Do You Want to Know How Long You Will Live

Do You Want to Know How Long You Will Live - Clues in DNA reveal how long you'll live - and they can be read when you're a baby - 'Telomere' markers predict lifespan - Written into DNA as a baby - and can only be shortened, not made longer - Can be tested in finches from just 25 days old - Tests could be available for humans soon

Scientists have found a way to predict how long someone will live – by measuring their genes as a baby.

Life expectancy is written into our DNA and is there to be seen from the day we are born.

It all depends on the length of the telomeres, which are described as 'acting like the plastic ends on shoelaces' to protect chromosomes from wear and tear.

Telomeres are being studied extensively - and are thought to hold the key to ageing.

Put simply, the longer your telomeres, the longer you will live - dependent, of course, on not dying accidentally, from disease or from lifestyle factors.

Life expectancy is written into our DNA and is there to be seen from the day we are born. It all depends on the length of the telomeres, which protect chromosomes from wear and tear

It was known they could be shortened by life choices, including smoking and stress. But this is the first indication that our lifespans might be predetermined from birth.

In the future, tests may allow people to know their expected lifespan from a very early age - if they want to.

Professor Pat Monaghan, who led the Glasgow University study, said: ‘The results of this research show that what happens in our bodies in early life is very important.

‘It is not understood why there are variations of telomere length but if you had a choice, you would want to be born with longer telomeres.

‘If you were to test this, I don’t think anyone would want to know – it would just make you miserable. But it must be remembered that how you live has a big effect. This isn’t quite a case of nature overtaking nurture.’

The study – which used zebra finches, one of Australia’s most common bird species – is the first to measure telomere lengths at regular intervals through an entire life. With people, it is usually only the elderly who are studied because of the timescales involved.

Blood cell samples were taken from 99 finches, starting when they were 25 days old.

'If you had a choice, you would want to be born with longer telomeres. I don’t think anyone would want to know – it would just make you miserable,' says Professor Monaghan

The results exceeded even the researchers’ expectations. The birds with the shortest telomeres did tend to die first – from as early as seven months after the start of the trial.

But one bird in the group with the longest telomeres survived to almost nine years old.

Professor Monaghan said: ‘These birds were dying of natural causes. There were no predators, no diseases and no accidental deaths. This was showing their capacity for long life.’

The results hold huge implications for humans, whose telomeres work in the same way. In future, people might be tested to see how long their telomeres – and their life expectancy – could be.

Telomeres are important because they stop DNA from unravelling – but they begin shortening from the moment we are conceived.

The longer they are, the better for an individual because when they get too short, they stop working.

DNA is then no longer protected and errors begin to creep in when cells divide. When this happens – usually in middle age – the skin begins to sag and the immune system becomes less efficient. Faulty cells also lead to a growing risk of conditions such as diabetes and heart disease.

The university’s institute of biodiversity, animal health and comparative medicine has published its groundbreaking research in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA.

In the next stage of their research, the Glasgow scientists will look at what causes telomeres to shorten – including inherited and environmental factors – to make it possible to predict life expectancy more accurately. ( dailymail.co.uk )

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Royal wedding a business boom or drag?

Royal wedding a business boom or drag? — Surrounded by boxes in a rickety old warehouse above the family shop, Joe Church hurries to wrap plates adorned with the faces of Prince William and his bride Kate Middleton for a customer in Australia.

The Church's business, a 152-year old china and ornament seller specializing in memorabilia, has plenty of reason to celebrate the upcoming royal nuptials as its cash register chimes with the wedding bells.

"It's good for the royal couple, it's good for everyone in the U.K. and it's certainly good for business," beams Joe's Dad, Stephen Church, in front of a display of goods ranging from heart pillows to lookalike William teddy bears.

But just an hour down the road on a rainy building site outside Cambridge, it's a very different story.

For Dick Searle, the owner of a small eponymous digger rental service, the royal wedding — and an extra public holiday — couldn't come at a worse time. As Britain struggles to pull out of an economic downturn that has crippled the building industry, the last thing Searle needs is to pay his staff for a day with no work and leave expensive equipment idle.

"They didn't ask us about it, did they, and we are having it hard," says Searle as his crew lay a new driveway in the drizzle. "Good luck to people selling rubbish plates, but for us it's nothing but bad news."

Prime Minister David Cameron made the day a national holiday to allow everyone in the country an opportunity to celebrate. But the union of the photogenic young couple is proving a boon only for some British businesses — the cold statistics suggest it is actually a drag on the rest of the economy.

