OSU: Gay sheep point to sexual orientation being biological
The Seattle Times reports: As the culture wars rage over gay rights, a flock of sheep at Oregon State University may help answer a key question behind the controversy: Is homosexuality a matter of choice or biology?
The Corvallis herd includes a group of rams that scientists delicately refer to as "male-oriented." These animals consistently ignore females and bestow all their amorous attentions on members of their own sex.
Researcher Charles Roselli says a decade of study suggests sexual orientation is largely hard-wired into the sheep's brains before birth. Now, he's trying to figure out how that happens, zeroing in on genes and hormones. In a bold test of his ideas, he hopes to engineer the birth of gay rams by altering conditions in the womb.
Sheep aren't people, but the Oregon work adds to a growing body of research that bolsters biological explanations for sexual orientation across species — including humans.
Despite those scientific findings, some religious groups say homosexuality is a lifestyle that can be treated, if not prevented. One such group, the conservative Christian organization Focus on the Family, is sponsoring a one-day conference in Bothell Saturday.
The social and political implications of the research are impossible to ignore, leading to unease on both sides of the gay-rights debate. If science proves homosexuality is innate, is there any basis to deny gays equal treatment — including the right to marry? But if scientists unravel the roots of sexual orientation, will it some day be possible to "fix" people who don't fit the norms or abort fetuses likely to be born gay?
Much of the cutting-edge research is being conducted in other countries, because the political pressure cooker in the United States makes it difficult for scientists to get money, said Brian Mustanski, who juggles studies of the genetics of homosexuality with his main work on HIV prevention at the University of Illinois, Chicago.
But controversy can't obscure the facts, he said.
"It's pretty definitive that biological factors play a role in determining a person's sexual orientation."
Austrian scientists reported this month that switching a single gene was enough to make female fruit flies rebuff males and attempt to mate with other females. Swedish researchers recently found the sexual center of gay men's brains lit up when they sniffed a pheromone-like chemical from men's sweat, but didn't respond to a chemical from women.
And last fall, Italian scientists offered a possible explanation for the persistence of gay genes — even though evolution tends to weed out traits that discourage reproduction. The team from the University of Padua found that mothers and aunts of gay men had more offspring than female relatives of heterosexuals, suggesting genes that influence homosexuality in men may increase fertility in females.
That the evidence comes from such disparate directions leads scientists to suspect several different biological pathways may lead to homosexuality. Both genes and hormones appear to be important. Nor do researchers discount the possibility that social factors may play a role.
"I tend not to be a nature-versus-nurture kind of dichotomist," said Roselli, of the Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine in Portland. "I think there's probably a very complex interaction that's going on between both biology and the environment that is involved in determining these types of behaviors."
Read the rest of the article - very interesting... click here.
The Corvallis herd includes a group of rams that scientists delicately refer to as "male-oriented." These animals consistently ignore females and bestow all their amorous attentions on members of their own sex.
Researcher Charles Roselli says a decade of study suggests sexual orientation is largely hard-wired into the sheep's brains before birth. Now, he's trying to figure out how that happens, zeroing in on genes and hormones. In a bold test of his ideas, he hopes to engineer the birth of gay rams by altering conditions in the womb.
Sheep aren't people, but the Oregon work adds to a growing body of research that bolsters biological explanations for sexual orientation across species — including humans.
Despite those scientific findings, some religious groups say homosexuality is a lifestyle that can be treated, if not prevented. One such group, the conservative Christian organization Focus on the Family, is sponsoring a one-day conference in Bothell Saturday.
The social and political implications of the research are impossible to ignore, leading to unease on both sides of the gay-rights debate. If science proves homosexuality is innate, is there any basis to deny gays equal treatment — including the right to marry? But if scientists unravel the roots of sexual orientation, will it some day be possible to "fix" people who don't fit the norms or abort fetuses likely to be born gay?
Much of the cutting-edge research is being conducted in other countries, because the political pressure cooker in the United States makes it difficult for scientists to get money, said Brian Mustanski, who juggles studies of the genetics of homosexuality with his main work on HIV prevention at the University of Illinois, Chicago.
But controversy can't obscure the facts, he said.
"It's pretty definitive that biological factors play a role in determining a person's sexual orientation."
Austrian scientists reported this month that switching a single gene was enough to make female fruit flies rebuff males and attempt to mate with other females. Swedish researchers recently found the sexual center of gay men's brains lit up when they sniffed a pheromone-like chemical from men's sweat, but didn't respond to a chemical from women.
And last fall, Italian scientists offered a possible explanation for the persistence of gay genes — even though evolution tends to weed out traits that discourage reproduction. The team from the University of Padua found that mothers and aunts of gay men had more offspring than female relatives of heterosexuals, suggesting genes that influence homosexuality in men may increase fertility in females.
That the evidence comes from such disparate directions leads scientists to suspect several different biological pathways may lead to homosexuality. Both genes and hormones appear to be important. Nor do researchers discount the possibility that social factors may play a role.
"I tend not to be a nature-versus-nurture kind of dichotomist," said Roselli, of the Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine in Portland. "I think there's probably a very complex interaction that's going on between both biology and the environment that is involved in determining these types of behaviors."
Read the rest of the article - very interesting... click here.
This entry was posted
on Sunday, June 19, 2005 at 7:18 PM.
