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Gender of babies is affected by nuclear radiation

Nuclear radiation affects baby gender, Machines Like Us, 26 May 2011 .………exposure to nuclear radiation leads to an increase in male births relative to female births, according to a new study by Hagen Scherb and Kristina Voigt from the Helmholtz Zentrum München. Their work shows that radiation from atomic bomb testing before the Partial Test Ban Treaty in 1963, the Chernobyl accident, and from living near nuclear facilities, has had a long-term negative effect on the ratio of male to female human births (sex odds). Their work is published in the June issue of Springer’s journal, Environmental Science and Pollution Research.

Ionizing radiation from nuclear activity is known to have mutagenic properties and is therefore likely to have detrimental reproductive effects. It is thought that it may cause men to father more sons and mothers to give birth to more girls. Scherb and Voigt look at the long-term effects of radiation exposure on sex odds – a unique genetic indicator that may reveal differences in seemingly normal as well as adverse pregnancy outcomes between maternal exposure and paternal exposure……
Nuclear radiation affects baby gender | Machines Like Us

May 27, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, health