Background: The second to fourth finger length ratio (2d:4d) is thought to be related to diverse traits including cognitive ability, disease susceptibility, and sexuality. Objective: To examine the relationship between 2d:4d and sports ability in women. Methods: Hand radiographs from 607 women (mean age 54 years) were used to estimate 2d:4d. Ranking of sports ability was on a scale (1-5). Results: The highest achieved level of participation in any sport was significantly negatively associated with 2d:4d (b = 24.93, p = 0.01) as was the relationship between 2d:4d and running level (b = 26.81, p = 0.034). Ability in other sports also showed a negative relationship albeit non-significant. Conclusions: These results suggest that a low 2d:4d ratio is related to increased female sports ability. It can be postulated that this ratio may predict potential sports ability. Understanding the mechanisms underpinning this relationship may give important insights into musculoskeletal fitness, health and disease.

Since April 7, 2020, our COVID-19 diagnostic laboratory (CLIAHUB) has received samples from multiple counties in California — our RT-PCR protocol (1) employs N-gene (NIID_2019-nCov_N_F2/R2ver3/P2 (Japan) (2)) and E-gene (E_Sarbeco_F/R/P1 (Germany) (3)) simplex assays.…

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The second to fourth finger length ratio (2d:4d) has been the subject of much recent work and is thought to be related to diverse gender and hormone-related traits including sports ability, disease susceptibility, attractiveness and sexuality. It is established in utero and remains constant in adulthood. Familial clustering has been thought to contribute to the development of 2d:4d from early studies but no twin studies exploring heritability have been reported to date. In this study, a sample of 456 female twin pairs (148 monozygotic [MZ], 308 dizygotic [DZ]) aged 18 to 79 years was used to estimate the heritability of 2d:4d for the right and left hands. Finger lengths were derived from hand xrays. Variance components analysis was used to estimate and contrast genetic and environmental effects on this phenotype. The mean 2d:4d was 0.92 (SD = 0.001) for both hands. The MZ intraclass correlation was higher than in DZ (.66 vs. .35 for right 2d:4d, and .71 vs. .37 for left 2d:4d). The best fit model included additive polygenic and unique environmental effects (‘AE’ model), with no significant common environmental effects detected. Heritability was estimated to be approximately 66% for 2d:4d (95% confidence interval 0.5–0.78). These results suggest a substantial genetic contribution to the determination of this hormonally related skeletal ratio in women, which could be more influential than the effects of common prenatal environmental factors. However the current study design does not preclude the possibility of confounding between heritability estimates and unobserved prenatal effects.

We identify a mutation in the N gene of SARS-CoV-2 that adversely affects annealing of a commonly used RT-PCR primer; epidemiologic evidence suggests the virus retains pathogenicity and competence for spread. This reinforces the importance of using multiple targets, preferably in at least 2 genes, for robust SARS-CoV-2 detection.Article Summary LineA SARS-CoV-2 variant that occurs worldwide and has spread in California significantly affects diagnostic sensitivity of an N gene assay, highlighting the need to employ multiple viral targets for detection.