Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Of Gay Sheep, Science and Peril of Bad Publicity

Charles Roselli set out to discover what makes some sheep gay. Then the news media and the blogosphere got hold of the story.

Dr. Roselli, a researcher at the Oregon Health and Science University, has searched for the past five years for physiological factors that might explain why about 8 percent of rams seek sex exclusively with other rams instead of ewes. The goal, he says, is to understand the fundamental mechanisms of sexual orientation in sheep. Other researchers might some day build on his findings to seek ways to determine which rams are likeliest to breed, he said.

But since last fall, when People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals started a campaign against the research, it has drawn a torrent of outrage from animal rights activists, gay advocates and ordinary citizens around the world — all of it based, Dr. Roselli and colleagues say, on a bizarre misinterpretation of what the work is about.

The story of the gay sheep became a textbook example of the distortion and vituperation that can result when science meets the global news cycle.

The news media storm reached its zenith last month, when The Sunday Times in London published an article under the headline “Science Told: Hands Off Gay Sheep.” It asserted, incorrectly, that Dr. Roselli had worked successfully to “cure” homosexual rams with hormone treatments, and added that “critics fear” that the research “could pave the way for breeding out homosexuality in humans.”

Martina Navratilova, the tennis star who is both openly gay and a PETA ally, wrote in an open letter that the research “can only be surmised as an attempt to develop a prenatal treatment” for sexual conditions.

The controversy spilled into the blog world, with attacks on Dr. Roselli, his university and Oregon State University, which is also involved in the research. PETA began an e-mail campaign that the universities say resulted in 20,000 protests, some with language like “you are a worthless animal killer and you should be shot,” “I hope you burn in hell” and “please, die.”

The news coverage, which has been heaviest in England and Australia, focused on smirk and titillation — and, of course, puns. Headlines included “Ewe Turn for Gay Rams on Hormones” and “He’s Just Not That Into Ewe.”

In recent weeks, the tide has begun to turn, with Dr. Roselli and Jim Newman, an Oregon Health and Science publicist, saying they have been working to correct the record in print and online. The university has sent responses to senders of each PETA-generated e-mail message.

Dr. Roselli, whose research is supported by the National Institutes of Health and is published in leading scientific journals, insists that he is as repulsed as his critics by the thought of sexual eugenics in humans. He said human sexuality was a complex phenomenon that could not be reduced to interactions of brain structure and hormones.

On blogs where attacks have appeared, the researchers point out that many of the accusations, like The Sunday Times’s assertion that the scientists implant devices in the brains of the sheep, are simply false.

The researchers acknowledge that the sheep are killed in the course of the research so their brain structure can be analyzed, but they say they follow animal welfare guidelines to prevent suffering.

The authors of the Sunday Times article, Chris Gourlay and Isabel Oakeshott, referred questions to a managing editor, who they said was traveling and could not be reached.

Dr. Roselli and Mr. Newman persuaded some prominent bloggers, including Andrew Sullivan, who writes an online column for Time, to correct postings that had uncritically quoted The Sunday Times’s article. They also found an ally in the blog world: a scientist who writes under the pseudonym emptypockets and has taken up Dr. Roselli’s cause. The blogger, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he said a public stand could hurt his career, said he had been cheered by the number of bloggers who dropped their opposition when presented with the facts.

Ms. Navratilova, who also received a response from the university, said she remained unconvinced.

“The more we play God or try to improve on Mother Nature, the more damage we are doing with all kinds of experiments that either have already turned or will turn into nightmares,” she wrote in an e-mail reply to a reporter’s query. “How in the world could straight or gay sheep help humanity?”

In an interview, Shalin Gala, a PETA representative working on the sheep campaign, said controlling or altering sexual orientation was a “natural implication” of the work of Dr. Roselli and his colleagues.

Mr. Gala, who asked that he be identified as openly gay, cited the news release for a 2004 paper in the journal Endocrinology that showed differences in brain structure between homosexual and heterosexual sheep.

The release quoted Dr. Roselli as saying that the research “also has broader implications for understanding the development and control of sexual motivation and mate selection across mammalian species, including humans.”

Mr. Newman, who wrote the release, said the word “control” was used in the scientific sense of understanding the body’s internal controls, not in the sense of trying to control sexual orientation.

“It’s discouraging that PETA can pick one word, try to add weight to it or shift its meaning to suggest that you are doing something that you clearly are not,” he said.

Dr. Roselli said that merely mentioning possible human implications of basic research was wildly different from intending to carry the work over to humans.

Mentioning human implications, he said, is “in the nature of the way we write our grants” and talk to reporters. Scientists who do basic research find themselves in a bind, he said, adding, “We have been forced to draw connections in a way that we can justify our research.”

As for whether the deaths of the sheep are justified, he said, “why would you pick on a guy who’s killing maybe 18 sheep a year, when there’s maybe four million killed for food and clothing in this country?”

Paul Root Wolpe, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania and a senior fellow at the university’s Center for Bioethics, said that although he supported Dr. Roselli’s research, “I’m not sure I would let him off the hook quite as easily as he wants to be let off the hook.”

By discussing the human implications of the research, even in a somewhat careful way, Dr. Roselli “opened the door” to the reaction, Dr. Wolpe said, and “he has to take responsibility for the public response.”