Analysts predict the April 29 wedding will provide a boost of up to 1 billion pounds ($1.6 billion) to the economy, largely through retail sales, hotel room bookings and the hospitality trade.

But each public holiday also typically costs the economy 6 billion pounds in lost productivity — leaving a 5 billion pound shortfall at a time when fears of a double-dip recession weigh heavily.

The Federation of Small Businesses, a leading lobby group in a country where the average business employs just four workers, is worried about the timing of the wedding. A public holiday to celebrate the event so soon after the Easter break increases the chances of many workers taking extra vacation time — or a few unauthorized sick days — to extend their time off.

Tour companies have reported gleefully that bookings are up from Good Friday until the Monday after the wedding — an 11-day block that makes it possible to go for a trip, say, to the Caribbean.

But giving workers extended leave is an unappealing prospect for many small businesses at a time of rising unemployment, surging inflation and harsh government spending cuts.

"It will be a difficult time for a lot of small businesses that had been looking for improvement at Easter," says Andrew Cave, the FSB's chief spokesman.

Still, supporters of the nuptials, are hoping that the feel-good factor generated by an extra day off will be worth the inconvenience and lost economic revenue in the longer-run.

"I think it's more about consumer sentiment," says Chris Simpson, marketing director at online shopping comparison site Kelkoo. "England as a country gets behind big events."

"At a time when the headlines seem to be dominated by bad news, the nation is rightly seizing the opportunity to celebrate something positive."

Cameron made the event a public holiday to ensure "that most people will have a chance to celebrate on the day." The hope is that the feel-good factor of an extra day off at a bleak time will offset any hits to the economy. In defense of the one-off holiday, his office noted businesses tied to leisure — like hotels and pubs — should do well.

National holidays were declared to mark the wedding of both Charles and Diana in 1981 and Queen Elizabeth II's Golden Jubilee in 2002. One is also planned for the queen's Diamond Jubilee next year.

The pressure group Republic, which campaigns for an elected head of state, said it was "absurd that the whole country gets a day off for something most people are not interested in."

"At least 20 percent of the population are opposed to the monarchy, many more simply don't care about it," said spokesman Graham Smith.

Among the clear winners are retailers, led by grocers who are banking on a boost to champagne and food sales over the weekend as people celebrate at home or at street parties, and sellers of wedding merchandise like Church's. More general retailers are also expected to see a small uptick as many people hit the shops on their extra day off.

In research for Kelkoo, the Center for Retail Research forecast the wedding to provide a 530 million pound ($856 million) boost to British retailers as around 4 million locals join the celebration in some way.

Many retailers have been quick to spot the opportunity in the biggest royal event since William's dad Charles married Diana in 1981.

Within hours of the couple's engagement announcement on Nov. 16, Wal-Mart Inc.-owned Asda supermarket was selling 5 pound commemorative mugs and Tesco PLC, the biggest retailer in the country, was sewing up versions of Middleton's royal blue engagement dress.

You can buy anything from tea towels to bargain-basement versions of Middleton's sapphire and diamond ring — famously first worn by Diana.

The New West End Company, which represents 600 retailers in central London, expects an extra 500,000 tourists over the royal wedding weekend to add some 50 million pounds in both retail and accommodation. Many hotels in the capital are fully booked, leading enterprising Londoners to offer private rooms for rent, with some charging as much as 2,000 pounds ($3,200) for the week.

VisitBritain, the main inbound tourism association, launched a new "Royal Britain" website last week to cash in on the wedding, giving potential visitors tips about where to go, what to see and what to buy.

There's also plenty of interest — and cash — coming in from people overseas who can't make it here for the first royal event of the internet era.

Church's online site, theukgiftcompany, has taken orders so far in excess of 100,000 pounds — 80 percent of those coming from the United States — and Stephen Church expects to hit seven figures before the big day.

"The level of interest from overseas has been quite staggering," he says. "This is really going to provide a bridge over the stormy waters that the recession is proving to be."

Searle still isn't convinced as he faces the likelihood of shutting down business for an extra week. He has a simple message for the happy couple: "Wills and Kate, I'm not against you, but you should have done what most people do and got married on a Saturday." ( Associated Press )

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Why Do Animals Sleep?

