By Santhosh Babu

Campaigning for Saturdays Delhi assembly elections ended on Thursday. This time, due to nationwide protests and rallies related to the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, the polls can be crucial to study how voters respond to the campaigns.

In the 2015 film, Our Brand is Crisis, a fictionalised account of how political campaign experts influenced the 2002 Bolivian presidential elections, the oppositions political strategist says, You know, when Adlai Stevenson was running for president, a woman came up to him on a rally one night and said, Every thinking person will be voting for you. Stevenson said Ma'am, thats not enough. I need a majority.

In other words, the thinking people may not be enough to make a majority. Then who are the majority? If the majority is not using its thinking skills, what are these people using to choose whom to give their vote?

Let us look at the campaigns and strategies of the three political parties during the Delhi elections from a behavioural science perspective. To analyse the impact of the campaigns of BJP, Congress and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), one needs to examine three parts of the human brain. These three parts are not, of course, independent entities and there is some overlap and a collective way of functioning.

1. The Reptilian Brain: Humans share this with birds and reptiles. This part of the brain is in control of our innate and automatic self-preserving behaviour patterns, which ensure our survival and that of our species. Instincts of feeding, fighting, feeling and reproduction are influenced and controlled by this brain. So, defending territory, flight and fight responses, and aggression are based in this part of the brain, sometimes called the unconscious brain.

BJP campaigns are usually designed more to appeal to this part of the brain. Protecting territory, aggression, self-preservation, and safety from perceived enemies become the most predominate messages in the campaign. BJP is not alone in this strategy. Donald Trumps presidential election campaigns leading up to his victory in January 2017 also focused on this part of the human brain. National security, safety from other religions and cultures not similar to ones own, and a stark either a friend or an enemy attitude appeal very well to a reptilian brain.

2. The Emotional Brain: While self-preservation and aggression in the reptilian brain can create powerful emotions, the centre of emotions resides in the mammalian brain that humans share with other mammals. For instance, While rationally people know smoking is injurious to health, the positive feelings we associate with smoking most often overcome our rational thoughts.

Many reptilian brain focus areas like self-preservation, fighting and reproduction are also related to strong emotional experiences. An easy way to differentiate them is to look at sex for lust or reproduction, and sex as an emotionally bonding activity. The first could be closer to the primitive reptilian brain; the second closer to the emotional one. The Congress campaign on TV has tried to create a positive emotion about Delhi, connecting it to the party.

3. The New Brain (Neocortex): This part of the brain is responsible for abstract and rational thought, foresight, hindsight, insight, reasoning, decision-making and logical problem-solving.

So, in an easy (although oversimplified) way, we could say the reptilian brain is our primitive, instinctive brain, the mammalian one is our emotional brain, and the neocortical one is our logical brain. AAPs claims about focus on health and education, and its appeal to votes based on the work the government and party have done is an appeal to the new brain.

In his 2011 book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, 2002 economics Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman writes that fast thinking often relies on prior experiences to make decisions. Fast thinking relies on the limbic system -- the emotional part of the brain, and to the reptilian brain that works with stimulus and response.

On the other hand, slow thinking takes place in the neocortex, the rational part of the brain. Slow thinking is hard work and takes a lot of brain energy. But this process is what allows us to solve complex problems.

So, which part of the brain is likely to be most effective in Delhis election campaigns? The advertising fraternity will say that addressing the reptilian and emotional brain is most effective. As the quote from Our Brand is Crisis has it, in elections, every thinking person voting for you is not enough. You need a majority to win, something that BJP has been most aware in previous elections.

The writer is CEO OrgLens, a social network mapping company

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Delhi elections: Which campaign brain will win? - Economic Times

Bees are an important factor for our environment and our sustenance. Without insect pollination, many plant species including various crops cannot reproduce.

A UK researcher, studying the survival of bees at the University of Sheffield, spoke to us about the situation. She said:

Extensive landscape change causing the destruction of biodiverse green spaces in favour of concrete have resulted in the depletion of essential bumblebee foraging resources such as wildflowers and fruit trees.

As bumblebees are a key pollinator, the resulting declines of bumblebee populations have severe cascading effects on our ecosystems.

The feeding habits of these insects are crucially important to the eating habits of the human being. Globally, more than 20,000 bee species need to be considered. Among these, bumble bees are of particular importance besides the famous honey bee.

