Experts from Edinburgh reveal why Jesus was male

SCIENTISTS have worked out why the baby Jesus was a boy.

Joseph and Mary with baby Jesus, played by Matthew and Becky Anderson along with baby Alice, at a Living Nativity in Selkirk.

Several world cultures have stories about miraculous births, such as those of Christ and Quetzalcoatl, the feathered-serpent deity of the ancient Aztecs, both apparently conceived without the usual method.

Researchers from the Universities of St Andrews and Edinburgh and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine have solved the puzzle.

Dr Laura Ross, from the Institute of Evolutionary Biology at Edinburgh, who led the study said: “In about one in eight animal species – those with so-called ‘haplodiploid’ reproduction – these offspring are always sons.”