Although some scientists believe that nurture overrides biologically determined sex differences, the distinction between nature and nurture is not clear.
About Irene Miguel-Aliaga
"I am Professor of Genetics and Physiology at Imperial College London. I study how our internal organs change and affect us.
I am a geneticist and I run the Miguel-Aliaga Laboratory at the Institute of Clinical Sciences at Imperial. My team and I research organ plasticity: how and why organs that we commonly regard as fully-developed change in size or function, in response to environmental or internal challenges, mainly focusing on intestines and their neurons."
Sex differences are widespread
Wherever we look in animals – and these may be insects, or mammals, or humans – there are widespread sex differences that extend beyond what we may initially consider. In mammals, most of the research on sex differences has concerned reproductive systems, anatomical differences and, to some extent, differences in the brain. This is very controversial research, when people look at human male and female brains. Looking beyond those places, we find evidence for sex differences pretty much everywhere on multiple levels. For example, the kind of genes a cell expresses: whether it’s the cells in our intestinal lining, liver cells or nerve cells, they will all express different genes in males and females.
Key Points
• Sex differences include the genes a cell expresses; there are male guts and female guts.
• Although some scientists believe that nurture overrides biologically determined sex differences, the distinction between nature and nurture is not clear.
• Diversity in traits is usually desirable because different traits are useful in different environments.

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