Has The "Gay Gene" Been Found in Female Mice?
The sex habits of mice have long been an intriguing subject for scientists. Now, mouse sex just got a lot more interesting for the rest of us.A group of Korean geneticists has altered the sexual preferences of female mice by removing a single gene linked to reproductive behavior. Without the gene, the mice gravitated toward mice of the same sex. Those mice who retained the gene, called FucM, were attracted to male mice. (FucM is short for fucose mutarotase.)
The geneticists' study, published last week in the journal BMC Genetics explains that female mice without FucM avoided male mice, declined to sniff male urine, and made passes at other females. | Popular Science
Related articles:
- Female mice 'can be turned lesbian by deleting gene' - Telegraph
- Female mice turned lesbian after altering gene. An answer to genetic homosexuality? | ZME Science
What if it could release a chemical that would make an opposing army's soldiers think more about the physical attributes of their comrades in arms than the threat posed by the enemy? And thus the "gay bomb" was born. Far from being the product of conspiracy theorists, documents released to a biological weapons watchdog in Austin, Texas confirm that the US military did investigate the idea. It was included in a CD-Rom produced by the US military in 2000 and submitted to the National Academy of Sciences in 2002. The documents show that $7.5m was requested to develop the weapon.
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