Contents:
- SCIENTISTS FD DNA DIFFERENC BETWEEN GAY MEN AND THEIR STRAIGHT TW BROTHERS
- THE 'GAY GENE' IS A TOTAL MYTH, MASSIVE STUDY CONCLUS
- THE REAL STORY ON GAY GEN
SCIENTISTS FD DNA DIFFERENC BETWEEN GAY MEN AND THEIR STRAIGHT TW BROTHERS
In fact, scientists recently intified two specific gen that appear to differ between gay and straight men [1]. For example, one may be straight while the other is gay.
In s like this, some might argue that perhaps both tws are actually gay, but one jt hasn’t e out yet.
In a study where scientists looked at the sexual aroal patterns of intil tws wh different sexuali—specifilly, where one was gay and the other was straight—they found that gay tws monstrated more genal aroal rponse to same-sex imag, whereas straight tws monstrated more aroal rponse to oppose-sex imag [2]. In theory, this means two people uld rry “gay gen,” but both of them wouldn’t necsarily be gay pendg on certa environmental factors.
THE 'GAY GENE' IS A TOTAL MYTH, MASSIVE STUDY CONCLUS
Rearchers timate that jt 0.012% of the populatn nsists of a gay or bisexual person who happens to have an intil tw [2]. Ngun reported that studyg the geic material of 47 pairs of intil male tws, he has intified “epigeic marks” ne areas of the human genome that are strongly lked to male dividuals, said Ngun, the prence of the distct molecular marks n predict homosexualy wh an accuracy of close to 70%. Geicists suggt that together, the human genome and s epigenome reflect the teractn of nature and nurture -- both our fixed herance and our bodi’ flexible rpons to the world -- makg who we ’s study of tws don’t reveal how or when a male tak on the epigenomic marks that distguish him as homosexual.
”To fd the epigenomic markers of male homosexualy, Ngun, a postdoctoral rearcher at UCLA’s Geffen School of Medice, bed through the geic material of 47 sets of intil male tws. Thirty-seven of those tw sets were pairs which one was homosexual and the other was heterosexual. But the existence of tw pairs which one is homosexual and the other is not offers strong evince that somethg other than DNA alone fluenc sexual orientatn.
So they unleashed a mache learng algorhm on the data to search for regulari that distguished the epigenom of homosexual tw-pairs om tws which only one was ne pact regns sttered across the genome, they found patterns of epigenomic differenc that would allow a predictn far more accurate than a random gus of an dividual’s sexual orientatn, Ngun reported Thursday. McCarthy and other experts utned that the disvery of epigenomic marks suggtive of homosexualy is a far cry om fdg the of sexual distctive epigenomic marks observed by Ngun and his lleagu uld rult om some other blogil or liftyle factor mon to homosexual men but unrelated to their sexualy, said Universy of Utah geicist Christopher Gregg. They uld rrelate wh homosexualy but have nothg to do wh .
THE REAL STORY ON GAY GEN
Michael Bailey, who has explored a range of physlogil markers that pot to homosexualy’s origs the womb. But the existence of intil tw pairs which only one is homosexual “nclively suggt that gen don’t expla everythg, ” Bailey Ngun’s rearch needs to be replited larger studi of tws, advanc the fful procs of better unrstandg how — and when — a boy’s sexual orientatn velops, Bailey me on Twter @LATMelissaHealy and “like” Los Angel Tim Science & Health on rarely get ncer, now scientists thk they know whyThree rearchers w Nobel Prize chemistry for studi of DNA repairMars had a long-lastg seri of lak, NASA’s Cursy rover fds.
Do matter if there is a geic tenncy for beg gay? Those who nsir beg gay a disadvantage life (which still is, certa societi), might regard gay people differently if they knew that beg gay was an hered tra, rather than a nsequence of life events, such as a particular type of upbrgg, or mixg wh certa sorts of iends or even a liberate cisn. The law also might take a different view those untri (aga, there are still many) which beg gay is a crimal offense.
An early study claimed that if one pair of (male) intil tws (who have intil geic patterns) was gay, there was a 100 percent chance of the other one also beg gay. It was quickly shown that, fact, the real chance of two intil tws beg gay was around 40-50 percent, whereas was ls non-intil on, though still somewhat greater than the general populatn. A dramatic claim was that there was a sgle geic variatn, the "gay gene, " that was found gay men.