Why Do Animals Sleep? - That feeling when you wake up fully rested, crisp and fresh, is nirvana. Sleep is essential part of our daily lives. Stop sleeping and your body starts losing function, mental clarity evaporates, and you eventually die. Sleep seems to be essential for all animals, given that every animal studied has been found to sleep. Insects, fish, birds, and I all participate in this daily phenomenon. But why do we sleep? What purpose does it serve? The truth is, we don’t really know. We know loads about the neuronal pathways that define the various stages of sleep. We also know what happens when we are sleep-deprived (think of staying up all night for a final exam). But the true purpose of this curious state that we enter nightly remains mysterious.

Many researchers are working on solving this enigma through various clinical, experimental and observational studies on humans and animals. For years, researchers have recorded sleep in animals ranging from mice to elephants. But these animals have always been captive, caged or otherwise restrained. Our lab at the Max Planck Institute is the only group studying sleep in wild, unrestrained animals. There is enormous variation in the natural world, with some animals sleeping only two hours a day, while others require 20 hours. To properly understand this variation we have to study them in their natural habitat. It’s not that surprising that the behavior of captive animals is significantly different from that of their wild counterparts. Imagine if I studied sleep only in people on airplanes, and used that to infer that this is their “normal” sleeping pattern.

We are hardly the first people to suspect there are differences in the sleep patterns of wild and captive animals. We are just the first to have the technology to effectively study it in the wild. The key component to recording sleep is the electroencephalogram, or EEG. Typically an EEG is recorded with a computer, various wires and tiny voltage sensors that detect and record the minute electrical charges of brain waves. Strapping a Y2K-era laptop to a wild animal to record sleep is impractical. However, recent advances in miniaturized circuitry have yielded EEG loggers that are 1.5 grams. That’s about half the weight of a penny, and can be attached to an animal with minimal effect on its behavior. But even with these elegantly tiny loggers, there is one last hurdle to pass. We have to recatch our wild study animal and retrieve the logger with its onboard data module. Therefore, we have to be clever about which species we try to work with. My first animal of choice: the fierce three-toed sloth.

Ryan Tisdale A male sloth relaxing with me after a low-stress catch.

I began my scientific career as an undergraduate radio-tracking two- and three-toed sloths in Panama, so they were the natural animal to start with. It’s also amusing to casually mention to someone that I study sleep in sloths (the jokes are endless). As far as a research animal, sloths are a good choice. They are large and docile, can be caught by hand (no trapping or netting, as long as you can climb 100 feet into the canopy), and are certifiably the world’s slowest mammal. They were also assumed to sleep an inordinate amount of time, which is scientifically intriguing. Why have these animals decided to become so lethargic and lazy, spending all day in the treetops lounging, sleeping and relaxing?

Bryson Voirin Sloth or termite nest? This one is a sloth, which is obvious only by the presence of hair. I have identified plenty of “sloths” from the ground, only to climb up 80 feet to discover it was a stinging insect nest.

Armed with these advanced new micro loggers, I’ve been studying sleep in Panamanian sloths for the past three years. My first finding was that despite their being the world’s slowest mammal, the notion that they are “slow and therefore easy to catch” is false. Simply finding a sloth is an accomplishment. Sloths have an extremely cryptic lifestyle. Their evolutionary strategy is to never be seen or noticed. They typically masquerade in the canopy as a termite nest or clump of leaves, refusing to react to any movement or noise on the ground. The rain forest is full of stationary termite nests and clumps of leaves quietly minding their own business in the trees. They’re everywhere. The key to identifying one as a sloth is to painfully examine every single clump with binoculars and look for the presence of hair. Leaves and nests are traditionally absent of hair, so hairy nests are probably sloths. But even then, seeing one requires luck. It’s like looking for the one sloth that left its “A” game at home that day.

Ryan Tisdale Catching a sloth almost always requires me to climb up a tree. In this case, the tree was hollow and would wiggle like a rubber band in the wind. I was glad to be out of that tree as quickly as possible.

After tirelessly searching and finally locating the camouflaged little Zen master, physically catching it is the next feat. The sloths I find seem to always be at the top of the tallest tree, out on the thinnest of limbs. To climb up into the canopy, I shoot a line around a strong branch using an eight-foot slingshot that would make Dennis the Menace quite jealous. Then, after hauling up a climbing rope, I rig up my mechanical ascenders and inch my way skyward. Once I am at a similar altitude as the sloth, I swing, crawl and otherwise traverse my way through the canopy and grab hold of the sloth, and in a dramatic display of aerial acrobatics I rappel down the tree with the sloth and attach the sleep logger and radio collar. I release the sloth back at its home tree, where it is free to carry on being a sloth. Ten days later, using the radio collar’s signal to find the sloth, I repeat this aerial display again, this time to remove all the hardware from the sloth.

