Study: Genetic
Link Between Homosexuality and Siblings' Number of Sexual
Partners

A new study indicates that a person's homosexuality may be genetically linked to the number of sexual partners his or her heterosexual siblings have. The soon-to-be-published paper by the Queensland Institute of Medical Research in Brisbane, Australia, may explain how a "gay gene" can survive over time when gay people can't biologically reproduce, the Economist reports.

According to the magazine, Brendan Zietsch and his fellow researchers have found that gay people tend to have siblings with more sexual partners than average. If that's the case, a gay person's brothers or sisters may be passing on genes associated with both homosexuality and fecundity -- and thus besting natural selection.

The Zietsch study, to be published in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior, relied on a sample of 4,904 twins, not all of them identical, the Economist reports. (The Advocate)