
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, November 11, 1993                   TAG: 9311110042
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-13   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: NEW YORK                                LENGTH: Short

SPERM SIZE MAY DECIDE IF BABY WEARS PINK, BLUE

Sperm that helps make boy babies is generally smaller than sperm that helps make girls, a study found.

Size is one of several sperm characteristics that should be analyzed for finding ways to separate the two kinds of sperm, so that the sex of test-tube babies could be selected, the researchers said.

Size itself won't work reliably because it is quite variable, with some boy-making sperm bigger than some girl-making sperm, said co-author Dr. Colin Matthews of the University of Adelaide and Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woodville, Australia.

Other methods are now used to separate the two kinds of sperm, but nothing works perfectly, experts say.

Some sperm carries the X chromosome, one of the many tiny strands that hold genes, and if this sperm fertilizes an egg the result will be a girl. Other sperm carries the Y chromosome, and fertilization results in a boy.

Matthews and colleague Dr. Ke-hui Cui report their results in today's issue of the journal Nature. - Associated Press

by CNB