Another worry

The use of some of the most potent antibiotics available has surged among British farmers in the last decade, stoking fears that the burgeoning number of factory farms could greatly increase the risk ofantibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria escaping and infecting people.

Medicines to treat meningitis, pneumonia and other serious diseases, called third and fourth generation cephalosporins, increased threefold from 2003-11, while drugs called fluoroquinolones – used for tuberculosis, C difficile, HIV-related infections and others – are up by 50% in the same period.

These antibiotics have been flagged by the World Health Organisation as some of the most important in human medicine, because they are our last line of defence against serious diseases, and are under threat from bacterial strains that are growing more resistant to them.

Their rapidly rising use on farms is a threat to people,. 

Christopher Thomas, professor of molecular genetics at Birmingham University, said: "There a lot of worry about whether we should be using the same antibiotics on a farm as we do in [human] clinics, as the resistance developed on farms could spread to humans. 

However good your hygiene [on farms], it is inevitable that resistant bacteria bred on the farm will get to humans."

The government does not track the use of veterinary antibiotics in detail – unlike their human counterparts – so it is impossible to tell how many animals are being treated, for what diseases, and whether the medicines are being used as a prophylactic or to treat diseases already present. 

The only data available is the total annual tonnage of antibiotics sold for agriculture, some of which could be left unused, and the dosage of which could vary widely.

Green campaigners are also unhappy that vets are allowed to profit by selling farmers the antibiotics they prescribe.

A practice banned in many other countries because of conflicts of interest.

In the UK where commercial interests take precedence over any other considerations this is not so. 

The government confirmed there were no plans to change this practice.

Thomas said that despite guidelines on avoiding routine use of antibiotics, it was difficult to distinguish in practice. 

There is a fine line where you have lots of animals together. 

For instance, in an intensive chicken rearing facility if you get one or two animals that get an infection, it's quite common for vets to decide they need to treat all the chickens in the facility just in case it has already spread to others that are not noticeably sick.

He said there were many ways in which antibiotic-resistant bacteria on a farm could spread to humans: by people working there, who could spread it to their families; by run-off water from the farm, and by meat from slaughtered animals getting into the food chain.

But Peter Borriello, chief executive of the Veterinary Medicines Directorate, the government agency that oversees antibiotic use on farms, said people should not be over-concerned as the UK farming industry was well-regulated and used fewer antibiotics than other EU countries, being about the 8th biggest user of farming antibiotics, but only the 14th biggest user of the potent fluoroquinolones.

We are not aware of any major resistance problems and not aware of any major changes in veterinary pathogen populations with respect to their resistance potential..

Another key issue is the import of meat and fish from countries where farming antibiotic use is higher than in the UK, such as the US, where 80% of antibiotic use is for animals.

A Defra (UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) spokesman said UK food importers were only allowed to buy from countries that met standards similar to those in operation in Europe. 

However, the use of antibiotics in other countries does not fall under these rules, so imported meat can come from much looser antibiotic regimes.

In other words Defra is spinning its way out of saying that there are no controls 

Defra said there were checks in place to ensure infected meat did not enter the UK food chain.

There are also moves in the US to cut antibiotic use. 

Citing a recent study, Louise Slaughter, the only microbiologist in Congress, said: This study ends any debate. 

The extreme overuse of antibiotics in livestock is endangering human health. 

For decades, the United States Food and Drug Administration has failed to act in the face of a growing threat. 

These findings make it clearer than ever that their failure is endangering human life. 

Starting today, the FDA must take strong federal action to reduce antibiotic use in livestock and protect human health.

Antibiotics are routinely used in fish farms, particularly in Latin America. David Santillo, a Greenpeace fellow at Exeter University, said: "Eating raw fish as sushi can raise additional concerns regarding food safety. 

Although properly prepared, stored and handled sushi should be free from harmful pathogens, the potential presence of antibiotic residues or even of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria remains a concern, especially for fish and shellfish farmed in parts of the world in which controls on the use of such chemically intensive disease treatments are lacking or harder to police and verify."

The Food Standards Agency said that if meat and fish were cooked properly, any bacteria living on them should be killed, and advised people to follow best practice in handling uncooked food. 

Avoiding sushi and steak tartare might be one way to cut risk, but Thomas said the government should be more active in testing for microbes in the food chain.

