A Gay "switch" ?

[ixyam]

"Homosexuality in fruit flies can be switched on&off by using drugs to alter the strenght of nerve-cell junctions in male flies 'brains' . The changes make male unable to sense a pherormone that normally stops them mating with other males " {Nature Neuroscience ,DOI:1038/nn2019}

I couldn't stop humming the song " fly , fly with me..." whilst reading this article. I am wondering why it didn't make the news.

ixyam

[Tiger]

"Homosexuality in fruit flies can be switched on&off by using drugs to alter the strenght of nerve-cell junctions in male flies 'brains' . The changes make male unable to sense a pherormone that normally stops them mating with other males " {Nature Neuroscience ,DOI:1038/nn2019}

I couldn't stop humming the song " fly , fly with me..." whilst reading this article. I am wondering why it didn't make the news.

ixyam

I do believe humans are more complex than that. However, if there is a way to switch it on, we need to use it on the breeders for population control.

[ixyam]

lol ... pills could be handed at the doors of venues to make things radically interesting ... too bad the name extasy is taken already ... we could name the pills "rainbow drops" ?

[Benji]

"Homosexuality in fruit flies can be switched on&off by using drugs to alter the strenght of nerve-cell junctions in male flies 'brains' . The changes make male unable to sense a pherormone that normally stops them mating with other males " {Nature Neuroscience ,DOI:1038/nn2019}

I couldn't stop humming the song " fly , fly with me..." whilst reading this article. I am wondering why it didn't make the news.

ixyam

 

 

:wacko: ......Isn't amazing how much money goes into researching the sex life of a fruit fly!!

[GaryK]

For Gay Fruit Flies, Homosexuality Is Not a Choice

 

When the genetically altered fruit fly was released into the observation chamber, it did what these breeders par excellence tend to do. It pursued a waiting virgin female. It gently tapped the girl with its leg, played her a song (using wings as instruments) and, only then, dared to lick her - all part of standard fruit fly seduction.

 

The observing scientist looked with disbelief at the show, for the suitor in this case was not a male, but a female that researchers had artificially endowed with a single male-type gene.

[Michael H]

:wacko: ......Isn't amazing how much money goes into researching the sex life of a fruit fly!!

 

Correction: Isn't amazing how much of our money goes into researching the sex life of a fruit fly! You've gotta wonder about people who make their living driving rats crazy.

[GaryK]

I am wondering why it didn't make the news.

Apparently you missed the FOX News story:

 

Scientists Make Fruit Flies Gay, Then Straight Again

 

 

Correction: Isn't amazing how much of our money goes into researching the sex life of a fruit fly! You've gotta wonder about people who make their living driving rats crazy.

Michael, the whole issue of sexual studies baffles me. It's not just the part about spending our taxes on it. It's all these documentaries on Animal Planet and NatGeo Channel about sexual reproduction in every imaginable life form. In the human world we refer to this as porn. In the non-human world it's called research.

[Tiff]

lol ... pills could be handed at the doors of venues to make things radically interesting ... too bad the name extasy is taken already ... we could name the pills "rainbow drops" ?

Rainbow drops, LOL. Well, that kind of makes me think of something you'd put in your eyes, you know, like eye drops.

 

But not a bad idea...

 

:wacko: ......Isn't amazing how much money goes into researching the sex life of a fruit fly!!

 

Totally! And don't fruit flies have a life span of a few days or less? Or am I getting it confused with a different type of fly?

[GaryK]

Rainbow drops, LOL. Well, that kind of makes me think of something you'd put in your eyes, you know, like eye drops.

One could argue it would make people see sexuality in a different way!

[S.L. Lewis]

*chokes on cake*

Gay fruit flys? What's next? Gay goats? Wait...never mind. Forget I even said that. I don't want to know. I'm just hoping that I'll be dead and dust in the wind before they get to the human stage.

[Tiff]

One could argue it would make people see sexuality in a different way!

Oooh, Gary, good one!

 

Look at you, have an answer for everything.

 

But you are correct- rainbow drops make you see sexuality from a new and exciting perspective, if you will. LOL! Someone should create rainbow drops and then have magazine ads...it would be hilarious.

[GaryK]

Rainbow Drops

 

Not exactly what I had in mind but they do look yummy!

[AFriendlyFace]

I do believe humans are more complex than that. However, if there is a way to switch it on, we need to use it on the breeders for population control.

I thoroughly agree with you on both points.

 

 

 

This type of research always leaves me a tad unsettled. I've always maintained that why we're gay is irrelevant, we should just be grateful. Going to great lengths to understand the underlying factors is just one step away from 'treatment' *spits in disgust* I can also imagine half our population disappearing.

 

This is a very atypical position for me with regards to science and humans manipulating 'nature'. I almost unilaterally support that sort of thing. I'm very much in favour of nearly all the controversial research and experiments in these areas (cloning, stem cells, etc.). My general attitude is that great knowledge and mastery can only be a good thing. I take exception to this though. It's a dangerous game we're playing here.

 

-Kevin

[GaryK]

I've always maintained that why we're gay is irrelevant, we should just be grateful. Going to great lengths to understand the underlying factors is just one step away from 'treatment' *spits in disgust* I can also imagine half our population disappearing.

I've always known I was gay. I never went through the typical coming out of the closet thing. I was never in it.

 

I won't go so far as to claim I'm grateful for being gay because I'm not. It's meant a life full of difficulties that a heterosexual person would never have to deal with.

