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How bisexuality is passed on in the genes

Pictures of spreads from New Scientist magazine

JUST how "gay genes" could be passed on to future generations was revealed some years ago when Italian researchers showed that the female relatives of gay men tend to have more children. Now Andrea Camperio Ciani's team at the University of Padua in Italy have also shown that the same is true for bisexuality.

The researchers found that the mothers, maternal aunts and grandmothers of both bisexual and gay men had more children than the relatives of heterosexual men. Camperio Ciani stresses that, rather than being a "gay gene", this unidentified genetic factor is likely to make both men and women more attracted to men. So it would probably make a woman likely to have more children by influencing her attitude to sex rather than actually boosting her fertility.

Neuroscientist Simon LeVay, who has searched for a biological basis for homosexuality, agrees that the "hyper-heterosexuality" that this genetic factor bestows ...



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