A Newcastle University study involving thousands of families is helping¹ prospective² parents work out whether they are likely to have sons or daughters.

英国纽卡斯尔大学一项有千万家庭参与的研究能够帮助准父母预测孩子性别。

 

The work by Corry Gellatly, a research scientist at the university, has shown that men inherit a tendency to have more sons or more daughters from their parents. This means that a man with many brothers is more likely to have sons, while a man with many sisters is more likely to have daughters.

科里·格拉特利是英国纽卡斯尔大学的一位研究员，他的研究表明，男性生男生女的倾向遗传自父母。这就意味着，兄弟多的男性更可能生儿子，而姐妹多的男性则更可能生女儿。

 

The research involved a study of 927 family trees containing information on 556,387 people from North America and Europe going back to 1600.

这项研究调查了927个家庭的族谱，包含北美和欧洲自1600年以来共556,387人的信息。

 

"The family tree study showed that whether you're likely to have a boy or a girl is inherited. We now know that men are more likely to have sons if they have more brothers but are more likely to have daughters if they have more sisters. However, in women, you just can't predict it," Mr Gellatly explains.

“这项族谱研究表明，生男生女的倾向是遗传而来的。我们现在明白了，男性如果兄弟多则容易生儿子，姐妹多则容易生女儿。然而，在女性身上却无法预测这一点。”格拉特利先生解释道。

 

Men determine the sex of a baby depending on whether their sperm³ is carrying an X or Y chromosome⁴. An X chromosome combines with the mother's X chromosome to make a baby girl (XX) and a Y chromosome will combine with the mother's to make a boy (XY).

男性的精子里携带的是X还是Y染色体，这一点决定了婴儿的性别。X染色体与母亲的X染色体结合，就会生出女孩（XX）；而Y染色体和母亲的X染色体结合则会生出男孩（XY）。

 

The Newcastle University study suggests that an as-yet undiscovered gene⁵ controls whether a man's sperm contains more X or more Y chromosomes⁶, which affects the sex of his children. On a larger scale, the number of men with more X sperm compared to the number of men with more Y sperm affects the sex ratio of children born each year.

纽卡斯尔大学的这项研究表明，一个至今尚未发现的基因决定了男性的精子里含有更多的X还是Y染色体，而精子所含的染色体会影响孩子的性别。从更大范围来看，产生更多含X染色体精子的男性与产生更多含Y染色体精子的男性数量之比，影响着每年新生儿的性别比例。

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