Should and could are words used by government agencies in both the UK and US

The "precautionary principle"

Many countries operate their affairs on the "precautionary principle"

Simply stated the "precautionary principle" says that while there is any doubt about a given product then we will not use it until we are sure that it is safe

The UK uses the opposite principle

Until you can prove 100% that this product is killing bees or anything else then we will not ban it.

Why does the UK adopt this policy?

No answer

Ministers have children so we wonder why they would support principles and procedures that put our environment and the future of their childrens lives at risk

Hard to answer because they do insist on continuing this approach

The only clear answer is that companies continue to make huge profits selling systemic products

They lobby hard

They have money

They have access to Ministers

A step has been voted on in the European Parliament to introduce a temporary ban in the case of bees.

Some countries have already unilaterally banned these products.

In the UK we can clearly say. 

One of the major problems with neonicotinoid pesticides is that they are "systemic", meaning they are taken up into every part of the plant which is treated with them.

Including the pollen and nectar.

This means that bees and other pollinating insects can absorb them and carry the poison back to their hives or nests.

Even if they are not the insecticide's target species.

Introduced by Bayer in the early 1990s, neonicotinoids have been an immense commercial success.

Bayer's imidacloprid was its top-selling insecticide in 2009, earning £510m – and have been used on vast areas. 

About 30 per cent of British cropland – 3.14 million acres – was being treated with the chemicals in 2010.

Nothing more to say really

Goce

The great Tohoku earthquake in Japan two years ago was so big its effects were even felt at the edge of space.

Goce flies lower than any other scientific satellite

Continue reading the main story

Scientists say the Magnitude 9.0 tremor on 11 March 2011 sent a ripple of sound through the atmosphere that was picked up by the Goce satellite.

Its super-sensitive instrumentation was able to detect the disturbance as it passed through the thin wisps of air still present 255km above the Earth.

The observation is reported in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

It has long been recognised that major quakes will generate very low-frequency acoustic waves, or infrasound - a type of deep rumble at frequencies below those discernible to the human ear. 

But no spacecraft in orbit has had the capability to record them, until now.

We've looked for this signal before with other satellites and haven't seen it, and I think that's because you need an incredibly fine instrument," said Dr Rune Floberghagen from the European Space Agency (Esa).

Continue reading the main story

Goce's accelerometers are about a hundred times more sensitive than any previous instrumentation and we detected the acoustic wave not once, but twice - passing through it over the Pacific and over Europe..

Goce's prime purpose is to map very subtle differences in the pull of gravity across the surface of the Earth caused by the uneven distribution of mass within the planet.

These variations produce almost imperceptible changes in the velocity of the satellite as it flies overhead and which it records with those high-precision accelerometers.

This gravity signal is very weak, however, and that means Goce must fly incredibly low to sense it - so low, in fact, that it actually drags through the top of the atmosphere.

Monday marks the second anniversary of the quake and tsunami that claimed more than 15,000 lives

It is these special circumstances that put the satellite in a position to detect the infrasonic disturbance on 11 March 2011.

The acoustic waves perturbed the density of air molecules and changed their speed. 

It was the faintest of winds at an altitude of 255km, but strong enough to be registered by Goce.

The Esa spacecraft encountered the signal as it passed over the Pacific some 30 minutes after the onset of the M9.0 event, and then again 25 minutes later as it moved across Europe.

Because of the way the accelerometers are arranged in Goce, it was possible to reconstruct the detection in three dimensions and so confidently trace the infrasound back to its source - the earthquake.

Goce's principal objective is to make maps of the variation in the pull of gravity across the Earth

If you have a small ripple in density, it would be hard to conclude beyond any reasonable doubt that this was due to the earthquake," explained Dr Floberghagen. "

But the fact that we have a very significant density perturbation, with the shape predicted by all the acoustic models, and the fact that we picked it up again on the other side of the Earth where you would expect to find it - that's perfect.

Scientists can already study earthquakes from space, in particular through the use of radar to map the deformation of the ground that results when faults rupture. 

But it remains to be seen how useful an acoustic sensor placed in a low-Earth orbit might be.

Tohoku was an exceptional event and this may explain why Goce, on this occasion, was able to pick it up.

Buoyed by their success, however, scientists on the mission are checking through the satellite's data to see if an infrasonic signal was also recorded when an asteroid entered the atmosphere over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk last month. 

The entry's infrasound signature was certainly evident to listening stations on the ground.

The Chelyabinsk meteor is known to have produced a big infrasound signal - but is it in Goce's data?

