http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015 ... topstories

(NEWSER) – UCLA scientists think they've developed the first test that can accurately predict whether a man is gay based on his DNA, and all it takes is a swab of saliva, reports New Scientist (https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn ... ientation/).

The researchers examined 400,000 epigenetic tags — "chemicals that latch onto DNA and help turn genes on or off," explains BuzzFeed (http://www.buzzfeed.com/virginiahughes/ ... controvers) — and zeroed in on five that were notably different in gay and straight twins. A resulting algorithm correctly predicted the men's sexual orientation nearly 70% of the time.

Researchers presented the controversial findings at the American Society of Human Genetics annual meeting in Baltimore this week, though they have yet to appear in a peer-reviewed journal.

"To our knowledge, this is the first example of a predictive model for sexual orientation based on molecular markers," says lead author Tuck Ngun in a press release (http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/ ... 093015.php).

A skeptical molecular geneticist said such tests are prone to false positives due to "spurious associations that are down to sheer chance," reports New Scientist. Another added that it needs to be replicated "on larger samples in order to know how good it is, but in theory it's quite interesting."

The UCLA researchers used saliva samples from 47 pairs of identical male twins in which at least one of the two was gay

Ngun himself is gay and says he has no intention of pursuing some kind of commercial application for the results. In fact, he's done with the field entirely.

"I just left the lab last week," he says. "I don’t believe in the censoring of knowledge, but given the potential for misuse of the information, it just didn’t sit well with me."

(Almost one in three young Americans say they are some degree of bisexual (http://www.newser.com/story/211703/29-o ... exual.html).)

Wolf-Pup (imported) wrote: Mon Oct 12, 2015 4:43 pm http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015 ... topstories

(NEWSER) – UCLA scientists think they've developed the first test that can accurately predict whether a man is gay based on his DNA, and all it takes is a swab of saliva, reports New Scientist (https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn ... ientation/).

The researchers examined 400,000 epigenetic tags — "chemicals that latch onto DNA and help turn genes on or off," explains BuzzFeed (http://www.buzzfeed.com/virginiahughes/ ... controvers) — and zeroed in on five that were notably different in gay and straight twins. A resulting algorithm correctly predicted the men's sexual orientation nearly 70% of the time.

Researchers presented the controversial findings at the American Society of Human Genetics annual meeting in Baltimore this week, though they have yet to appear in a peer-reviewed journal.

"To our knowledge, this is the first example of a predictive model for sexual orientation based on molecular markers," says lead author Tuck Ngun in a press release (http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/ ... 093015.php).

A skeptical molecular geneticist said such tests are prone to false positives due to "spurious associations that are down to sheer chance," reports New Scientist. Another added that it needs to be replicated "on larger samples in order to know how good it is, but in theory it's quite interesting."

The UCLA researchers used saliva samples from 47 pairs of identical male twins in which at least one of the two was gay

Ngun himself is gay and says he has no intention of pursuing some kind of commercial application for the results. In fact, he's done with the field entirely.

"I just left the lab last week," he says. "I don’t believe in the censoring of knowledge, but given the potential for misuse of the information, it just didn’t sit well with me."

(Almost one in three young Americans say they are some degree of bisexual (http://www.newser.com/story/211703/29-o ... exual.html).)

(Almost one in three young Americans are totally honest with themselves and others.)

Does DNA research can predict left hand domination? Or cross - domination: right eye - left hand - right leg?

I wonder how many homophobic parents will reject their child, how many people will be executed in countries where homosexuality is a crime, how many people are blackmailed. Should we expect mass homosexul asylum seekers wave?

erikboy (imported) wrote: Tue Oct 13, 2015 11:48 am I wonder how many homophobic parents will reject their child, how many people will be executed in countries where homosexuality is a crime, how many people are blackmailed. Should we expect mass homosexul asylum seekers wave?

I also wonder, how many false positives there would be...

fhunter wrote: Tue Oct 13, 2015 1:59 pm I also wonder, how many false positives there would be...

I'm guessing about 50%. Read on...

A friend of mine is a statistician, so I thought this might intrigue her. I read her the story, and she said she wanted to do a few calculations and get back to me.

She called back about half an hour later and said to look for an e-mail, because her response was too complicated for a phone call. Here’s what the e-mail said:

“First a disclaimer: I’m a statistician, not a microbiologist or geneticist. That said, here’s how I see it.

“Okay, let’s see if I got this right. There are 400,000 different molecule types to choose from. They had a sample of 47 pairs of guys in which one in each pair declared himself straight and the other declared himself gay. Then they found five molecule types that were of one form in the guys who called themselves gay and a different form in the guys who called themselves straight. Using these five molecule types, they found that in 70% of the pairs, or 33 pairs out of 47, the straights were distinguished from the gays by these molecule types.

“If that’s what we’re dealing with, I’m absolutely astounded that they couldn’t achieve any better than 70%. I wouldn’t have been surprised if they’d gotten nearly 100% given the way the deck was stacked in their favor. Just by flipping a coin they could have expected to get 50% right on average, and getting 57% with a coin flip wouldn’t require a lot of luck, and 64% would be only a two-sigma case. And that’s just flipping a coin. Here they had nearly half a million molecule types to choose from to get something just slightly better than what they’d get from flipping a coin?

“More to the point, they got 70% just from a “training sample”—the sample they used to pick the molecule types with. If they had a second sample of 47 pairs of guys and correctly identified the gays and straights in that sample with the same set of molecule types, they might have something worthwhile. Without the second sample, what they’ve got is just junk science. I can’t imagine a reputable peer-reviewed journal that would publish this.

“And another point: The straights and gays in the sample were self-declared. Given the stigma still attached to being gay, how many in the sample were gays still in the closet who reported themselves straight? How many were really bisexual?

“I hope nobody gets too excited about this piece of crap.”

Sandi

Thank you for that lovely bit of mathematics (statistics)

and what about transgender predictors?

Erikboy nails it perfectly.

Not to turn this into an abortion thread, however, we already have the issue of parents given the choice to abort babies found to be defective in "some way" via "some test".

All we need is another one, and how many would-be parents would choose to abort a gay baby - or even worse - make advance plans to subject the child to a "corrective" lifestyle before that child even knows what sexuality is?

And how many more would have their existing children tested to see if they're gay?

I just shiver at the thought.

Yeah I was thinking along the same line as Paolo which is why I posted it. The potential for abuse are obvious.

At the same time I also think it at least maybe can prove that people are born however they are, it isn't a "lifestyle choice"