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I have moved the blog from my homepage to an intermediate location on the wordpress.com server in the process of anonymizing myself. I will keep you informed of the new location coming soon.

Obviously, I have to work on byline writing, but this is truly freaky, if indeed it is true, toxoplasma (click the link for a good article) is a truly fascinating parasite.

Guardian Unlimited | Science | Pregnant women infected by cat parasite more likely to give birth to boys, say researchers

Researchers in the Czech Republic collected medical records from 1,803 newborn babies between 1996 and 2004 and checked them for information on the mothers and babies including gender, the number of previous pregnancies, and the mother’s levels of toxoplasma antibodies.

They discovered that women whose antibody count was high – suggesting a substantial infection – had a much higher chance of having baby boys. In most populations the birth rate is around 51% boys, but women infected with toxoplasma had up to a 72% chance of a boy. Toxoplasma causes congenital defects in newborns and can trigger miscarriages, but a link with the gender of newborns has never been identified before.