Ever since we've flown this type of instrument - accelerometers - in space, people have been looking for the acoustic beat from earthquakes.

Because that could be used to understand the way tremors propagate not only through the Earth but through the Earth environment.

We'll see; time will tell. 

But just the idea of an acoustic sensor in space is pretty cool," Dr Floberghagen told BBC News.

Goce itself is running low on fuel and is nearing the end of its mission.

Esa will lower its orbit in June to below 230km to try to obtain even finer detail on Earth's gravity field. 

The agency is then expected to command the satellite to come out of the sky and fall back to Earth in November.

Jonathan Amos

Self improvement

Everything in nature is interconnected; nothing can live unto itself alone. 

Our every thought, feeling, and deed impact upon the world around us, for good or ill. 

The idea that anything is totally separate from anything else is called in Buddhism the heresy of separateness. 

We are all part of one vast, incomprehensible Whole

We all sprang from one divine source aeons ago, and to that source we shall all return. 

It is our duty to work with nature rather than against it, and to help one another along the path. 

Every effort at self-improvement and every effort to help others, make a contribution, however small, to the progress of all humanity.

The highest and most noble ideal that we can try to live up to is called in the Mahayana Buddhist tradition the bodhisattva ideal. 

A bodhisattva is a human being who has advanced so far on the path of spiritual progress that he has attained enlightenment and reached the threshold of nirvana. 

But rather than entering the peace and bliss of nirvana, which would rule out any further active involvement in human affairs, he renounces nirvana and returns to earth to help struggling humanity. 

This spirit of self-sacrifice is beautifully captured in the vow of the Chinese bodhisattva Kwan Yin:

Never will I seek or receive private, individual salvation; never will I enter into final peace alone; but forever, and everywhere will I live and strive for the redemption of every creature throughout the world.

It is the constant aspiration to realize this ideal, and above all the constant effort to practice compassion and brotherhood in our daily lives, that is the surest path to enlightenment.

David Pratt

Idiosyncrasies

  FOR THOSE WHO LOVE THE PHILOSOPHY OF AMBIGUITY, AS WELL AS THE IDIOSYNCRASIES OF ENGLISH:

 1. ONE TEQUILA, TWO TEQUILA, THREE TEQUILA, FLOOR.

2. ATHEISM IS A NON-PROPHET ORGANIZATION.

3. IF MAN EVOLVED FROM MONKEYS AND APES, WHY DO WE STILL HAVE MONKEYS AND APES?

4. THE MAIN REASON THAT SANTA IS SO JOLLY IS BECAUSE HE KNOWS WHERE ALL THE BAD GIRLS LIVE.

5. I WENT TO A BOOKSTORE AND ASKED THE SALESWOMAN, "WHERE'S THE SELF- HELP SECTION?" SHE SAID IF SHE TOLD ME, IT WOULD DEFEAT THE PURPOSE.

