Half-Male, Half-Female Fowl Explain Birds' Sex Determination

Kanan excerpts from a BBC report out of Scotland: "A study of sexually scrambled chickens suggests that sex in birds is determined in a radically different way from that in mammals. Researchers studied three chickens that appeared to be literally half-male and half-female, and found that nearly every cell in their bodies — from wattle to toe — has an inherent sex identity. This cell-by-cell sex orientation contrasts sharply with the situation in mammals, in which organism-wide sex identity is established through hormones." Kanan also supplies this link to some pictures of the mixed-cell birds.

Comments

Re:Interesting

[dov_0]

I agree. What a ridiculous premise regarding sexual identity. So an XX or XY chromosome pairing in every cell of a mammal is nothing to do with gender? WTF? Since when is a study of 3 individuals considered decent research anyway? Also, when a flock of chickens suddenly loses it's rooster, the dominant female will sometimes act as a rooster. That isn't hormonal? It's crazy what people try and pass off as science these days...