Sloth catching is not without its risks. I once ended up in the hospital after being bitten by a sloth (it actually happened very fast!). When hospital staffers were finally able to control their laughter, the only question the doctor had for me was whether I was sleeping when it bit me (this reignited the howls from the entire emergency room). I’ve fallen out of trees, broken bones, been stung by every insect imaginable, gotten seriously lost in the forest, and experienced numerous other mini-disasters that come with being a field scientist. More often, there are amazing experiences. Seeing harpy eagles, ocelots and stunning landscapes, and being up close and personal with wildlife is what I dreamed about as a kid. I wouldn’t trade the experiences or job for anything, both the good and bad.

The results I am getting from the sloth studies not only are new and exciting, but are also creating a new approach to the understanding of sleep in animals. Wild sloths sleep only 9.5 hours a day, while laboratory sloths sleep more than 16 hours. Why? We have also found that some sloths have selective diets that influence the strength of their brain waves and alter their sleep intensity. Are they intentionally altering their sleep patterns through their diet? Some sloth populations are early risers, yet others are up late at night. Could the risk of predation affect the hours they are awake? Working on sleep in wild animals on their home turf, we are just beginning to address a whole new world of questions.

For two months this dry season, I am leaving the sloths on the mainland behind and trying to record sleep in magnificent frigate birds on Isla Iguana. The colony out here is resident through the middle of May, so I have until then to complete the study. As is the case with “slothing,” the hardest part of the study is actually getting the animal. The colony here has around 5,000 birds, so finding them isn’t the issue. It’s catching and recatching them that poses the true challenge ( nytimes.com )

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Meet your new cousins, the flying lemurs

Meet your new cousins, the flying lemurs. Squirrel-like colugos are the closest living relative of primates. A group of creatures resembling large flying squirrels is the closest living relative of primates, the group that includes apes and humans, according to a new genetic study.

The finding, detailed in the Nov. 2 issue of the journal Science, contradicts a study published earlier this year by another team, which concluded that the squirrel-like colugos are more closely related to Scandentia, a group that includes tree shrews, than to primates.

National University Of Singapore

Found in Southeast Asia, colugos are colloquially called "flying lemurs," although they are not lemurs and they don't truly fly. The animals are larger than flying squirrels but have a similar skin fold, called a patagium, which they use for gliding. Coasting from tree to tree at dusk, they look like furry kites.

Unclear relationships

Colugos belong to a classification of mammals known as Dermopterans. Together with primates and Scandentia, they make up the single taxonomic unit, or "clade," known as Euarchonta (meaning "true ancestors").

The exact evolutionary relationships among the three groups are a topic of debate among scientists. There are three possibilities:

• Colugos and primates shared a common ancestor that split from tree shrews
• Tree shrews and colugos are more closely related to each other than to primates
• Primates and tree shrews are sister groups, and colugos are the odd ones out

A study published in a January issue of the journal for the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) used morphological comparisons of the three groups to determine that tree shrews and colugos are more closely related to each other than either is to primates.

A different picture

The new study, based on genetic comparisons, paints a different picture. Jan Janecka of Texas A&M University and colleagues compared rare genetic changes, called indels, in the genomes of members of the three groups. Indels are regions of insertion or deletion in areas of the DNA that code for proteins.

The team found that colugos and primates have seven indels in common. Only one indel matched up between primates and tree shrews, and no indels were shared between tree shrews and colugos.

"In short, these molecular data strongly suggest that colugos are the sister group to primates," said study team member Webb Miller of Penn State University.

In a second experiment, the team fed genetic data from five mammalian groups, including Primates, Dermopterans, and Scandentia, into a computer model to calculate when they diverged. The results suggested Primates, Demopterans and Scandentia shared a common ancestor as far back as 87.9 million years ago, when dinosaurs still walked the Earth.

According to the model, the three groups separated relatively quickly soon after. At 86.2 million years ago, the ancestors of tree shrews split from that of primates and colugos, and primates and colugos went their separate ways about 79.6 million years ago.

Based on the new findings, the team urges an effort to create a draft of the colugos genome. "Colugos are going to be a much more important species to study now that we know their relationship to primates," Miller said.

For selfish reasons

Mary Silcox, an anthropologist at the University of Winnipeg in Canada who was a co-author on the PNAS study had an open mind about the new findings and the final word on the evolutionary relationship between the three Euarchonta groups.

"Even though it's in conflict with our morphological findings that we've published, I'm not totally closed to the idea that we have the branching pattern among the three Eurochonta groups wrong," Silcox told LiveScience.

