'Gay sheep man' fights back

More news on the State of Oregon University researcher Charles Roselli, more commonly known - at least in certain British media circles - as "Gay sheep man".

Over Christmas, some readers may have spotted the Sunday Times article Science told: hands off gay sheep, which documented Dr Roselli's attempts to "cure" homosexual rams of their unproductive tendencies.

Except that wasn't his aim at all. There has since been a concerted effort by the researchers to correct any inaccuracies in the reporting, with that effort including enlisting the support of the Time magazine blogger Andrew Sullivan.

That much has already been documented by the Guardian's Bad Science writer, Ben Goldacre.

But while much of the gay news agenda has moved over to the Catholic adoption row, the New York Times has a detailed and gripping sheep update on Dr Roselli's fightback. Headline: "Of Gay Sheep, Modern Science, and the Perils of Bad Publicity."

Apart from enlisting the help of Sullivan and an unnamed scientist who blogs under the name emptypockets, the researcher and his employers have been responding to 20,000 outraged emails.