SCIENCE IN THE NEWS WEEKLY
Is Gender a Continuum?
Science answers some questions only to raise new ones, such as how do we define the difference between women and men? In unusual cases, the usual indicators of male and female contradict each other in the same body. The best-known recent example is South African runner Caster Semenya.
Still, bit by bit, research can clarify things. Consider this: It's now quite certain that musical training can improve hearing. It's not that musicians have better ears but that, thanks to their musical training, musicians' brains are better equipped to process sounds.
And how about this promising finding: Researchers think that desperately ill heart failure patients may find relief with the help of the eastern green mamba snake. Some have fashioned an experimental drug based in part on the venom of the tree-dwelling snake.
And what looks like progress can encounter setbacks. For instance, new findings are complicating recent evidence for a viral link to prostate cancer. A recent report detected no sign of the suspected virus in tissue samples from almost 600 prostate cancer patients.