She added that a genome of colugos would be "spectacularly wonderful," but that the genome of the most ancient living tree shrew, Ptilocercus lowii, is also needed.

Comparing the full genomes of members from all three groups would allow scientists to chart the evolutionary relationships among them with much more confidence, Silcox said.

Why is knowledge of these relationships important? For one, it will help to answer the question of the origins of our own species, Silcox said. "To some extent, to understand where we came from, we need to put that in a larger context of mammalian evolution," she said.

But Silcox also chalks it up partly to vanity. "I think it's because humans are remarkably self-centered animals," she said. "It's because we're more interested in our evolution than we are the evolution of slime molds that we tend to focus on this stuff." ( livescience.com )

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Chronic Pain and Sex: a Couple's Gentle Battle With Fibromyalgia

Chronic Pain and Sex: a Couple's Gentle Battle With Fibromyalgia. Chronic Pain and Intimacy: One Need Not Preclude the Other. Cynthia Armistead, 41, is in nearly constant full-body pain. She has fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome and severe arthritis, forcing her to take morphine to get through the day. And, on a pain scale of one to 10, a good day is a six.

Nevertheless, the Decatur, Ga., woman is determined to maintain a healthy sexual life with the love of her life, a man she met 10 years ago. And he is just as determined to make the adjustments necessary to keep their relationship going strong.

For some couples, chronic pain is a serious consideration when it comes to intimacy

"There are times when the air on my skin hurts," Armistead says. "It's not just a disease of pain, it's a disease of hypersensitivity."

Doctors call this allondynia. It means that the brain interprets neutral or pleasant stimuli —, like gentle touch or running water from a faucet —, as pain. Patients also commonly experience hyperalgesia, which is an extreme reaction to painful stimuli.

Dr. Theresa Lawrence-Ford of Duluth, Ga., describes putting moderate pressure on one's fingernail bed to illustrate.

"It would take a patient half as much pressure to experience the feeling as someone without fibromyalgia," she says.

Women are about nine times more likely than men to experience fibromyalgia, according to the American College of Rheumatology, which also estimates that 6 million Americans, of 2 percent of the general population, are afflicted.

As for Armistead, the chronic pain and fatigue she suffers has forced her to abandon her career as a technical writer. But she has not given up on joy.

Ten years ago she fell in love with a man who is understanding of her condition, and willing to do whatever it takes to make their relationship continue to work.

"You really have to focus on the non-physical aspects of love when you're in a relationship with a person in chronic pain," says her partner, Sam Chupp, 40. "You have to concentrate on the mental and spiritual bond in order to carry you through times she has a flare [the worst period of pain]."

Armistead says that "25 percent of the time I'm in flare. When I'm in flare I don't even want to be looked at hard."

Nevertheless, says Dr. Cynthia Lawrence-Elliott — who's in private practice with her sister, Lawrence-Ford — when it comes to this disorder, it is important to follow what she calls the ABCs of a healthy sensual life.

"A is acceptance and adaptation," says Lawrence-Elliott, who once treated Armistead. "B is for learning the basics and for doing what it takes to boost one's self-esteem. Ignorance coupled with fear are common enemies of sexuality. C is connect and challenge."

By connect, Lawrence-Elliott means that one must shed any shyness when discussing one's body with a physician or partner. By challenge she means that it's necessary to challenge oneself to do so, even when the issue is embarrassing.

Armistead and Chupp seem to be following the doctor's recommendations chapter and verse. No matter how much her body hurts, Armistead says she wants to maintain some version of intimacy with Chupp. To this end they have dedicated two nights a week to spending time alone with each other, sacred time that they guard very strictly.

Armistead does everything she can to feel good on their scheduled nights. She refrains from shopping or going to appointments on those days (that would make her too tired), and her teenage daughter (from a previous marriage) goes out with friends.

The challenging part is that even though they can schedule time for each other and stick to it, there's no way to schedule random flare-ups. The key, Chupp says, is not to set specific goals for the night.

"We just say we are going to enjoy each other, no matter what it turns out to be," he says. "Cuddling is a wonderful thing and can happen a lot more often than sex."

"I'll put it this way. Sometimes you want to share a big fancy dinner with her, but it turns out you just have to have a sandwich by yourself," he says.

The estimated 12 million American couples who deal with this disorder may be grateful that Chubb and Armistead are not overly shy in answering questions about how one makes love to a partner who has what Armistead calls "skin hunger," which is the normal need to be touched.