If the mechanisms underlying sexual orientation can be discovered and manipulated, Dr. Wolpe continued, then the argument that sexual orientation is based in biology and is immutable “evaporates.”

The prospect of parents’ eventually being able to choose not to have children who would become gay is a real concern for the future, Dr. Wolpe said. But he added, “This concern is best addressed by trying to change public perceptions of homosexuality rather than stop basic science on sexuality.”

NYTimes.Com

Sex Tips for Straight Women from a Gay Man

How To Sell A Burger That Has 312,000 Options

Prostitutes' fashion line hits street catwalk

As the rich and slim flocked to waterfront convention center for Rio de Janeiro's glitzy biannual fashion show, prostitutes in a downtown square took to a cobblestone catwalk for a show of their own.

Sex service workers from Davida, a Brazilian organization that defends the rights of prostitutes, strutted through the streets wearing their new line of fall/winter clothes.

The brand's name is Daspu, is a play on "Daslu," one of Brazil's most expensive and exclusive fashion names being displayed across town by top models like Gisele Bundchen.

Gabriela Leite, a founder of Daspu, said it was no mistake that her show was running on Fashion Rio's biggest night.

"This fashion show today makes up part of our fall/winter collection that is not on the official agenda of Fashion Rio because we were never invited. Once again, social responsibility does not appear where it should appear," Leite said.

According to organizers, the new 2007 fall/winter line draws from the deep well of artists inspired by prostitutes, from Toulouse Lautrec and Pablo Picasso to Madonna and Sting.

Hired models and prostitutes walked a makeshift catwalk in an alleyway in Rio's red-light district, throwing condoms to an animated crowd of hundreds.

There were spartan and utilitarian shirts with black and white blocks, colorful prints and plenty of eye-catching incarnations of the staple of the industry: the miniskirt.

An eclectic group of spectators - including deserters from Fashion Rio looking for something different - ended the evening dancing samba to a live drum troupe.

Copyright © 2007 Reuters Limited.

Prizes for prostitute-free New Year

Drunk Parrot Becomes A Web Star

BRADENTON, Fla. Jan 23, 2007 (AP)— Teaching a parakeet to putt is no tap-in. Ask David Cota, who spent months training his Indian ringneck parakeet A.J. to use a tiny putter to sink putts on a miniature green, making the 5-inch tall bird an Internet video star.

"It doesn't look all that tough nowadays, but try to get a a bird to hold a little stick basically in its beak. The first time, he snapped it right in half," Cota said. A.J. can also dunk a tiny basketball on a tiny court. He rolls over. He shakes. His play dead is spooky.

A "Tonight" show darling from the end of the Johnny Carson era, A.J. and Cota are staging a comeback thanks to such Web sites as YouTube.com. A.J. has a MySpace.com page and his own Web site.

The 16-year-old parakeet recently won an "outrageous bird" viral video contest sponsored by MagRack, an on-demand television network. A.J.'s sporting skills impressed a 13-member celebrity panel that included actor Carol Spinney, Sesame Street's "Big Bird" since 1969, and Tippi Hedren, who got her star turn in Alfred Hitchcock's 1963 classic "The Birds."

"I've never seen a little parakeet that was that athletic," said Hedren, who learned to love her avian co-stars despite Hitchcock's ruthless plot. "He was really astounding with his golf game and the basketball. It's just too cute, too adorable. And he looked like he was having fun with it, too."

Cota, 38, owes his extended 15 minutes of fame to two dead parakeets.

The first bird belonged to a college girlfriend. Cota was left to care for it. It died.

"A fluke," he insists. He tried to slip in a replacement parakeet and ended up single with plenty of free time to train his new pet parakeet, named "Axl" for the lead singer of Guns N' Roses.

Axl was accidentally crushed only hours before he was scheduled to perform on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" in May 1990. Cota's college roommate fell asleep and rolled on top of the bird in a hotel room provided by NBC. The death made national news.

Carson turned the mishap into a comedy bit. Wearing a black armband, he hosted an on-air memorial service for Axl, complete with "Taps" performed by Doc Severinsen. Carson gave Cota a new parakeet, A.J., whose name is a nod to Axl and to Carson. He told Cota to come back on the show when he'd trained the new bird.

Cota and A.J. performed for Carson. They have also been on with Jay Leno and on David Letterman's "Stupid Pet Tricks."

Cota, who works for sports apparel distributor in southwest Florida, stumbled into the world of bird training by accident.

In college, he and his friends were impressed by Axl's skills at the college drinking game "quarters." The goal is to bounce quarters into a glass, or drink if you miss. Axl would run down runaway quarters and dunk them.

"The bird became kind of like the wild card," Cota said. "You could bid to have the bird on your team, so if you missed and the bird would put it in, you'd still get credit. So I just turned that quarter game into basketball."

A.J. now knows far more tricks than Axl did. Cota and his friends have built elaborate sets including a basketball court featuring the Portland Trail Blazers' logo and a putting green complete with plastic putter and a golf bag.

Next up on A.J.'s training agenda: Water skiing.

"I don't think there is any limit to what I can show him," Cota said.

On the Net:

http://www.magrack.com/birds

http://www.myfriendaj.com

http://www.myspace.com/my friend aj

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press.

The Parrot Problem Solver

Death By Water