Public release date: 11-Dec-2012 National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis )
Study finds epigenetics, not genetics, underlies homosexuality
Excerpt: “…researchers from the Working Group on Intragenomic Conflict at the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS) integrated evolutionary theory with recent advances in the molecular regulation of gene expression and androgen-dependent sexual development to produce a biological and mathematical model that delineates the role of epigenetics in homosexuality.”
I wonder what is different about their biological model compared to ours, which was detailed in the journal Hormones and Behavior in 1996.
“Molecular epigenetics: Yet another kind of epigenetic imprinting occurs in species as diverse as yeast, Drosophila, mice, and humans and is based upon small DNA-binding proteins called “chromo domain” proteins, e.g., polycomb. These proteins affect chromatin structure, often in telomeric regions, and thereby affect transcription and silencing of various genes (Saunders, Chue, Goebl, Craig, Clark, Powers, Eissenberg, Elgin, Rothfield, and Earnshaw, 1993; Singh, Miller, Pearce, Kothary, Burton, Paro, James, and Gaunt, 1991; Trofatter, Long, Murrell, Stotler, Gusella, and Buckler, 1995). Small intranuclear proteins also participate in generating alternative splicing techniques of pre-mRNA and, by this mechanism, contribute to sexual differentiation in at least two species, Drosophila melanogaster and Caenorhabditis elegans (Adler and Hajduk, 1994; de Bono, Zarkower, and Hodgkin, 1995; Ge, Zuo, and Manley, 1991; Green, 1991; Parkhurst and Meneely, 1994; Wilkins, 1995; Wolfner, 1988). That similar proteins perform functions in humans suggests the possibility that some human sex differences may arise from alternative splicings of otherwise identical genes.”
I wonder what is different about their mathematical model compared to this one, which models the complexities of systems biology that are obviously common to species from microbes to man, since the molecular biology is common to species from microbes to man.
I wonder most of all how much longer others will ignore the unequivocal fact that human pheromones have every bit as much epigenetic influence on our preferences for other people, including our sexual preferences, as food odors have on our food preferences.
