Sex Gender

Thousands of genes behave differently in the same organs of males and females, researchers reported Friday, a finding that may help explain why men and women have different responses to drugs and diseases. Their study of brain, liver, fat and muscle tissue from mice showed that the level of activity of a gene varied according to sex. The same is almost certainly true of humans, the team at UCLA reported in the August issue of Genome Research.

They're making macho Merlot in California wine country. Hot on the stiletto heels of last year's wines-for-women trend, new releases from Ray's Station Vineyards in Sonoma County are being pitched to the Y-chromosome set as "hearty red wines for men." The bottling of the sexes seems to be part of a wider industry trend that includes cute labels and easier-to-use packaging. Vintners want to break out of the pack by making wines more consumer friendly.

At least 10 million female fetuses may have been aborted in India in the last two decades after prenatal gender checks, according to a study published in a leading British medical journal. "We conservatively estimate that prenatal sex determination and selective abortion accounts for 0.5 million missing girls yearly," the study said. Based on the natural gender ratio from other countries, the study estimated that 13.6 million to 13.8 million girls should have been born in 1997 in India; 13.

EVEN as sports opportunities for girls have expanded over the past decade, the sad fact remains that when girls hit middle school, they are much more likely than boys to become physically inactive. To make matters worse, exercise habits at this age often set patterns for life.

Male fish with female characteristics have been discovered in ocean waters off Los Angeles and Orange counties, raising concerns that treated sewage released offshore contains hormone-disrupting compounds that are deforming the sex organs of marine life. Scientists around the world have found sexual abnormalities in frogs, fish, alligators and other wild animals exposed to sewage effluent and industrial contaminants that mimic estrogens and other hormones.

If left entirely to nature, the number of newborn boys and girls in the world should be roughly equal. But in some cultures that balance has been artificially tipped in favor of boys. In China, the problem is commonly attributed to gender discrimination, which leads to selective abortions and even female infanticide. But a new study suggests that disease may have as much to do with a baby's gender as does preference.

As a child, I was a tomboy. I didn't own a dress until I was almost 11, and bought one only because my school demanded I wear one to my sixth-grade graduation. My parents, with little more than an occasional wistful comment, let me wear whatever I wanted. I have tried to keep the same open mind about gender and dress with my own kids. I've been perfectly comfortable watching my daughters make choices similar to my own, opting for jeans and T-shirts over skirts and dresses.

Men who slide down the social ladder tend to suffer more from their drop in status than women who have the same misfortune. In a study published in the October issue of the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, researchers found that men who experienced a downward social shift were four times more likely to feel depressed than men who improved their social status, but there was no marked difference in the mental health between women who moved up or down the ladder.

The human Y chromosome -- the DNA chunk that makes a man a man -- has lost so many genes over time that some scientists have suspected it might disappear in 10 million years. But a new study says it'll stick around. Researchers found no sign of gene loss over the last 6 million years, suggesting the chromosome is "doing a pretty good job of maintaining itself," said researcher David Page of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, Mass.

Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. was sharply critical as a young Reagan administration lawyer of various efforts in the 1980s aimed at gender equality, calling them "highly objectionable" and probably unconstitutional. In several memos, he described as "pernicious" the notion that salaries for jobs held mostly by women should be raised to the comparable level of jobs that were held traditionally by men.