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Pastimes : Laughter is the Best Medicine - Tell us a joke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: vegetarian who wrote (6911)	9/17/1998 1:01:00 AM
From: SIer formerly known as Joe B.	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 62549

Maternal bond can affect sheep sexual preference dailynews.yahoo.com Wednesday September 16 4:50 PM EDT LONDON (Reuters) - Young male sheep reared from birth by female goats develop a social and sexual preference for goats when they mature, and vice versa, scientists said on Wednesday. In a letter published in the science journal Nature, researchers from the Babraham Institute in Cambridge, England, said male sheep and goats are more influenced by their ''mothers'' than female offspring. ''We show that the emotional bond between a mother and her male offspring, rather than other social and genetic factors, may irreversibly determine these species' social and sexual preferences,'' said Keith M. Kendrick. The researchers cross-fostered sheep and goats at birth. Lambs were reared by female goats and kids were cared for by sheep. But the researchers allowed the fostered offspring to have social contact with members of their own species throughout their early life. After they matured, the animals were allowed to choose which species they preferred. Kendrick and his team found that cross-fostered males chose to socialize and mate with their maternal nongenetic species, or animals that looked like their foster mother. All of the normally reared animals chose to mate exclusively with their own kind. ''The fact that male offspring are affected more than females, and apparently for life, is evidence that they are indeed more potently influenced by their 'mothers','' Kendrick said. The researchers suggested their findings indirectly support Sigmund Freud's concept of the Oedipus complex -- a subconscious sexual desire for the parent of the opposite sex and a wish to exclude the parent of the same sex. ''Freud must have also felt when he developed that hypothesis that sons and mothers were much, much more strongly bonded than mothers and daughters,'' Kendrick said in an interview. ''It's quite possible that if there is this very strong influence of mother on son, such sons prefer female individuals that look slightly like their mother. If things went wrong perhaps it could actually be misdirected toward the mother herself.'' So, what about orphaned animals bottle fed by humans. Like say a lion or a tiger? ----------------------------------------------------------- In China, the buzz is that Lewinsky is KGB agent dailynews.yahoo.com Wednesday September 16 11:02 AM EDT BEIJING (Reuters) - ''Is Lewinsky with the KGB?'' screams a headline in a popular Chinese magazine. As the White House sex scandal unfolds, the racier publications on Beijing newsstands are having a field day with the story, even as staid newspapers such as the People's Daily report the simple facts without the tawdry details. Packed with gossip on U.S. President Bill Clinton's plight, the latest issue of Guandong Writer magazine would make Western tabloid editors green with envy. The cover story is entitled ''Clinton's Sex Scandal: White House or Palace of Lust?'' Its most sensational allegation: Former White House intern Monica Lewinsky was sent to Washington, when she was a child in the 1970s, as a Cold War agent on a mission to sexually ensnare the president and destabilize U.S. politics. ''Information has exposed Monica Lewinsky as a spy assigned by the former Soviet Union. Her mission was to drag a U.S. president through the mud!'' the article said. The story was attributed to a retired KGB official who now runs a karaoke bar in Moscow. Beijing is buzzing with the story, which is taken as fact by many residents. ''Isn't Lewinsky a Russian spy?'' said 38-year-old Xu Tieliang, as he dug into his pockets for cash to buy cigarettes at a street market. ''I read it in one of the little papers. Maybe the American newspapers are scared to print it,'' he said. Clinton is a familiar and well liked figure in China, where he appeared uncensored on national television during a groundbreaking visit in June. Officially, China is silent on the sex scandal. ''We don't comment on that,'' said a foreign ministry official on Tuesday in response to a reporter's question. State media largely ignored the story until U.S. independent counsel Ken Starr issued his report alleging potential grounds for Clinton's impeachment. Even then, stories in the Communist Party mouthpiece, the People's Daily -- a benchmark of political correctness in China -- have been terse and buried on the inside pages. Lurid details of oral sex have been ignored. The popular media, including tabloids and city broadsheets, tested the limits of official tolerance by initially running news briefs. Sensing the coast was clear, they abandoned caution, and now Clinton's follies are grist for radio talk-shows and full-page newspaper spreads. The subject matter has ranged from salacious gossip to poignant political commentary. The Yangcheng Evening News, a southern daily, on Tuesday splashed fuzzy pictures apparently skimmed from the Internet portraying Clinton with a ''mystery woman'' it dubbed ''the second Monica Lewinsky.'' Other papers have taken a crack at putting the scandal in context for Chinese readers, while poking fun at U.S. hysteria. ''Sometimes you simply don't know whether to laugh or cry over Western democracy. In what is supposedly the 'sexually liberated' West, people are really making a mountain out of a molehill,'' said the Guandong Writer. A commentary in China Women's News entitled ''Poor Fellow'' starts out by moralizing about Clinton's excesses, but ends up praising the United States for having ''stricter supervision than any country on earth'' over its government. If a president could be skewered for something as slight as a character problem, the commentary said ''what official over there would ever dare to engage in corruption.'' In a wry jab at Chinese politics, the author suggested that Clinton could avoid public scrutiny if he were a Chinese official instead of an American one. ''It wouldn't hurt for you to give up the presidency and become head of a Chinese township or village. Maybe then you won't be sullied for a little 'morality problem','' it said. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Many in navy's pool of recruits can't swim dailynews.yahoo.com Wednesday September 16 11:02 AM EDT LONDON (Reuters) - Scores of youngsters who can't swim, and some who even fear the water, are applying to join Britain's Royal Navy, its Director of Physical Training and Sport said on Wednesday. Captain Chris Tuffley said 20 percent of recruits were failing a test which required them to swim 40 metes (yards) and tread water for three minutes wearing overalls. ''We are getting young people who are very bad swimmers or in some cases can't swim at all. Some are literally scared of the water,'' he told the Guardian newspaper. A Ministry of Defence spokesman said he could not confirm the 20 percent failure rate but admitted the ability to swim, essential in the event of accidents at sea, was a problem for some recruits. Tuffley called for better swimming facilities in schools but the Education Department pointed out that all 11-year-olds are already supposed to be able to swim 25 meters.