WTF.....

[Milk-Toast!]

Your Baby's Gender Determined By WHAT?

It's the economy, stupid.

When a country experiences a dramatic, faltering economy, there is an equally dramatic, faltering effect on the birth rate. Specifically, there are more female births than male births, according to new research from the University of California, Berkeley. Although this phenomenon has long been observed in herd animals, this is the first time it's been shown to happen in humans, too.

The study: Ralph Catalano, a professor of health policy and management at Berkeley, analyzed birth records in West Germany and East Germany from 1946 to 1999. He says natural selection normally favors the birth of baby boys when the environment is stable and the population is healthy. But what happens to the birth ratio when the economy crashes?

The results: In 1991, a year in which East Germany was still reeling from the collapse of Communism and in the throes of transitioning to a free market economy, the ratio of male to female births dropped to the lowest levels since World War II. That year was truly horrific for the East German economy. In 1991, some 20 percent of the East German labor force was unemployed and another 20 percent only worked a few  hours a week. Industrial production dropped 50 percent, while inflation shot up 6 percent. And this had a stunning impact on the male-female birth ratio. In East Germany, there were about 800 fewer male births than expected, while in West Germany, where the economy was running smoothly by comparison, there was no significant change.

"There has been a longstanding theory in biology that says stressed populations yield fewer males than otherwise expected," Catalano said in a news release issued by Berkeley announcing the study findings. "It's a phenomenon that has been reported in herd animals responding to famine or drought. The change in the ratio of male to female births in Germany suggests that similar mechanisms may be at work in humans."

Still, he cautions against making generalizations about the findings. "What happened in East Germany is so unusual, it may not be applicable to other situations. The people were experiencing economic stress, but they were also grappling with dramatic cultural, political and societal changes as well," he explained.

The study results were published in the journal Human Reproduction.

[excel excel 072]

Milk- toast?!!!!!!!!!!!!!?? wtf? sounds yummy!!!!!!!!!!!! i love ramen!!!!!!!!!!!!1 in fact, i love it so much i made a song about it!!!!!!!!wanna hear? i'll have to post it to u later though... just realized that the evil space chickens r attacking!!!!!!!!!!!!!!*gahhhhhhhhhhhh!* speedy little bastards!

[downwithpants]

a silver lining to the cloud of economic depression: the female/male ratio goes up 8)