Word: fruitness
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...next few hours, there was not much to distinguish this space spectacular from the dead-end Apollo-Soyuz mission. Astronauts and cosmonauts drank toasts, exchanged symbolic gifts (flowers, candy and fruit for the crew on Mir; the traditional Russian hospitality offering of bread and salt for the Americans), toured each other's spacecraft and issued properly portentous statements about cooperation in space--as did officials on the ground, including Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin...
...researchers hypothesize, the brain was unable to make enough serotonin, one of the neurotransmitters that carry messages between nerve cells. Serotonin is a multi-purpose chemical, and abnormal levels of it in humans have been linked to everything from depression to violent behavior. In the case of the gay fruit flies, the scientists speculate, a shortfall of serotonin produced those all-male conga lines...
Odenwald and Zhang do not pretend to have any easy answers. In fact the type of gene they've been studying in fruit flies could not begin to account for the complex variations in human homosexual behavior. For one thing, the gene does not cause flies to renounce heterosexuality altogether. If a "gay" fly is surrounded by females instead of males, he'll fertilize the lady flies. So strictly speaking, the NIH flies are not homosexual but bisexual. And the gene produces no unusual behavior when transplanted into females: the scientists have produced no lesbian fruit flies...
...gene works is intriguing, and may offer some clues to the biochemical roots of gayness. Surprisingly, the swatch of DNA in question was discovered long ago, and is one of the most thoroughly studied of all fruit-fly genes. It is called the "white" gene because, among many effects, it influences eye color, and a particular mutation in the gene causes a fly's normally red eyes to be white. The gene's specific job is to produce a protein that enables cells to utilize an essential amino acid called tryptophan. If fruit flies are unable to process tryptophan properly...
...fruit flies, and certainly in humans, sexual orientation is just not a simple matter. And no amount of scientific research is going to change that fact of life...