Gay adoption exists in the Republic, sort of.....

As the row between churches and government in the UK over gay adoption flares up, what's the position in the Republic? According to Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Seamus Brennan TD, only married couples and individuals can adopt in Ireland. The Minister was speaking on RTE's Questions and Answers last night. I have certainly heard anecdotal evidence that gay couples have managed to "adopt" under these provisions. I have put the word "adopt" in quotation marks because apparently the child in these cases is adopted by just one member of the couple. If they break up, then the other member, it would appear, has no rights in relation to the child. I expect it will be left to the courts to sort this one out in some future constitutional case. In Britain, church adoption agencies will be denied the right to discriminate against gay couples from the end of next year. Expect a very big row between churches and government right up to the deadline. Meanwhile, in that bastion of liberalism, Northern Ireland, discrimination against gays in relation to adoption is already outlawed.....

Prostate test urged for all men over 50

All men over 50 should have an annual blood test to detect prostate cancer, according to this report (premium content) by Fiona Gartland in The Irish Times.

And despite its imperfections, the Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) blood test plays an important role in detecting prostate cancer, particularly in symptom-free men, a seminar was told by Sonya Bowen, a specialist prostate cancer information nurse with the Irish Cancer Society. And if the condition is detected early enough, the recovery rate is nearly 100 per cent, the seminar, "Talking about prostate health can save men's lives", heard. The seminar was hosted by Fine Gael MEP Gay Mitchell, who lost his father, two brothers and a sister to cancer.

Women sent to the back

Rules that forbid public contact between men and women have led to demands from ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel that female bus passengers sit at the back - and some bus companies have given in, according to this report on haaretz.com. Six women have now asked the High Court of Justice to instruct the Transportation Ministry to study whether there's a need for "segregated" buses and, if so, to limit their number and label them so that women can choose not to use them. So the boys can travel around in splended isolation!.....

Celebrity Big Brother: sensitive men, tough women

As Celebrity Big Brother trundles along in all its dubious weirdness, it's noticeable that some traditional stereotypes are absent from the programme. Certainly the most sensitive person on the set is a man, Jermaine (right) and the other men seem far closer to the sensitive than to the tough end of the scale. All the tough guys on the programme are women - Jade (who is undergoing bullying by media since her eviction), Jo and Shilpa for example. This Celebrity Big Brother has been mighty unattractive but at least it's challenging stereotypes.....

Just who are women trying to impress?

Do women make themselves thinner than men want them to be - just to impress other women? Do women dress to impress men or their sharp-eyed sisters? John Tierney sparked off a lively debate on this topic in his TierneyLab blog on NYTimes.com.....

Babies in suits

A suited man throwing a tantrum in an airport convinced Sam de Brito, author of the All Men Are Liars blog that some men stay stuck in the baby stage. More here.....

Survivor guilt hits male workers

Men who survive a workplace redundancy programme are almost as stressed as those who lose their jobs, according to this report on BBC News. The effect is far less pronounced in women.....

Dutch men walk tallest

Dutch men now average six feet one—seven inches taller than in van Gogh’s day—and the women five feet eight, making the people of the Netherlands the tallest in the world, according to this article in TheNew Yorker.....

Obesity and weight gain tied to prostate cancer death

Excess weight may not raise a man's risk of developing prostate cancer, but it may make him more likely to die of the disease, says this story on the excellent Prostate Cancer Society (UK) website.....

Men taking their wive's names

The old tradition of a wife taking her husband's surname is dying, replaced by each partner keeping his or her own name or both adopting a double-barrelled name. But husbands who take their wives' surnames are still relatively uncommon. In the USA, only six states make it as easy for a man to take his wife's name as for her to take his, according to this column by Denise Noe on Men's News Daily and they don't include trendy California.....

Male domestic abuse victims less likely to report

Male victims of domestic abuse are less likely to complain out of fear of losing their children, according to this article on baltimoresun.com.....

Killer wants to father baby

A murderer serving life in prison in the UK is again appealing to be allowed to father a child by artificial insemination, according to this story from BBC News.....

Is the future female?

Most of the dentists, vets, pharmacists, doctors, designers, teachers, and lawyers of the future in Ireland will be female, according to this story in the Irish Independent. The story echoes an earlier report from Sweden suggesting that within a couple of decades more women than men will be in top jobs there.....

The culture of permanent boyhood

Behavior once characterized by a pubescent seventh-grader has been established as the gold standard of manhood, writes columnist John Bambenek in this post on BC Culture.....

Homer Simpson Fitness Regime

If you want to stay fit while watching TV try these exercises from the BBC Sport website...

Would you marry me again? Not necessarily!

Most women in a recent poll in the United States said they were not sure they would marry their partner if they had the choice all over again, according to this report in the New York Post.....

Swedish women to overtake men

Swedish men are less intelligent, lonelier and fatter than their female counterparts, a new study claims, says this report in The Local, an English-language Swedish website. "In twenty years men's dominance will be broken and women will have more power in society. There will be more female CEO's and the wage gap will favour women," researcher Ingemar Gens told magazine Att:ention, says the report.....

'Excess work was damaging my health'

Working excessively long hours puts a strain on relationships between couples who become snappy and irritable with each other - and often the extra hours at work achieve little, according to this story from the BBC...