my-speck

Hiya Little Speckle, Good morning to you.  I’ve put the stats from the latest votes together, and it seems we still believe you’re a boy.  Only just…  The current survey results put you at boy 44.44%, girl 38.89% and undecided 16.67% (current survey results).  I’m leaning towards a girl for you.  But not sure.

There was an interesting article today in the SMH by Deborah Smith about research into birds and how they may be able to influence the sex of their offspring… Article – Sex and the tweety: why redheads have more sons

“Sex and the tweety: why redheads have more sons

WHICH one will she choose? The fiery redhead or his black feathered rival? Looks count a lot to the pretty female finch on the lower perch. Given a choice, there is no question. She will go for her own kind, mating with the male with the same head colour as her – black. But if a redhead is her only option, she will do something extraordinary, Sydney scientists have found. She will produce many more sons than daughters after mating. The research is the best evidence yet that birds can control the sex of their offspring. With the help of some black dye, to cover up the red and trick the females, the researchers also showed the female Gouldian finches determined their offspring’s sex based on the male appearance alone.When black females thought they were mating with black males they had about equal numbers of sons and daughters.A Macquarie University biologist, Sarah Pryke, said there was no chemical or genetic interaction between the parents at work. “Change the colour of the male’s head with dye and the sex ratio changes.”She said her team’s study raised the question of whether other animals, perhaps even humans, have this ability to influence whether boys or girls are born. “This discovery will change our understanding of sex determination across the animal kingdom,” said Dr Pryke, whose study is published in the journal Science. How the Australian finches, which are an endangered species, subconsciously do it “is a big mystery,” she said, but one possibility is that the sight of a mate with a differently coloured head raises female stress levels, producing hormones that interrupt the normal processes of fertilisation. Why they do it is more clear. When finches with differently coloured heads mate – which happens about 30 per cent of the time in the wild – their babies are much more likely to die than in same colour unions.  The risk of death for the girls is also higher than for the boys.A black female with no option but to mate with a red male, or vice versa, will go ahead anyway, but “make the best of a bad situation”, Dr Pryke said.By skewing their offspring’s sex ratio, so four times more boys than the vulnerable girls are born, they maximise their chances of some chicks surviving. Evidence of skewed sex ratios in humans include findings that optimistic women are more likely to have boys and women living under harsh conditions tend to have girls. “There is often a large increase in males produced after wars,” Dr Pryke said. “

Interesting – right?  So if I am optimistic you’re more likely to be a boy.  And stressed or under pressure, a girl?  Or maybe I can influence it to just what I want (which I’m not sure how you’re be ’cause I really don’t have a preference.  Though, before I thought about it much I for some reason wanted a girl.  I just figured it would make more sense and I felt like I’d be used to girls better ’cause of all your aunts…)…

Mmm.. Weird Hey, I wonder if we can influence your sex.  And I wonder if there was much your dad could have done about it…

Anyway, whatever you are, you kick a lot.  So going by other friends, that means you’re not going to be a chilled out lounge baby.   Maybe higher maintenance like me.

he he.,.

love you

mum