So, your neighbors are having gender reveal party and everyone thinks it’s going to be a girl. Because of the way your friend’s carrying, because of her cravings, and most of all because she told you that they had a lot of sex to get this baby, and consistently avoided orgasms.
While all of this may do something, new research is suggesting that the gender of a baby is actually determined by something much more archaic than tips given out by the Internet: whether you are set to have a girl or a boy may be determined by an ancient virus.
I know- it sounds as improbable as the power of eating lots of celery and skirting the Big ‘O’, but according to medicaldaily.com, a team of researchers at Yale University has found that the sex of baby mice-and consequently maybe other baby mammals- may be determined by a modification of a virus that inserted itself into the X chromosomes of mammalian genes around 1.5 million years ago.
How does it work? It may all depend on the way the embryo deactivates this ancient viral gene.
During the study, researchers found that if the level of this marker is normal, X chromosomes will remain active, and an equal ratio of females and males will be born. But if the marker is over-represented, X chromosomes will be silenced, making males twice as likely to be born as females.
Researchers are saying that the virus in us allows us to continually evolve, but it is also present and active in tumors and neurons, so it’s a good news/bad news thing.
Plausible? Could be. Anyways, a bit of a conversation stirrer for the next big baby shower-“so, hey, you’re baby was actually made by a totally ancient infection!” Just be sure to smile.
Photo Credit: Arkom Suvarnasiri/Shutterstock
