Bizarre, yet awesome:

Georgina the hen is thought to have damaged an ovary, causing her testosterone levels to soar and effectively transforming the organ into a testicle.

The one-in-10,000 switch has seen the animal develop a cockscomb on its head and its voice break - allowing it to crow each morning.

Cock-a-doodle-doo!

We never quite know what to make of these stories…

Australian researchers have found suggestive evidence that transgender identities are genetic. From the BBC:

DNA analysis from 112 male-to-female transsexual volunteers showed they were more likely to have a longer version of the androgen receptor gene.

The genetic difference may cause weaker testosterone signals, the team reported in Biological Psychiatry.

However, other genes are also likely to play a part, they stressed.

Increasingly, biological factors are being implicated in gender identity.

Now, we're obviously curious to know why people are gay, straight, trans and the such, but opening up this can of worms also invites genetic manipulation.

For example, if this can be nailed down, so to speak, does that mean women may one day be able to determine prenatally whether or not their child will be trans? If that happens, will said woman abort her "abnormal" baby. Then again, such evidence suggests being trans is, in fact, quite normal. What say you, reader? Should scientists be searching for the reason why people "deviate" from the norm, or should we turn our backs on such research?

Out actor John Barrowman and a The Making Of Me film crew recently flew to Los Angeles to answer a burning question: Why's Barrowman into men?

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Lesbianism's for the birds. In a good way, of course.

Displeased with their prearranged male partners, two red-crested cranes over at a Chinese bird sanctuary decided to get together. And sanctuary officials don't sound too happy:

Two red-crested cranes living in a bird sanctuary in Changsha, capital of Hunan province, have been observed as living in a state of gay-mate ship owing to the absence of attractive male partners. The day after meeting and being distinctly unimpressed with male cranes Chong Chong and Ming Ming, hens Huan Huan and Xi Xi opted to rely upon each other for sex and survival.

Local zoologists say it is extremely rare for cranes to enter into this kind of relationship.

The sanctuary has appealed to the public for help and is in touch with other mainland bird parks in an effort to find suitable spouses for the park's four cranes.

Huan Huan and Xi Xi sure have some challenges on their hands (claws?), but let's hope the ladies can overcome this adversity.

What a scientific week!

First the gay brain debate - and its potential social ramifications - and now there's new work linking homosexuality and genetics, although this theory may need a bit of work:

Italian scientists have come up with an explanation for the puzzle as to why homosexuality, if it is hereditary, has not been eliminated from the gene pool to date, despite the fact that gay people are less likely to reproduce than heterosexuals.

Andrea Camperio-Ciani, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of Padova, says that homosexuality in males may be caused in part by genes that can increase fertility in females.

The researcher says that he and his colleagues have observed that some female relatives of gay men tend to have more children than average.

Camperio-Ciani went on to describe these genes as "sexually antagonistic," meaning that increase a woman's "fecundity," while decreasing it in men. Does this men we gays aren't fertile, because we were really hoping on using those sperm of ours!

The scientists, meanwhile, are going to get cracking on the "lesbian gene." Apparently the gendered differences go deeper than just fertility…

We gays have had brain on the mind.

A study out of Sweden showed this week that gay men and straight women share brain make up, while straight men and lesbians also show similarities. That's good and bad.

Good: pretty solid proof that being gay is not a "choice," as some foes would like you to believe. Bad: the possibility of a queer cleansing.

Certainly staunch homophobes would cheer the latter development, and that's exactly what worries journo William Saletan, who says the culture war has gone "chemical."

If the idea of chemically suppressing homosexuality in the womb horrifies you, I have bad news: You won't be in the room when it happens. Parents control medical decisions, and surveys indicate that the vast majority of them would be upset to learn that their child was gay. Already, millions are screening embryos and fetuses to eliminate those of the "wrong" sex. Do you think they won't screen for the "wrong" sexual orientation, too?

Liberals are slow to see what's coming. They're still fighting the culture war… The reduction of homosexuality to neurobiology doesn't mean your sexual orientation can't be controlled. It just means the person controlling it won't be you.

Is Saletan trying to scare the shit out of us? Because it's working.

Science's foray into sexual explanation continues - and may be making headway.

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Fruit flies may live up to their name. A team of scientists out of the University of Chicago have discovered a gene that keeps the insects flying straight:

A team of scientists led by Manyuan Long at the University of Chicago call it the sphinx gene, and it is present only in fruit flies. Long’s grad student Wen Wang identified the gene back in 2002, and now two other former students, Hongzheng Dai and Ying Chen, have discovered its purpose. When Dai and Chen turned off the gene, the males looked and acted ordinary, at least until they were placed in each other’s company.

When that happened, the genetically engineered flies spent 10 times more time pursuing other males than normal fruit flies. Long says that the gene evolved about two million years ago to prevent male flies from inhibiting mating by spending too much time with each other.
…
Ultimately, though, the genetically engineered flies grew frustrated with their failed attempts to get it on, and returned to the females. The sphinx gene is dormant in female fruit flies; as such, they’re only affected by lack of male attention.

We wonder if there are fruit fly hags…

So, this is the future…

Recent scientific research has yielded "female sperm". Basically, scientists made sperm out of male bone marrow and are hoping to do the same with female bone marrow.

Some gay activists hope these developments will allow gay couples to have children together, thus chinking away at anti-gay marriage arguments, ie: God wants us to reproduce. Marcy Darnovsky of the Center for Genetics and Society doesn't agree.

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