"I haven't been able to stand a massage for years," she says. "We've learned to be very gentle," she adds, noting that hypersensitivity is not always a bad thing. "I take my morphine. A warm bath loosens my muscles. But mostly, being aware, being able to say — well, it's important in any relationship to be able to say — 'that's a bit too hard' makes all the difference."

It also takes a creative mind, says Chupp. Happily, they are both good storytellers. They have shared story nights where they say they inhabit imaginative worlds peopled with characters of their own creation.

"It's not super kinky or like Dungeons and Dragons," he says. "It's a way to take our minds off her pain. One thing I really like about Cynthia [his partner] is that all you have to do is look at her and she blushes."

Chupp has advice for those whose partners suffer from chronic pain. "Millions of pillows. Low impact positions. And realize this is not something you can do in ten minutes — it takes hours and hours. You have to think of it as an entire evening."

Sounds like a dream for millions of women —, with or without chronic pain. And it's doctor-approved. "Sex can decrease pain because it releases positive hormones like endorphins," Lawrence-Ford says. "Endorphins decrease physical and emotional distress, enabling the patient to reclaim her sensual life and sexual intimacy."

Armistead and Chupp agree. "You have to scale back your expectations from high school —, but high school was never this good," he quips. "When you are in love with someone and she is in pain all the time, when she wants to have sex with you in spite of it, it means she really wants to have it. You feel chosen and special." ( abcnews.go.com )

READ MORE - Chronic Pain and Sex: a Couple's Gentle Battle With Fibromyalgia

When Biology Doesn't Explain Gay: One Woman's Perspective

When Biology Doesn't Explain Gay: One Woman's Perspective. Our Gay Wedding, My Straight Brain . I'm getting married in less than two weeks and can't think about much else.

Mostly I worry about:

A) fitting into my dress (cream-colored Indian cotton, tea-length skirt) and

B) how we're going to unload sixty Ikea champagne flutes after the wedding.

But I've also been thinking about my fiancee's brain. And my own.

ABCNEWS.com recently reported on a Swedish study indicating that the brains of gay people are more like the brains of straight people of the opposite sex than they are like straight members of the same sex. The study bolsters the conventional wisdom — popular among gays and straights alike — that homosexuality is not a choice but a physical condition.

In purely reductionist (and slightly facetious) terms, gay men have girl brains and gay women have boy brains.

No kidding. You've seen them, two women maybe, boy brains both, deeply in love. They dress like twins — identically cropped hair, polo shirts, khakis.

But what about when a straight woman's brain falls in love with a gay woman's brain? How to describe. Butch/Femme? That's very old school, almost vintage, which is why Margie and I secretly like the terms. I chose a retro theme for our wedding invites.

Margie and I will be wed in the garden behind our newly renovated (well, not quite, but more on that later) home in the Berkshire foothills in front of about 60 friends and family.

We found the little Massachusetts stone house two years ago. The stocky, tough-talking real estate agent from Boston couldn't believe her luck when she let us in. We walked across the orange shag carpet to the enormous picture windows looking out onto acres of garden, white birch and mountain laurel in a trance.

Our teenaged Bearded Collie grinned widely, lifted one leg and relieved himself against one of the wooden supports before anyone could do anything.

The rarely emotive Margie stood in front of the ski-lodge style fireplace and made an announcement. "I love it! We'll take it! I don't need to see upstairs!"

We did take it, but I still had my job in the city. It became our weekend DIY project. And my weekend escape from the chaos of a difficult work situation. And also escape from a level of commitment ambivalence that made my pulse race, feeding my impulsivity. In the country with Margie, there was no temptation.

I had affairs, though, with men. Eventually, I fled our home and, ironically, through an intense but short-lived relationship with a near-perfect guy, I realized the depth of my love for Margie.

He was attentive, adventurous, smart. I really liked him, but I couldn't love him, because I was already in love.

I'm so glad she wanted me back.

These days my mother and I are creating and revising the wedding menu by phone (she lives in South Carolina), and my dad (who lives in Cleveland) has come through with the cash for my favorite champagne and an extraordinarily difficult-to-book DJ.

Margie's 80-year-old mother, Juanita, is making the trip from the suburb of Shaker Heights, Ohio, to sew chair cushions and curtains in preparation for our overnight guests. Margie is her youngest child — her tomboyish baby. Juanita and Margie's older sister knew she was gay before Margie did.

An only child, I gave new meaning to the words eccentric and prissy. I hated wearing pants and didn't get my first pair of jeans until age 12. I cried until my mother sewed lace around the trim of my little white socks. Of all the things she worried about when it came to my future, gayness didn't make the list.