Professor Sara Leonhardt, who specialises in plant-insect interactions, said:

Bee mortality therefore affects food supply for human beings.

Bees obtain most of their nutrients from their main food sources, which are nectar and pollen. While nectar is mainly a source of carbohydrates, pollen contains most of the other necessary nutrients: proteins, fat, minerals and vitamins. Until today, most bee researchers assumed that bees, like other herbivores, mainly consider the protein content when choosing their food.

Using a two-step mechanistical approach that included learning and feeding experiments, the group established a new way to literally keep a close eye on the feeding habits of insects.

Which nutrients can bumble bees taste in pollen?

As a first step, learning experiments helped the scientists to establish the bumble bees preference for certain nutrients in this case fat and protein.

Fabian Rdenauer, main author of the study, explained:

We are focusing on fatty and amino acids, which represent the two essential pollen macro nutrients and which are likely to be perceived and thus tasted by bees.

In this context, a small amount of fatty acids was added to pollen to increase its fat content. The researchers found that bumble bees could clearly differentiate between normal pollen and pollen with increased fat content and did show a clear preference for normal pollen. Surprisingly, the bumble bees made no clear distinction when the pollen amino acid content was altered in the same way.

Which nutrients actually affect the bumble bees foraging behavior and what are the consequences for their survival and reproductive capabilities? Those were the central questions guiding the subsequent feeding experiments.

The more fat the pollen contained, the less the bumble bees consumed that pollen, Leonhardt concluded. Bumble bees actually accepted death over having to consume the high-fat pollen. The work group therefore concluded that fat in pollen adversely affects the bumble bees reproductive capabilities and survival, which is why it is being avoided.

Similar to the learning experiment, variations in the amino acid content of pollen did not affect the bees feeding habits, survival or reproduction.

Our study highlights the importance of fat for foraging bumble bees. It also shows that there is a correlation between nutrient perception, nutritional regulation and reproductive fitness, stated Dr. Johannes Spaethe from the University of Wrzburg, who also led the study.

The bees can taste what is good for them and collect their food accordingly, said Leonhardt, summarising the results.

Currently, the researchers are creating a dataset on pollen nutritional chemistry in order to obtain an overview across the wide spectrum of different plant species. They are also examining the nutritional needs of other species of bees.

The research team said:

In the future, this may lead to better understanding the effect of variation in flowering plant species on bees, and it may improve protective measures such as flower strips in agricultural landscapes.

Read the study here.

Editor's Recommended Articles

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Researchers emphasise that bumble bees need biodiversity - Open Access Government

While Republican lawmakers in Florida rush to pass legislation shielding all sunscreens from local government restrictions, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, two Florida members of Congress, the city of Key West, and the state of Hawaii are working in the opposite direction.

Their reason: Suspicion that certain sunscreen ingredients may harm humans as well as coral reefs.

Florida lawmakers advanced bills last week to stop Key West and any other city from adopting reef safe regulations banning two specific sunscreen ingredients oxybenzone and octinoxate believed to harm corals. Preemption proponents argued the risk of skin cancer outweighs the threat to corals.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration announced that its recent studies show that 12 popular sunscreen chemicals enter the bloodstream in concentrations that no longer qualify them for listing as generally recognized as safe and effective for human use. The 12 include oxybenzone and octinoxoate. Still on the safe list are zinc oxide and titanium oxide, which are minerals.

Sen. Rob Bradley, chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, has said he knew about the FDA findings but forged ahead with his bill preempting any limits on sunscreens. It cleared the full Senate on Wednesday (25-14) and the House health committee (10-6) the next day. It is headed for a vote in the full House as early as this week.

Those votes followed the FDA report on Jan. 21 that it no longer deems oxybenzone and octinoxate the coral-harming chemicals and 10 other sunscreen chemicals safe and effective for human use.

FDA studies demonstrated that the chemicals are readily absorbed into the bloodstream unlike their mineral-based counterparts and can no longer be designated as generally recognized as safe and effective for humans. That determination triggered the need for toxicology studies, the first ones ever done on these ingredients, which have been in use for decades.

Without further testing, the FDA does not know what levels of absorption can be considered safe, write researchers Theresa M. Michele and David Straussin a statement on the FDA website. The findings do not indicate whether absorption of the chemicals is dangerous, which is what the FDA will study next.