6. WHAT IF THERE WERE NO HYPOTHETICAL QUESTIONS?

7. IF A DEAF CHILD SIGNS SWEAR WORDS, DOES HIS MOTHER WASH HIS HANDS WITH SOAP?

8. IF SOMEONE WITH MULTIPLE PERSONALITIES THREATENS TO KILL HIMSELF, IS IT CONSIDERED A HOSTAGE SITUATION?

9. IS THERE ANOTHER WORD FOR SYNONYM?

10. WHERE DO FOREST RANGERS GO TO "GET AWAY FROM IT ALL?"

11. WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN YOU SEE AN ENDANGERED ANIMAL EATING AN ENDANGERED PLANT?

12. IF A PARSLEY FARMER IS SUED, CAN THEY GARNISH HIS WAGES?

13. WOULD A FLY WITHOUT WINGS BE CALLED A WALK?

14. WHY DO THEY LOCK GAS STATION BATHROOMS? ARE THEY AFRAID SOMEONE WILL BREAK-IN AND CLEAN THEM?

15. IF A TURTLE DOESN'T HAVE A SHELL, IS HE HOMELESS OR NAKED?

16. CAN VEGETARIANS EAT ANIMAL CRACKERS?

17. IF THE POLICE ARREST A MUTE, DO THEY TELL HIM HE HAS THE RIGHT TO REMAIN SILENT?

18. WHY DO THEY PUT BRAILLE ON THE DRIVE-THROUGH BANK MACHINES?

19. HOW DO THEY GET DEER TO CROSS THE ROAD ONLY AT THOSE YELLOW ROADSIGNS?

20. WHAT WAS THE BEST THING BEFORE SLICED BREAD?

21. ONE NICE THING ABOUT EGOTISTS: THEY DON'T TALK ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE.

22. DOES THE LITTLE MERMAID WEAR AN ALGEBRA? 

23. DO INFANTS ENJOY INFANCY AS MUCH AS ADULTS ENJOY ADULTERY?

24. HOW IS IT POSSIBLE TO HAVE A CIVIL WAR?

25. IF ONE SYNCHRONIZED SWIMMER DROWNS, DO THE REST DROWN TOO?

26. IF YOU ATE BOTH PASTA AND ANTIPASTO, WOULD YOU STILL BE HUNGRY?

27. IF YOU TRY TO FAIL, AND SUCCEED, WHICH HAVE YOU DONE?

28. WHOSE CRUEL IDEA WAS IT FOR THE WORD 'LISP' TO HAVE 'S' IN IT?

29. WHY ARE HEMORRHOIDS CALLED "HEMORRHOIDS" INSTEAD OF "ASSTEROIDS"?

30. WHY IS IT CALLED TOURIST SEASON IF WE CAN'T SHOOT AT THEM?

31. WHY IS THERE AN EXPIRATION DATE ON SOUR CREAM?

32. IF YOU SPIN AN ORIENTAL MAN IN A CIRCLE THREE TIMES, DOES HE BECOME DISORIENTED

33. CAN AN ATHEIST GET INSURANCE AGAINST ACTS OF GOD?

Kids and technology

We're often astounded by the ability of children to pick up, use and master the latest technological innovations. 

You frequently hear stories from parents of how they left a tablet computer lying around and after a couple of hours they came back to find their toddler using it to play games, look at kittens on the internet or open an offshore bank account.

The idea that the younger generation is somehow inherently more adept at using technology is slowly taking hold. 

In a recent survey by John Lewis, 71 per cent of parents admitted that they consult their children for technological advice, whether that's help online (setting up social-media profiles) or around the home (operating the TiVo). 

In other words, while adults are busy putting food on the table, children are becoming our technological overlords.

But how and why is this happening and why do some parents seem resigned to it? 

After all, modern user interfaces are getting simpler and, at least in theory, are designed for us all to operate. 

They're not geared specifically towards children and, while it's often stated that kids find technology easy because they "grew up with it", their 30-something parents probably grew up with it, too.

It's certainly an illusion to assume that kids can do these things intuitively," says Nigel Houghton, managing director of Simplicity Computers. 

It's more the case that they're not fearful of looking around, and so they eventually work things out." 

Dr Mark Brosnan, senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Bath and author of the book Technophobia, says that children's apparent expertise has little to do with youth. 

If they swipe a tablet screen with three fingers, it looks like an intuitive gesture," he says, "but it's because they've seen someone do it before. 

They just have a great immediate experience of potential solutions.

There's a world of difference between the Windows 95 PCs that many adults cut their teeth on and sleek, 21st-century touch-screen devices; the latter are far more geared towards entertainment and communication, so it's unsurprising that children spend far more more time getting to grips with them than time-starved parents.

It becomes about inclination," says Matt Leeser, head of buying for telecoms and technology at John Lewis. 

Whether you're talking about Windows 8 or a smart TV, it's a question of whether one can be bothered to learn how to use it. 

But it's also to do with the learning process itself. "When kids get a device, they talk to their mates, they go through a process of swapping information," says Houghton, whose company specialises in producing simpler, more straightforward computing interfaces. 

But when older people see younger people using devices so easily, it provides a sort of deterrent: 

'Oh god,' they think, 'I can't do that, I must be stupid.'"

It's a conveniently lazy mindset to develop, but it's one that's easily conquerable. 

I've looked at issues related to anxiety and technology," says Brosnan, "and some of the most confident, happy, least anxious users are silver surfers over the age of 65 – largely due to the fact that they're retired, they have some time to spare, and there's no pressure – no-one is watching them and evaluating how they're using it.

In other words, a solid relationship with technology seems to be a function of leisure time, something that parents can be woefully short of. 

The resulting technological consultation of children by their parents could just be seen as an amusing reversal of authority within the family unit, but it does throw up a number of questions, both financial and moral. 

We're seeing kids leading a lot of technology purchase decisions for the family based upon the trends that they're following.

They're not really worrying about internet security, for example, or interoperability. 

So our role is to offer impartial advice.

