From an evolutionary standpoint, homosexuality is a trait that should not develop and persist in the face of natural selection. Yet it exists in most cultures, among men and women. Analyses have noted that homosexuality can run in families, leading researchers to hypothesize a genetic underpinning of sexual preference but no gene or group of genes for homosexuality have been found, despite numerous studies searching for a genetic connection.
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An online calculator says it can predict at birth a baby’s likelihood of becoming obese in childhood, according to a paper in PLOS ONE.
They estimate the child’s obesity risk based on its birth weight, the body mass index of the parents, the number of people in the household, the mother’s professional status and whether she smoked during pregnancy.
Yes, that determines if your child is going to be fat. But it’s PLoS One and the credit card cleared.
The researchers think their prediction method will be used to identify infants at high risk and help families take steps to prevent their children from putting on too much weight. Like what, getting mom a better job land quitting smoking before pregnancy?
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The Grand Canyon is spectacular to look at but figuring out how old it is can be frustrating. A new paper says that conventional models and estimates of the last 150 years are way off – it is far older than the 5 to 6 million years old commonly thought.
“Rather than being formed within the last few million years, our measurements suggest that a deep canyon existed more than 70 million years ago,” says Kenneth A. Farley, Keck Foundation Professor of Geochemistry at Caltech and coauthor of the study.
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There may be good news for the blood donation business; the shelf life of blood has perhaps gotten longer.
In a finding that runs counter to commonly held beliefs about fresh blood being better, a randomized clinical trial shows that acutely ill premature babies who received fresher blood did not fare better than those who received the current standard of care. There was no difference between the two approaches with respect to major organ injury, mortality and infection.
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The muscle-building dietary supplement creatine helps women battling depressions, according to a study from South Korea and the University of Utah. It reports that women with major depressive disorder (MDD) who augmented their daily antidepressant with 5 grams of creatine responded twice as fast and experienced remission of the illness at twice the rate of women who took the antidepressant alone.
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Web Log 2012 