cells added to the male or female brain?Our conclusions are narrow in that they are about worms and how attraction behaviors are derived from the same brain circuit. But an evolutionary biologist will consider this to be a potentially common mechanism for sexual attraction.
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