Here is an excerpt from theFDA report:

The available literature includes studies indicating that oxybenzone is absorbed through the skin to a greater extent than previously understood and can lead to significant systemic exposure, as well as data showing the presence of oxybenzone in human breast milk, amniotic fluid, urine, and blood plasma.

The significant systemic availability of oxybenzone, coupled with a lack of data evaluating the full extent of its absorption potential, is a concern, among other reasons, because of questions raised in the published literature regarding the potential for endocrine activity in connection with systemic oxybenzone exposure. Nearly all of these sunscreen active ingredients also have limited or no data characterizing their absorption.

Holly Parker Curry, Florida regional manager for the Surfriders Foundation, said she is appalled that lawmakers are rushing broad preemption legislation through rather than differentiating between chemical sunscreen ingredients that may harm both corals and humans and those that clearly pose no threat to either.

At Surfriders, we have repeatedly asked, Why cant we just wait until we have the FDA findings? Curry said adding that her family, which includes two children, uses mineral-based sunscreens, not chemical ones.

Bradley did not respond to requests for comment.

Meanwhile, two Florida members of Congress are pushing for reef-safe sunscreen restrictions, and lawmakers in Hawaii want to expand their own ban to include all the ingredients de-listed by the FDA.

U.S. Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a Democrat who represents Miami-Dade and the Florida Keys, and Rep. Francis Rooney, a Republican representing Lee and Collier counties, are sponsoring HR 1834 in Congress to ban oxybenzone and octinoxate from use within national marine sanctuaries that contain coral.

The top target of their protective measure is the Great Florida Reef, where corals are dying from a variety of causes, including stony coral tissue disease, heat-induced bleaching, and water pollution.

Defending our precious coral, the species that live in and around them, and the environmental and economic benefits they provide is a necessity, and Im glad were able to work on this on a bipartisan basis, Mucarsel-Powell says in a joint statement issued with Rooney.

Reefs play a major role in preventing shore erosion and protect coastal wetlands, Rooney adds. Their preservation is a key component of our tourism-based economy. I introduced the Defending Our National Marine Sanctuaries from Damaging Chemicals Act to protect these critical areas so that they can be enjoyed and studied for generations to come. It is common sense to prevent the application of these chemicals in National Marine Sanctuaries.

Veteran corals expert Cheryl Woodley of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Center for Coastal Ocean Science in Charleston, S.C., wrote in a Jan. 21 letter to Key West city officials that the evidence of coral damage due to exposure to oxybenzone and octinoxate is overwhelming, refuting claims that it is junk science.

Over 100 scientific papers in the last five to six years have shown that various chemicals in sunscreens are present in the marine environment as pseudo-persistent pollutants. They have been shown to bioaccumulate in marine biota and can have harmful effects on marine life including coral, algae, aquatic insects, mussels, crustaceans, and fish, Woodley wrote, listing the scientific papers in a lengthy appendix.

Oxybenzone threatens overall coral reef health by inducing coral bleaching; harming or killing coral larvae by inducing gross deformities; damaging DNA; and acting as an endocrine disrupter affecting reproduction and development. In fish, it acts as an estrogen-mimetic that feminizes fish. In copepods and sea urchins it slows reproduction and development.

NOAA has committed $2.5 million to coral restoration in Florida.

The state of Hawaii believes NOAA. It adopted its reef-safe sunscreen regulations in 2018, and a bipartisan group of lawmakers led by state Rep. Gene Ward introduced legislation recently to expand the restrictions to ban all sunscreen ingredients no longer deemed generally recognized as safe and effective by the FDA.

Ward told the Florida Phoenix that Hawaiis ban on reef-damaging ingredients had done no harm to the states tourism industry and that retailers embraced it, stocking their shelves with reef-safe sunscreens that contain no oxybenzone or octinoxate.

If its bad for our environment, its bad for our business, Ward said in a telephone interview. Our environment is our economy.

Ward, who serves on Hawaiis House Committee on Health, said the Democratic-controlled Legislature is confident about the science involving coral-damaging sunscreens. And because the FDA withdrew most sunscreens from its safe and effective list over human health concerns, he and other lawmakers want to ban those, too, pending the outcome of the FDA toxicology studies.

If we want to be really scientific, look at the data, Ward said. The data are not on their side.

