Homosexual behaviors in birds and mammals are thought to provide a number of evolutionary benefits, but scientists trying to find explanations for similar behavior in insects say a different imperative may be at work. Reviewing past studies on some 110 species of male insects and spiders, researchers Inon Scharf (Tel Aviv University) and Oliver Martin […]
A new study in the European Journal of Cultural Studies criticizes wildlife documentaries produced by the BBC for ignoring widespread alternative aspects of animal activity such as homosexuality and same-sex parenting. The study, by Dr Brett Mills of the University of East Anglia (UK), examined how breeding, sexuality, monogamy and ideas of the family were […]
Epigenetics – how gene expression is regulated by temporary switches, called epi-marks – appears to be a critical and overlooked factor in the long-standing evolutionary puzzle of why homosexuality occurs. That’s according to a study published in The Quarterly Review of Biology that provides evidence that sex-specific epi-marks can lead to homosexuality when they are […]
Men are more than twice as likely to continue dating a girlfriend who has cheated on them with another woman than one who has cheated with another man, say University of Texas bonk boffins. But for women, it’s the opposite. They are more likely to continue dating a man who has had a heterosexual affair […]
Male homosexuality doesn’t make complete sense from an evolutionary point of view but a new study suggests that it may convey an indirect benefit by enhancing the survival prospects of close relatives. The study hypothesizes that homosexual men enhance their own genetic prospects by acting altruistically toward their nieces and nephews, thereby perpetuating some of […]
Writing about their findings in the journal PLoS ONE, Italian researchers say that male homosexuality in humans can be explained by a model based on sexually antagonistic selection, where genetic factors spread in the population by giving a reproductive advantage to one sex while disadvantaging the other. It’s generally believed that male homosexuality is influenced […]
While the nature-nurture argument about homosexuality continues to be debated, a team of neurobiologists from the University of Illinois at Chicago have discovered that sexual orientation in fruit flies is controlled by a previously unknown regulator of synapse strength. Armed with this knowledge, the researchers were able to use either genetic manipulation or drugs to […]
Researchers in the Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) School of Medicine have confirmed that a male sheep’s preference for same-sex partners has biological underpinnings. A study published in the journal Endocrinology demonstrates that not only are certain groups of cells different between genders in a part of the sheep brain controlling sexual behavior, but […]