 

Maybe society has evolved to the point where this is now merely a generational issue. My generation paved the way for you to feel grateful for being who you are.

 

And yet I still wonder why I am the way I am. I'd like to know if it's a nature or nurture issue. I tend to side with the nature issue. But I'm the kind of person who appreciates empirical evidence to support my beliefs.

 

Why do you perceive understanding the underlying factors as being one step away from treatment?

[Krista]

Pheromones can easily manipulate any species that uses them to attract a mate. Predatory lightening bugs copy the light of smaller species, then eats the poor males that fly in looking to get lucky. But, anyway, Pheromones of I think, common garden snakes in Canada - males use them to trick other males into believing they are female so that they can divert attention away from the female snakes.

 

They have never figured out if Humans act on hidden pheromones, I personally think we don't have the ability to, that we're more sight oriented. Our sense of smell is crap anyway.

 

Also, I really hate knowing as well, that people have paid good money for some people to watch insects perform homosexual acts. Sexuality in animals is something I'd really see no point in studying... even homosexual behavior in a number of species just seems too primitive/basic to wonder if animals have different orientations.. Human sexuality, as our brains are complex, would be more interesting. Even though, I'd really not want to know how it all comes to be with humans either.

[Tiger]

I happen to agree with Gary. I have mentioned before that people need to watch documentaries like Before Stonewall and Gay Sex in the 70's. Those are must watch documentaries for the younger generation and a good reminder for the older generations. The cause is still unknown. I aspire to the hormone theory, but I may be wrong.

[Demetz]

I remember hearing about this before... its somewhat amusing but not exactly a new concept. Basically, they used a chemical substance to alter the flies' perception. You know what they call that with humans? Beer.

 

Come to think of it, the last story I remember about this featured using specifically alcohol to mess up the flies' perception to the effect of turning many of them "gay"

 

Of course the flies do not self-identify as gay, they merely classify themself as msm

[jfalkon]

I think the reason they used fruit flies is that their DNA looks very similar to ours. They were probably looking to find a genetic signiture for homosexuality and then went of on a tangent. If genetics was involved I can see why it got funding. Anything, no matter how trivial, that is discovered about DNA is considered useful because it is a piece of the larger puzzel.

 

If we did find some medicine that would change a person's sexual orientation I don't think it would be a disaster. If anything it would be used by the curious who want to see how the other half lives (loves?) There is no way the vast majority of people in the Western world would want to force this "cure" on anyone. In places where homosexuality is looked apon as evil gay people stay in the closet anyway so it would be hard to find and medicate them.

[JamesSavik]

>>they used a chemical substance to alter the flies' perception.

 

 

No. They used a substance that forced a gene to turn on. Big difference. Wake up after beer and you might be hung over. Wake up after having a gene changed and the change is permament.

[Michael H]

 

"And yet I still wonder why I am the way I am. I'd like to know if it's a nature or nurture issue. I tend to side with the nature issue. But I'm the kind of person who appreciates empirical evidence to support my beliefs."

 

Gary I spent my whole career in analytical science and yet the when I ponder this question I always come back to this:

"...For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb...

I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that, my soul knoweth right well." ~Psalm 139

 

Fearfully and wonderfully created. Kinda says it all.

Edited March 25, 2008 by Michael Halfhill

[GaryK]

Gary I spent my whole career in analytical science and yet the when I ponder this question I always come back to this:

"...For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb...

I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that, my soul knoweth right well." ~Psalm 139

 

Fearfully and wonderfully created. Kinda says it all.

Does the soul have free will? If so then doesn't that create a potential problem wherein it can be argued that we are what we are because we made a choice to do so?

 

Just playing devil's advocate...

[Michael H]

Does the soul have free will? If so then doesn't that create a potential problem wherein it can be argued that we are what we are because we made a choice to do so?

 

Just playing devil's advocate...

 

Free will allows for the choice over good and evil not over our natures. Which are the result of a divine spark.

 

Later today I'm posting my essay on the fall of Ted Haggard:

ECLIPSE

Notes on a Fallen Icon

A personal view

 

M

[old bob]

Does the soul have free will? If so then doesn't that create a potential problem wherein it can be argued that we are what we are because we made a choice to do so?

Just playing devil's advocate...

Where you come from ?

Where will you go ?

Answers to these questions are only believes.

Staying on facts, you can only say that your DNAs come from your parents and parents of them.

From the moment you came on earth, you have to deal with your genes and your free will is limited. What happened before and what will happen after has nothing to do with science ! Either your faith brings you the answers, or the question is without importance and without signification. After 78 years of living experiences, the only thing I know is that I don't know. For me, my future death will be the highest experience and bring me all the answers I need. In the meantime, I'm just enjoying the life without asking any more .

BTW, being bi is perhaps an advantage, it appears that I have more choices than others .

Old bob

[clumber]

Where you come from ?

Where will you go ?

 

Thats not a Devil's Advocate, thats Cotton-Eye Joe.

 

 

Also, I have very little interest over why I'm gay. Its just not something I really care about. I am gay and thats the start and end of it as far as I'm concerned. All these things just seem to me like a bit of a waste when they could be doing far more interesting things, like maybe having a decent look in the sea or something.

[GaryK]

Also, I have very little interest over why I'm gay. Its just not something I really care about. I am gay and thats the start and end of it as far as I'm concerned. All these things just seem to me like a bit of a waste when they could be doing far more interesting things, like maybe having a decent look in the sea or something.

Can we look for gay sea monsters?