A Polish Village Has Only Had Baby Girls In Almost 10 Years – But What Are The Chances?

In the village of Miejsce Odrzanskie in Poland , every single newborn has been a fille for most 10 age   – not one single baby son in almost a decade .

This rummy shell caught the optic of the media this calendar month , with report on the hamlet protrude up everywhere fromlocal Polish mediatoThe New York Times .   The small small town , found in the rural south of Poland near the Czechia delimitation , has a population of just over 300 people . Over the past decade , there have been 12 births and not one boy has been born . Rajmund Frischko , the local mayor and the Father-God of two daughters , even offered a award for the first family to conceive a son .

“ There has been so much talk about us in the spiritualist that for a minute there I was considering make a street after the next male child hold here , ” he toldThe Telegraph . “ He will emphatically get a very overnice gift . And we will plant an oak and name it after him . ”

So , what could maybe be going on here ?

The sexuality of a baby look on whether their begetter ’s sperm is carry an X or Y chromosome . An X chromosome combines with the mother ’s X chromosome to make a child girl ( XX ) and a Y chromosome will compound with the mother ’s tenner chromosome to make a male child ( XY ) . The number of X and Y sperm is rough equal , so the hazard of having a son or a miss are just about adequate too .

That ’s in theory , at least . There are a small fistful of broker that can shift the proportion of X and Y spermatozoan or number of boy and girls . For model , meninherit a slight tendencyto have more hug drug or Y sperm from their parent . The X chromosome is also long and punishing than the Y chromosome , so it ’s ever so slenderly hard for the ecstasy sperms to reach the egg in the airstream up the   fallopian tube . Thediet of the mothermight also act a role .

Scientists have reportedly shown pursuit in the town , but so far , there ’s been no intemperate enquiry into the inhabitants '   genetics . While it ’s too early to derail to any closing , some of the factor above could be playing a function in the strange vogue .

However , it ’s possible that this could just be a statistical coincidence . Craig Anderson , a lecturer in statistics at the University of Glasgow , explains in an clause forThe Conversationthat Miejsce Odrzanskie ’s billet is n’t actually as flaky as it first sounds .

If we take on there ’s a roughly 50 - 50 chance of possess a boy or girl , he estimates that the probability of 12 back-to-back girls being born in Miejsce Odrzanskie is 1/4096 . That ’s a fairly slim chance in closing off , however ,   in reality , any sequence of boy - girl is just as improbable .   The likeliness of 12 out of 12 births being girlfriend might be 1/4096 in Miejsce Odrzanskie , but there ’s also only a 1/4096 chance that the newborns would run in a boy - girl - boy - girl chronological succession , or any succession for that matter ( if we seize there ’s a 50 - 50 prospect of having a boy or girl ) .

Human head arereally badat   cypher the idea of randomness and probabilistic paradoxes . If we espy a co-occurrence , we have a strong tendency to savvy out meaning   even when there is none there .