50 Top 10 Lists of 2007

Top 10 Animal Stories

#3. A Shout-out to Gay Sheep

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) received a lot of press in January after launching an aggressive campaign against researchers at Oregon Health & Science University who killed dozens of gay sheep in order to dissect their brains, a project whose ultimate goal — the animal-rights group claimed — was to develop a drug to cure homosexuality. The accusation turned out to be false; the scientists were actually blocking a hormone to see if it led to more ram-on-ram sex, not less. One reason the team chose to look for neurological differences between straight and gay sheep is because about 8% of rams exhibit homosexuality, roughly the same percentage as in humans.

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