You learn something new every day

Headline in today's Yahoo News: Gay Sheep May Help Explain Biology of Homosexuals:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Gay sheep that mate only with other rams have different brain structures from "straight" sheep, a finding that may shed light on human sexuality, U.S. researchers said on Monday.

The differences are similar to those seen in some homosexual humans, but probably only go a small way to explaining the causes of different sexual preferences, the team at Oregon Health & Science University said.

"We are not trying to explain human sexuality by this study," Charles Roselli, a professor of physiology and pharmacology who led the study, said in a telephone interview. "Whether this is a big component of what contributes in humans, that's still debatable."

OK, how many of you, like me, were unable to get past the headline without thinking "I didn't know there were gay sheep"?

The story's actually pretty interesting regardless of its obvious appeal to morning radio show personalities. Some things are just too hard to resist, though:

First the scientists watched the sheep to be sure of their behavior -- something that cannot be done with humans. Then they took apart their brains.

One supposes that last part can't be done with humans, either.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on November 05, 2002 to Technology, science, and math | TrackBack