Say, let’s try this out now:

(You can submit your time via email. I’ll wait.)

Researchers attribute the results to differences between the brains of gay and straight men. Gay men, they say, like women, use both sides of their brains for performing these sorts of tasks, whereas straight men only use the right half.

This study adds one more biological trait to the growing list of physiological differences between gay and straight men discovered in recent years. Gay men, for example, are statistically more likely to be left-handed, to have counter-clockwise hair whorls, and have longer index fingers than ring fingers (like me).

With more and more biological links are being discovered every year, I wonder when, exactly, the anti-gay lobby will finally abandon their kooky claims that being gay is just some sort of lifestyle choice. I suppose the Vegas odds on 2:30pm aren’t very good.

• Gay men better at recognizing faces: study [Toronto SUN]

There has been a noticeable jump in the number of reported hate crimes in Canada in 2008, and gay men top the charts as victims of hate-motivated violence, according to a police services report.

The rise in hate crimes is most likely due to better reporting of hate-motivated incidents, which is a very good thing, but these numbers are still way too high. The number of hate crimes logged by police, for example, has risen 35 percent since the year before to a grand total of 1,036. That’s over a thousand victims selected simply because of their race, religion, or sexual orientation with no other motivating factors.

Most disturbingly, 75 percent of all hate crimes involving physical violence (as opposed to vandalism and other non-violent incidents) were motivated solely by the sexual orientation of the victim. Of these, 85 percent of the victims were gay men. This means the gay community, and particularly gay men, are at a hugely disproportionate risk of violence.

This has got to change, and it starts by challenging all casual homophobia before it has a chance to escalate to this level of hate.

• Gay men targets of violence as hate crimes jump [Toronto Star]

A statistically significant percentage of medical studies in the United States have been excluding gay participants for no logical reason, a new survey has found.

The survey was started when one researcher, Brian Egleston, noticed that a clinical trial about cancer patients deferred all gay couples from participating. That study turned out to be just one of about 15% to exclude gay participants without any obvious link to the subject matter. Results of the survey have now been published in last Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine.

It’s definitely odd for such a disciplined field of academics to arbitrarily exclude subjects for research as generic as a cancer study. Unless they know something I don’t.  Say… Are—are we gays immune to cancer? ‘Cause if we are, I’m totally starting a new, gay-only, asbestos fashion line.

• Gays, lesbians excluded from U.S. trials: MDs [CBC News]

A new study out of Iowa State University suggests that gay and lesbian teenagers are among the hardest hit by cyberbullying, a phenomenon unique to today’s youth. With the popularity of social networking, bullies have found new venues to harass and ostracize their peers, often without the threat of adult intervention.

The numbers aren’t terrifically encouraging. 54% of gay youth and friends of gay youth reported being cyberbullied within the thirty days prior to the researchers’ survey. The next highest group was females, at 21%.

Less encouraging still, victims of cyberbullying reported feeling helpless, with 55% saying that their parents couldn’t do anything to stop it, and 57% saying they don’t believe school officials could help either.

To help ameliorate the situation, I’ve decided to make an actual cybernetic bully, programmed to protect gay youth against its human counterparts. Any investors?

• Cyberbullying hits LGBT youth especially hard [CNET News]

Gay teens are nearly twice as likely to be bullied as straight ones, according to a new study conducted out of the Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.

The study, published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, is based on a survey of 7,559 teens and young adults. While the number of out teens in the sample was relatively small, the results still re-confirm that GLBT youth are at a higher risk of being bullied, likely because bullies tend to target anyone perceived as being different.

Bullying is a huge problem—a problem with lasting, negative effects, and one that will not disappear on its own. Schools must train their staff to recognize and put a stop to it, or the problem will only continue.

• Gay teens and young adults face higher risk of bullying than their counterparts [The Medical News]

A professor researching harassment of gay teens is calling high school “the land that time forgot,” a place where aggressive anti-gay sentiment pervades student life.

Catherine Taylor, a professor of education and communications at the University of Winnipeg, regrets to have discovered that virtually all gay teens are verbally harassed, with a startling number even being physically abused. Worse, homophobia so ingrained in school culture that very few students step up to condemn the abuse.

This is the same study, incidentally, that was forbidden from being conducted inside several Catholic school boards in Canada. The study is currently in its second phase, and is seeking funding for its third and final phase to take place early next year.

• Gay teens ‘terrorized’ in Canada’s schools: prof [Ottawa Citizen]