Utrecht, The Netherlands. A mechanism by which left–right asymmetry in the body is established and maintained offers a new model of how families of genes interact to promote and direct body asymmetry.

Disturbances to asymmetry during development can result in congenital anomalies, indicating poor health. But it also can result in sufficiently healthy characteristics that are subjected to social barriers to acceptance. For example, substantial facial asymmetry is often thought unattractive.

Ghent, Belgium. New 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 common illnesses and cancer.

The phrase man flu came into the use as a way of describing the seemingly exaggerated symptoms of males who have a cold, but claim a bad case of the flu. The term is pejorative, but there is growing scientific evidence to support the notion of a sex-linked difference in immunity.

Cold Spring Harbor, NY, USA. New evidence helps explain how the marking of DNA sequences by groups of methyl molecules (methylation) can influence the type of cell a stem cell will become.

Methylation has long been thought to influence differentiation, the cellular maturation process. Subtle changes in methylation patterns within subsets of a particular cell type have now been observed and closely scrutinized. They reveal some intriguing mechanisms.

Melbourne, VIC, Australia. Researchers have located a gene regulatory region which appears to control testis development in the foetus without regard to chromosomal organization.

The research raises questions about the complex gene regulation system that controls human sex development, especially the mechanism by which the SOX9 gene is upregulated and testicles form in the embryo, even in the presence of an XX chromosome.

Cold Spring Harbor, NY, USA. Genome-wide DNA bookmarking, and the underlying DNA sequences corresponding with these marks, co-evolved in a molecular progression over the 6 million years since humans and chimps diverged from a common ancestor.

Epigenetic processes are typically thought of as altering the way a gene is expressed (on or off) without changing the underlying sequence of DNA letters — As, Gs, Cs and Ts — that spell out the gene.