Today I work in New York, writing mostly about health and beauty. Manhattan nurtures my hypochondria, fat-phobia and free-floating angst like no city ever has.

Margie, my foil — an ectomorphic specimen of perfect physical health due to a lifelong preference for an athletic, Spartan lifestyle — is a carpenter and design snob who prefers breathing clean air. Though the odds are against us in this economy, we hope to maintain both residences.

As I type, my beloved — having just finished rebuilding the stone steps — is pouring the concrete for our custom kitchen counter tops. If it was up to me the kitchen would be 100 percent Ikea and completed last year.

But Margie is an artist. Prefab is to carpentry is what MadLibs is to writing; this is something I've had to learn.

She just phoned to ask my opinion (again) about the color she plans to mix in to the concrete. We're really down to the wire (11 days!) and it's hard to keep the tension out of my voice when I tell her not to worry, the dark stain will be fine. But I manage.

I speak softly and soothingly. When we hang up she sounds reassured.

In the early days of our relationship, we screamed at each other like siblings, but I've since learned better.

The way to handle Margie when things get tough is to pretend she is a guy and to "manage" her as such — just like the illustrated 1960s book called something like "Advice and Etiquette for Young Ladies" I once perused on the floor of my grandparent's library. The advice the editors gave was not just for dealing with boys, it was for dealing with boy brains. Who knew?

I've never had an MRI, but I'm pretty sure I have a straight girl brain (if there really is such thing).

What does that mean?

Is orientation a matter of biology for her and a matter of choice for me? I suspect that what we call "orientation" is not much more significant than any general preference. Like hair color, social class, weight or ethnicity. Sure initial drives play a role, but if we truly seek love, we may broaden our prospects if we put aside our preferences once in a while.

At any rate, I question the premise that falling in love is a matter of choice. Love chooses us, it seems.

Yet on the orientation continuum, is Margie "gayer" than I am? Not anymore. I am devoted to her, and in two weeks we will be married, and we (James, our Beardie, makes three) will be a gay little family. ( abcnews.go.com )

READ MORE - When Biology Doesn't Explain Gay: One Woman's Perspective

When Big Breasts Are a Big Pain

When Big Breasts Are a Big Pain. While One Woman Seeks World's Largest Breasts, Others Seek Relief from Pain of a Big Chest. Sheyla Hershey has set a new record for something she can't and doesn't want to hide -- the largest breasts in Brazil, and perhaps the world. But is she in for more pain than she bargained for?

After eight surgeries and a gallon of silicone, Hershey's breasts round out to an astonishing 34 FFF -- and she claims she's not done.

In an interview with Fox 26 in Houston, where she traveled for the operation, the 28-year-old Brazilian actress and model said that she would like her breasts to be even bigger.

Unfortunately for Hershey, the state of Texas has limits on the amount of silicone that can be injected into breast implants -- and Dr. Malcolm Roth says this is for good reason.

"We know that the larger the implant the more likely there will be problems down the road," he says. "Maybe she'll be fortunate and not have problems, but those are very, very large breasts.

"The problems that can ensue with breast implants could be wound separation that could lead to exposure of the implant, infection, scarring, certainly pain and capsular contractions."

Roth is the director of plastic surgery at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., and the vice president of health policy and advisory for the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. Besides the serious medical risks associated with such large breast implants, he says there is an ethical problem as well.

"Part of the six years of training to become a certified plastic surgeon is to find out if the patient has realistic expectations," he says. "It certainly appears as if this woman has pushed the envelope on what is expectable. I certainly would not perform any additional surgery on her."

Although it looks as though Hershey will have to look elsewhere if she plans on upping the ante even further, it's hard to imagine anything will stand in the way of her "dream."

"I want to look better each day, every day," she told the Houston television station. "Everybody's got a dream inside, you know? And it's good when you can make your dream come true."

Big Breasts, Major Pain

Hershey's dream is now only a downward glance away. But for millions of women who have naturally large breasts, Hershey's dream is their nightmare.

Kelly, a 29-year-old from Michigan who asked that her last name not be used, says she was miserable before her breast reduction surgery last month. And she was only a 34 DD.

"Every night I was taking three extra-strength Tylenol because my back was hurting so bad, and by the middle of the night I'd be sore again," she recalls. "I wasn't sleeping because I was hurting so badly. And in the morning I had to get two children together and get myself ready for work. And I'd get to work, and by two my back hurt so badly I could barely sit at my desk and work."

