Male Sensitivity Written in the Genes

By artappraiser on Fri, 09/13/2013 - 7:26pm |

By Douglas Quenqua, New York Times, Sept. 9, 2013

[....] the gene responsible for activating male development is surprisingly unstable, leaving the pathway to male sexuality fraught with inconsistency, a study finds [....]

They found that SRY is highly vulnerable to environmental factors, allowing the slightest interruption to significantly alter male sexual development. That leads to a wide divergence of testosterone-related male attributes (among them muscle mass, aggression and genitalia development) from one man to another, according to the study, which was published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The variability probably serves an evolutionary purpose, said one of the authors, Dr. Michael Weiss.

“This tenuous switch is what underlies the variability of testosterone secretion in utero,” he said, producing men with a wide range of gender styles and capabilities that can help ensure a community’s survival.

URL:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/10/science/male-sensitivity-written-in-the-genes.html

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Male Sensitivity Written in the Genes

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