Sen. Bradley made the same argument from the opposite side, citing undisputed evidence that sun exposure can cause skin cancer and that sunscreens reduce the risk.

He told the Senate Rules Committee that Key West leaders had been fooled by junk science and adopted feel-good measures that only give the appearance of protecting coral reefs.

Curry, with the Surfrider Foundation, and Rebecca OHara, of the Florida League of Cities, testified before the Rules Committee in opposition to Bradleys bill. They questioned why senators would not craft legislation to ban oyxbenzone and octinoxate when safe alternatives remain widely available. In particular, old-school zinc oxide and titanium dioxide, which are minerals, are considered safe for corals and remain FDA-designated as safe and effective for human use.

Bradley said he and other lawmakers are keenly concerned about Florida corals, but hold that skin cancer is a bigger threat that warrants keeping all sunscreens on Florida shelves without exception.

We are the Sunshine State, Bradley said. Florida is second in the nation for new cases of melanoma [a skin cancer]. All sunscreens should be available.

The Rules Committee approved Bradleys bill, the Florida Senate followed, and two committees in the House have done the same.

Key West Mayor Teri Johnston finds vindication for her citys sunscreen regulations within the FDA report, NOAA science, and Hawaiis actions. There is a great deal of new information coming out. This is not the end of the story, she told the Phoenix.

Bradley never discussed with her Key Wests rationale for banning the suspect sunscreens, Johnston said. We should take the lead on this. I dont know why a legislator from a land-locked district in north Florida would make this his issue, Johnston said.

Even Floridas new state-sponsored website FloridasCoralReef.org, rolled out by Gov. Ron DeSantis during a press conference on Thursday, discourages the use of chemical sunscreens.

Some chemicals commonly found in popular sunscreens have been shown to negatively impact marine life, the website says. It advises readers to avoid those and instead use sun-resistant clothing, hats, sunglasses, umbrellas, and mineral-based sunscreens.

Florida is not Florida without its coral reefs, DeSantis said, describing state and volunteer efforts to replant corals that are dying off. The volunteer efforts include Blue Force, a cadre of retired Navy Seals retrained to plant coral.

The Phoenix requested comment from DeSantis about whether he would support or veto Bradleys bill but aides had not responded as of this writing.

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Sunscreen battle pits FL Republicans against Key West, Hawaii, FDA, and members of Congress - Florida Phoenix

Searching for amale contraceptiveis not easy, but researchers at the University of Dundee created an automated system to test the efficacy of drugs for stopping sperm. The focus of this project is human sperm, to know how well, the drugs suppress it.

This study is done byChris Barratt and Dr. Paul Andrews, who are committing research on finding safer contraception that has no ill-effects on men, or a male contraceptive.

They checked the drugs that were approved and tested, it was 13,000 samples meant for male contraceptives. Going over this collection of drugs is a way to see how to develop the right male contraceptive.

Studies went over the best choices to use and stop sperm from swimming to the egg cell. Right after is the investigation on what works best for stopping sperm effectively.

Chris Barratt commented that having this technological breakthrough is crucial. Having the ability to test large batches of compounds that will restrict the swimming prowess of sperm to impregnate egg cells. Contraceptives for men is not worthwhile, and nothing has proven to work well so far.

Till this development, only the condom is the best way to ward off unwanted pregnancies. Most of the time, women need to carry the burden of contraception more than men. Developing a male contraceptive will equalize the burden and make it easier. Even if male contraceptives are needed for very urgent reasons, finding the right drug is where the roadblock is. Human sperm is not very understood and is not as well studied. Another is the lack of research to identify a protein in human sperm, which encodes all the functions it does when ejected from the male. Last is an effective system to see how chemicals affect it and drugs that are available.

Getting the answers will need aparallel testing method that is miniaturized carried out by AI. This is robotic AI will track and get images of fast-moving sperm. This tech is new and allows observation of sperm, how drugs affect the energetic sperm too by measuring.

This system bypasses the former way to test for contraceptives, which takes too much time. Developing the technology which is far better than previous ones, should be something that innovates how to check human sperm and drugs that inhibit it.

Everything from utilizing energetic human sperm and how they do their jobs or phenotype, how drugs and chemical compounds affect it. Those studying it seek a goal to find out what proteins are crucial to sperm to get an egg cell impregnated.

