Free Republic

As anyone familiar with the phrase 'man-flu' will know women consider themselves to be the more robust side of the species when it comes to health and illness. Now new research, published in BioEssays, seems to support the idea. The research focuses on the role of MicroRNAs encoded on the X chromosome to explain why women have stronger immune systems to men and are less likely to develop cancer. The research, led by Dr Claude Libert from Ghent University in Belgium, focused on MicroRNA, tiny strains of ribonucleic acid which alongside DNA and proteins, make up the three major macromolecules...

As May dawns and the mothers among us excitedly anticipate the clever e-cards that we soon will be linking to and the overpriced brunches that we will somehow end up paying for, the following job description may ring a familiar note: Must be exceptionally stable yet ridiculously responsive to the needs of those around you; must be willing to trail after your loved ones, cleaning up their messes and compensating for their deficiencies and selfishness; must work twice as hard as everybody else; must accept blame for a long list of the world’s illnesses; must have a knack for shaping...

Filed at 5:18 p.m. ET Women get more work out of hundreds of genes on the X chromosome than men do, and that could help explain biological differences between the sexes, a new study says. The results imply that women make higher doses of certain proteins than men do, which could play out in gender differences in both normal life and disease, researchers said. So far, however, none of the genes identified in the study has been linked to any such observable differences, said senior study author Huntington Willard of Duke University. He and Laura Carrel of Pennsylvania State University...