Someone said to me recently that it's like giving the prisoner the key if you let your kids make your technology purchases.

The same analogy could be used back at home, post-sale, where it's the parents duty to be clued up enough to supervise their children's use of technology, but kids end up knowing far more than they're given credit for. 

If I were a child and my parents asked me which websites I shouldn't be looking at," says Leeser, "I certainly wouldn't have told them.

And if they'd asked me how to block those websites, I wouldn't have told them that either.

Ahad Surooprajally, 45, has a nine-year old son, Habeeb, who's already running rings around him. "He has to go to bed at a certain time," he says, "but then he'll log into my Apple TV remotely while I'm watching a film and shut it down… 

Similarly, I had a friend of mine set up controls on the computer so Habeeb has 30 minutes online time a day – but he made himself an administrator and gave himself two hours a day instead." 

Habeeb himself finds this screamingly funny, but is coy when asked how he came by the knowledge. 

Oh, the internet," he giggles. 

And do you ever get tips from friends? 

To be honest, I don't really need to.

You may think of Habeeb as a whizz kid who's streets ahead of his peers, but it's likely that his peers are just as clued up.

Because they've got the time.

The inclination and the access to technology in order to get the edge on their parents.

If there's a message to come out of this, it's probably a nudge to technophobic parents to devote some time towards getting good advice and to familiarise themselves with new technology.

Not just to maintain technological order at home, but also because society increasingly demands it.

The government wants us to be able to do so much online," says Nigel Houghton. 

There are 650 services provided by various departments which are moving online – and there are all the incredibly useful things that internet connectivity can help with, such as getting cheaper utility bills.

And, seeing as our offspring probably wouldn't have the patience to help us seek out a new electricity provider, maybe that's a good a place as any to begin striking out on our own.

Monsanto rules

The key phrases are a mouthful of legal mumbo jumbo but are widely thought to have been added to the bill by the Missouri republican senator Roy Blunt who is Monsanto's chief recipient of political funds. 

For the record, they read:

"In the event that a determination of nonregulated status made pursuant to section 411 of Plant Protection Act is or has been invalidated or vacated, the secretary of agriculture shall, notwithstanding any other provision of law upon request by a farmer, grower, farm operator, or producer, immediately grant temporary permit(s) or temporary deregulation in part, subject to necessary and appropriate conditions consistent with section 411(a) or 412c of the Plant Protection Act, which interim conditions shall authorise the movement, introduction, continued cultivation, commercialisation and other specifically enumerated activities and requirements, including measures designed to mitigate or minimise potential adverse environmental effects, if any, relevant to the secretary's evaluation of the petition for nonregulated status, while ensuring that growers or other users are able to move, plant, cultivate, introduce into commerce and carry out other authorised activities in a time manner …"

According to an array of food and consumer groups, organic farmers, civil liberty and trade unions and others, this hijacks the constitution, sets a legal precedent and puts Monsanto and other biotech companies above the federal courts. 

It means, they say, that not even the US government can now stop the sale, planting, harvest or distribution of any GM seed, even if it is linked to illness or environmental problems.

The backlash has been furious. 

Senator Barbara Mikulski, chair of the powerful Senate appropriations committee which was ultimately responsible for the bill, has apologised. 

A Food Democracy Now petition has attracted 250,000 names and sections of the liberal press and blogosphere are outraged. 

This provision is simply an industry ploy to continue to sell genetically engineered seeds even when a court of law has found they were approved by US department of agriculture illegally,says one petition. 

It is unnecessary and an unprecedented attack on US judicial review. 

Congress should not be meddling with the judicial review process based solely on the special interest of a handful of companies.

Remarkably, though, it has also offended the Conservative right and libertarians. 

FreedomWorks, the conservative thinktank that helped launch the Tea Party, says corporations should "play by the rules of the free market like everyone else, instead of hiring insider lobbyists to rewrite the rules for them in Washington". 

Dustin Siggins, a blogger for the Tea Party patriots has called it a "special interest loophole" for friends of Congress. 

We are used to subsidies, which give your tax dollars to companies to give them advantages over competitors. 

We are used to special interest tax loopholes and tax credits, which provide competitive and financial benefits to those with friends in Congress. 

And we are familiar with regulatory burden increases, which often prevent smaller companies from competing against larger ones because of the cost of compliance. 

This is a different kind of special interest giveaway altogether. 

This is a situation in which a company is given the ability to ignore court orders, in what boils down to a deregulation scheme for a particular set of industries..