That kind of back pain is a common complaint among large-breasted women, says Dr. Andrew Haig, director of the spine program at the University of Michigan. This pain is often the result of sheer gravity.

"A lot of times the pain is in the back of the rib cage and the spine area is because women are trying hard to arch their back so they don't fall forward because of the weight of their breasts," he says.

And while it's common knowledge that oversize breasts can have detrimental effects on the body, Kelly says it was the emotional pain that finally drove her to the plastic surgeon's office.

"Having breasts that size was horribly embarrassing," she says. "I didn't feel good about myself anymore; I was ashamed of myself. I fretted going clothes shopping because I'd go to nice clothing stores and they never carried anything that covered my chest. Many times I would look at my husband and just start crying."

Kelly's story is not an anomaly. She is one of thousands of American women who, for physical or emotional reasons, have had or are considering having their breast size reduced. According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeon's 2007 national plastic surgery statistics, there were 106,179 breast-reduction procedures performed last year -- an increase of 25 percent since 2000.

Board certified plastic surgeon Dr. Michael Bermant of New York says his patients' breast reductions can be contributed to several major factors.

"One, they just don't like the size of their breasts," Bermant says. "Two, they find that even when they're doing nothing, the weight of their breasts tends to weight them down. And the third thing they complain about is that they feel that their breast size should be something that's determined by them.

"And, of course, they don't want people staring at them too much."

But Haig cautions against assuming that Hershey will experience similar kinds of emotional and physical pain.

"Not everybody who has large breasts will have neck and back pain. But on occasion I've seen people who've had breast reductions because of the pain they had in their back and shoulders and their pain was relieved because of it," he notes.

When Surgery Spells Relief

Still, breast reduction surgery is sweet relief for some. Kelly says that within a week of her surgery she was "feeling amazing" for the first time in years.

"You think it's going to be painful, but it was the best thing I could have done. It was a life-changing experience."

Since she is only one month out of surgery, Kelly doesn't know yet what her new bra size will be, but believes she's somewhere between a B and C cup.

"It's funny, you know? Every one of my friends has said, 'Man, I wish I could have what you have.' And I always say, 'You don't even know what they're asking for.'"

Apparently, Hershey and Kelly haven't met. ( abcnews.go.com )

READ MORE - When Big Breasts Are a Big Pain

Sad Dads May Lead to Crying Infants

Sad Dads May Lead to Crying Infants More factors should be considered than depression among moms, experts say. Don't automatically blame mom: A crying, colicky baby can be just as much the result of dad's state of mind, Dutch researchers report.

Other studies have found that depression among mothers can be related to excessive crying or colic, a common problem with newborns, but the researchers said that little was known about whether fathers' emotions and behavior also have an effect.

"Up to now, almost all attention went to the prenatal effects of maternal depression on child development, leading to the development of detection and treatment programs that focused on mental well-being of mothers," said lead researcher Dr. Mijke P. van den Berg, a psychiatrist at the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam.

"This study showed the importance of taking paternal factors and well-being during pregnancy into account, next to maternal," she said.

The report is published in the July issue of Pediatrics.

To see how parental depression was related to excessive crying, van den Berg's team gathered data on symptoms of depression among parents of 4,426 infants who were 2 months old. Excessive crying was defined as crying for more than three hours a day on more than three days in the past week.

Overall, just 2.5 percent of the infants in the study fit the excessive crying criteria. But, the researchers found a 30 percent higher risk for depression among parents whose infant cried excessively.

"This finding could not be attributed to co-existing depressive symptoms of the mother, which is already known to be a risk factor for excessive infant crying," van den Berg said. It could be related to genetics, a depressed father or, indirectly, through factors such as marital, family or economic stress, she said.

In fact, a dad with symptoms of depression was twice as likely to have an infant who cried excessively as was a dad who was not depressed, the study found.

"Fathers do matter, so take care for the mental well-being of fathers during pregnancy," van den Berg said.

Dr. Jon Shaw, a professor and director of child and adolescent psychiatry at the University of Miami Miller of School of Medicine, said that the study shows how depression can lead to infant's excessive crying.

"This study demonstrates in a paradoxical way the importance of fathers, in that fathers' measurable depression during pregnancy is a risk factor for excessive infant crying at 2 months of age," Shaw said.

"This seems to be related perhaps to the enduring effects of fathers' depression on the family ambience, the parental relationship, child parenting and, perhaps as the authors suggest, there may be a genetic factor involved," he said. (HealthDay News)

READ MORE - Sad Dads May Lead to Crying Infants