desculpa para ser preguiçoso...

Um estudo recente parece indicar que os motivos para muitos serem preguiçosos e terem preguiça em se levantar do sofá para fazer seja o que for pode ser genético. Não é que isso melhore a vida para quem é preguiçoso, nem tão pouco melhore a vida daqueles que têm de levar com malta preguiçosa. Mas pronto. Fica a nota...



Is There a Laziness Gene?
Have you ever wondered why you can't get off the couch and exercise — despite paying for an expensive gym membership, despite your New Year's resolutions, even despite the doctor's scolding at your last checkup? Turns out that your inertia may be coded right into your genes.
Based on some intriguing preliminary studies in animals, J. Timothy Lightfoot, a kinesiologist, and his team at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, suggest that genetics may indeed predispose some of us to sloth. Using mice specially bred and selected according to their activity levels, Lightfoot identified 20 different genomic locations that work in tandem to influence their activity levels — specifically, how far the animals will run. Lightfoot's team is the first to identify these genetic areas and the first to figure out that they function in concert. The researchers say the areas they found on the mouse genome may have analogs in humans, and the UNC team is now gearing up to conduct a similar study in men and women. "We have put forward a fairly complete genomic map of the areas that are associated with regulation of physical activity," says Lightfoot, whose study is published in the current issue of the Journal of Heredity.