Even Monsanto appears a touch embarrassed. 

The company whose seeds make up 93% of US soybeans, 

88% of cotton 

And 86% of maize and which on Wednesday announced a 22% increase in earnings, has sought to align itself with others in the industry, even though it is far and away the main beneficiary. 

In a statement, it says: "As a member of the Biotechnology Industry Organisation (BIO), we were pleased to join major grower groups in supporting the Farmer Assurance Provision, including the American Farm Bureau Federation, the American Seed Trade Association, the American Soybean Association, the American Sugarbeet Growers Association, the National Corn Growers Association, the National Cotton Council, and several others."

The company's friends are now on the defensive, seeking to blame "activists". 

Here is John Entine, director of the Genetic Literacy Project, and a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, the pro-business, anti-regulation think tank: 

The legislation does not, as critics allege, allow farmers or Monsanto to sell seeds proven to be harmful. 

Rather, it provides legal consistency for farmers and businesses so that they will not be jerked around by temporary findings by competing court systems as activist challenges make their way up the legal food chain.

The only good news, say the opponents, is that because the "Monsanto Protection Act" was part of the much wider spending bill, it will formally expire in September. 

The bad news however is that the precedent has been set and it is unlikely that the world's largest seed company and the main driver of the divisive GM technology will ever agree to give up its new legal protection. 

The company, in effect, now rules.

Epigenetics

Epigenetics Reveal Biological Information On Homosexuality

A new study from the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS) reveals that epigenetics, rather than genetics, could be the basis for homosexuality.

To begin, epigenetics looks at how gene expression is managed by temporary switches, known as epi-marks. 

In the report, recently published online in The Quarterly Review of Biology, the authors discussed how sex-specific epi-marks generally do not transmit between generations and are considered “erased.” 

Homosexuality can result when these marks are not “erased” and are passed on from father to daughter or mother to son.

Transmission of sexually antagonistic epi-marks between generations is the most plausible evolutionary mechanism of the phenomenon of human homosexuality,” explained the study’s co-author Sergey Gavrilets, who serves as the NIMBioS’ associate director for scientific activities and professor at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville.

The researchers explain how homosexuality is common for men and women in various cultures despite knowledge of evolutionary methods. 

Past studies have looked at how homosexuality is passed through family members, but no gene related to homosexuality has been found. 

The current study by the researchers from the Working Group on Intragenomic Conflict at NIMBioS produced a biological and mathematical model based on evolutionary theory and new information on gene express and androgen-dependent sexual development.

In particular, epi-marks give an extra set of information on the expression of genes. 

Genes have instruction, while epi-marks manage how the how gene instructions are carried out during gene development. 

For every generation, there is a new set of epi-marks; however, studies have also shown that epi-marks may be passed between generations and can cause similarity among relatives.

There is compelling evidence that epi-marks contribute to both the similarity and dissimilarity of family members, and can therefore feasibly contribute to the observed familial inheritance of homosexuality and its low concordance between [identical] twins, the study’s co-author William Rice, a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

In addition, sex specific epi-marks found in early fetal development help protect each sex from having natural variation in testosterone that occurs later in fetal development. 

For example, sex specific epi-marks will prevent girl fetuses from becoming too masculine while preventing male fetuses from becoming too feminine. 

Though, when epi-marks are transmitted from one generation to the next, from father to daughter or mother to son they show reversed effects. 

In this regard, some traits in sons become feminized while other traits in daughters become more masculine.

Most mainstream biologists have shied away from studying it because of the social stigma.

It’s been swept under the rug, people are still stuck on this idea that it’s unnatural. 

Well there are many examples of homosexuality in nature, it’s very common.

Furthermore, the mathematical modeling of the genes shows that the epi-marks can be passed on the population as a way to boost the fitness of the parent but decreasing fitness in offspring.

These epi-marks protect fathers and mothers from excess or underexposure to testosterone

When they carry over to opposite-sex offspring, it can cause the masculinization of females or the feminization of males.

Overall, the study helps explain the various underling factors related to homosexuality.

We’ve found a story that looks really good, concluded Rice

There’s more verification needed, but we point out how we can easily do epigenetic profiles genome-wide. 

We predict where the epi-marks occur, we just need other studies to look at it empirically. 

This can be tested and proven within six months. 

It’s easy to test. 

If it’s a bad idea, we can throw it away in short order.

Connie K Ho

Guess who?