PUS

It’s enough to give headline writers the world over a bad name (if they didn't already have one). Canadian Men An Endangered Species screams a post over on Science a gogo. But hold on. The story relates that the birth ratio (expressed, wouldn’t you know it, as the percentage of male births) of the Aamjiwnaang First Nation community near Sarnia in Ontario has dropped to 34.8%. It should be up between 50.5% and 51.9%. And is it just coincidental that the community lives near “several large petrochemical, polymer, and chemical industrial plants” and that other studies in the area “have found changes in the sex ratios and reproductive ability of fish, bird, and turtle populations”?

Bad enough. And worthy of coverage. But hardly worthy of that headline. Not least because, contrary to popular wisdom men, even Canadian men, aren’t actually a species all of their own.

Could I do better? Not for me to judge. But St. Clair Petrochemical Plants Boost Babes has a certain ring to it and is almost as fatuous as the original.