Scientists turn female mice into lesbians by deleting a gene
July 13th 2010 00:30
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Rosemary Black
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Simpson/GettyScientists found that after female mice were genetically modified, they rejected the advances of males and tried to mate with other females, according to research published in The Telegraph.
Deleting just one gene at the embryo stage can make a female mouse a lesbian.
Scientists found that after female mice were genetically modified, they rejected the advances of males and tried to mate with other females, according to research published in The Telegraph.
When the researchers disabled the FucM gene, which regulates the levels of estrogen to which the brain is exposed, the female mice acted as if they were males as they grew up.
“The mutant female mouse underwent a slightly altered developmental program in the brain to resemble the male brain in terms of sexual preference,” said Prof. Chankyu Park of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology in Daejeon, South Korea, who led the research, according to The Telegraph.
While scientists have long looked for a genetic link to homosexuality, the researchers in the latest study, published in the BMC Genetics journal, said it wasn’t possible to predict if this discovery was relevant to human sexuality.
And Park, who wants to look into whether the enzyme produced by the gene, known as fucose mutarose, has any bearing on human sexuality, admits that it might be “very difficult” to find volunteers
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Comment by Quintin J. Watt
I myself am not in any way gay, never have been, nor even so-called 'bisexual'. But neither have I ever had any time for moral or 'religious' bigotry and self-righteousness in any shape or form. "Judge not that ye be not judged"[ Matthew 7:12].
Christ himself, in fact, never spoke on the subject of homosexuality; either for or against it. Paul, of course, did say a few things about this as advice in letters to early Christian communities - we have many of these too, in the New Testament, of course - but Paul himself, was of course, as he himself makes quite clear, a self-professed and by choice celibate. He never believed that all could be as he was. Not every word uttered by Paul has, by any means in any case, become accepted even by most modern churches as a rule for modern Christian living: his attitude to women, to take one important example. Paul, in any case, was not, for Christians like myself, our Saviour. Christ was.
There are also, of course, Jewish laws in the Old Testament about homosexuality. There are Jewish laws in the Old Testament about all sorts of other things too - including about the permitted keeping, selling and buying of slaves and about when and where polygamy is permitted; about the permitted use of physical retribution against those who wrong you or profane the name of The Lord, and about when and where it is permitted to make animal sacrifices, and where, when and how to dig latrines ... but few even very Orthodox Jews and very hard-line Christians will today sanction many of these, I think.
Jesus said that he came not to abolish the law but to complete it [cf Matt 5:17]. This was so, for he always insisted on living by a right HEART, rather than by condemning others - though he never for one moment condoned the willfull and unrepentant sinner. He spoke much on this and on the need for forgiveness of the perceived imperfections of others [see e.g Luke 6:27-38 or again the famous parable of the 'mote and beam' - Luke 6:39-46].
Christ himself willfully flouted many laws of the contemporary Jews; about the Sabbath [cf Mark 3:4] and about the food and hygiene laws [cf Mark 7:17-23] for example and, when asked to give a view on the stoning of the woman caught in adultery, which Jewish law required [John, Chapter 8; quoting here from the King James Bible], he gave a verdict which TRULY echoes down to every one of us today: "He among you who is without sin" - and, of course, none of the adulteress' condemners were without sin, as neither are we - "let him cast the first stone"; - and, of course, no-one could, as we should not.
The research does not yet, of course, explain the phenomenon of male homosexuality. Just like lesbianism this, of course, has been around for a very long time - centuries, and even millenia and in many human cultures too; not all of which, incidentally, had a big issue about it - take the Ancient Greeks, for example ; even though so much homosexuality and lesbianism in Christian and post-Christian Europe has long been secretly or officially denied. And I should be most interested to know if scientists are seeking for, or hoping to find, a genetic explanation for this phenomenon of 'bisexuality' or even 'bicuriosity'. This too, to the apparent horror of many people - and again engendering a great deal of self-righteous bigotry, as the 1980's revealed - has also been actually around, largely unseen by the wider community in the Western world, for a long time.
The mice, unlike a very small number of humans, seemed to have no predisposition, un interfered with, to be anything but heterosexual. But mice, who breed almost as prolifically as their near kith and kin rats, are, like most mammals, in no way monogamous and, like most mammals, form no lifetime commitment to one mate of any sex.
Love, faithfulness too, as we know these, do not exist in the animal kingdom. The celebrated Dr. Desmond Morris, a highly trained and qaulified zoologist and former television personality, in his very famous book 'The Naked Ape', originally published in the 1960's, explains good evolutionary reasons why this almost exclusively human trait developed, perhaps some two million years ago in ancestral hominids. There even seems to be scientific evidence - and perhaps the genetic work begun by these researchers will in time confirm this - that this is a stonger human trait even than that of the heterosexuality which most, but not all, of us exhibit. Most homosexuals and lesbians, in fact, like most heterosexuals, form monogamous and intentionally lifetime bonds.
Humans, as the researchers said, are not mice. We may be genetically 90% identical, but our lifestyles are very very different. Humans, perhaps virtually unique in lving creation, exist for many more goals and objectives than those which nature dictates. We could never be content, not as modern humans anyway, with an existance which aspires to little more than to grow to adult maturity ourselves -; be born and grow and physically learn how to survive -, sustain daily life -; eat, drink, breathe, sleep -, build nests; - have somewhere to live, - procreate; - marry and have offspring and thus ensure the survival of the species -, raise our young to a similar maturity; -bring up our children and get them educated -, .. . and physically survive as organisms long enough to do all this, and little more ...
We are far far more complex than that. There are those who argue that homosexuality and lesbianism are 'against the laws of nature'. It is true that, were we all to be so, the human race would not continue - except, perhaps by the use of artificial means of insemination. Actually, it is true that, were we all to be celibate, as Paul chose to be, or as Roman Catholic priests have been required to be for centuries, or even as leading Orthodox Christian clerics have also long been required to be, the human race would also then die out! But humans, especially modern sophisticated humans in pretty much every corner of the world now - and THIS is the point - have long since willfully chosen, in so many ways, a life which not only challenges but actually DEFIES the 'laws of nature'. Examples of this, of course, are legion.
Jeff Watt, Cultural Historian and Lay Preacher.
Comment by bloggingamerican
Blogging American
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"Well, if nothing else, this research does seem to suggest what I always suspected: that gay and lesbian people do not simply 'choose' to be that way; they ARE that way, and cannot change their nature."
Comment by katyzzz
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Comment by True1
A Day in LA - Things to do in Los Angeles County
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There's a particular post that the Blogging American & I have already commented on.
You can find it here:
Based on your comments here I feel you might be able to share with the poster some much needed insight.
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Comment by katyzzz
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But this is often difficult for non-researchers to understand.