With the tech used tofind the right drug to impede sperm, it has a function called acrosome reaction that checks on what aspect of the sperm fertilizes the egg. Overall, the system has better chances of devising a male contraceptive. Also, gives a chance to learn more about sperm too.

Developing this area ofmale contraceptiveresearch will lessen unwanted pregnancies and abortions that happen just because it is unplanned. All these problems that put women's well-being in jeopardy are less when men get their own contraceptives.

Read: Stopping sperm in its tracks: latest progress in the hunt for a male contraceptive

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New technology for testing to find a male contraceptive will help lessen problems linked to human reproduction - Science Times

Protein shakes have become rather essential in this modern era for people of different age groups. It does not just help you to build lean muscles and repair damaged ones, it also gives you the strength to carry out throughout the day without any loss of energy. There are several types of protein shakes in the market. Although all the brands claim to be one of the best in the market, it is not true all the time. Since it is a matter of your own health, it is important that you choose nothing but the best. Thus, TrueFit Lean Protein Shake is a good option for you.

RSP is one of the popular supplement companies that was started by a group of former student-athletes. During the initial days, the company used to concentrate only on bodybuilding products. However, with time, they shifted their focus to more general health supplements. The founders of the company state that they wish the company to become a lifestyle brand that customers can use in their everyday lives.

RSP has come up with several amino acid powder products in the past. However, TrueFit happens to be their flagship product. According to the makers, this protein shake provides users with an ideal balance of veggies, fruits, and high-quality protein, along with 9gm of carbs, dietary fiber, and healthy fats.

Every serving of these health supplements gives you 25gm of protein, 160 calories, 12gm of carbs comprising of 2gm of sugar and 8gm of fiber, and 3gm of fat. Your body will also get approximately 9% of your daily sodium and 20% of your daily cholesterol supply from each scoop. When you talk about the minerals and vitamins in the protein shake, TrueFit comprises of roughly 30% of the daily recommended dose of vitamins and minerals for an adult. This includes vitamins A, B, C, D, E, magnesium, and biotin.

The protein content in TrueFit Lean Protein Shake (see full details at mealreplacementreviewpro.com/rsp-truefit-lean-meal-replacement-reviews) comes from whey isolate and concentrate. The different flavorings of the product also come from natural flavors, cocoa, artificial sweeteners such as sucralose, and stevia. However, the product is free from artificial flavors, colors, and preservatives. Even the content of artificial sweeteners is about less than 0.1gm in each scoop.

The fiber in this product comes from 8.5gm of prebiotic soluble fiber, as well as, from sweet potato powder. It also contains 1gm of a mixture of different types of vegetables and fruits such as berries, broccoli sprouts, carrots, and tomato to name a few. The presence of 7 different digestive enzymes, such as bromelain, protease, lipase, papain, amylase, cellulose, and lactase, as well as, 1 billion probiotic bacteria ensure proper digestive health for you.

From a first timers point of view, it is a good thing that the TrueFit Lean Protein Shake comes with a good list of ingredients that focus on your gut. The pre and probiotics, digestive enzymes, and fiber ensure that your digestive system does not take a beating when you have the protein shake. These ingredients also make sure that all the essential nutrients get absorbed in your system properly, making it a great choice for those of you who suffer from digestive issues.

The high fiber content results in a low amount of net carbs in the shake, which along with low-fat content makes it a great meal replacement. In other words, it is more than a mere protein shake for you. According to the makers, one scoop of the protein shake will give you everything that your body needs in terms of nutrition. It will give you a balanced diet and also ensure that you remain full for quite some time.

However, there are some nutrients that are missing in this product. Nutrients such as choline and vitamin K are missing out in this supplement, which does not make it a nutritionally complete health drink. It even lacks zinc, iron, and potassium and contains a losing percentage of calcium. These are essential nutrients for your health and missing out on these nutrients can be dangerous in the long run.

In short, it can be said that RSP TrueFit Lean Protein Shake is rather good as a high fiber protein nutritious shake that has special attention towards your digestive system. Although it is pretty low in carbs, which is a good thing, it is also quite low in iron, fat, and potassium, which may not be that good for your health.

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Surrogacy cost: how to establish a profitable cooperation with a surrogate mother - The Hear UP

While there's no denying the benefits of exercise when it comes to your heart health and wellbeing, a new study is suggesting it may even keep your sperm healthy.

The research, published inHuman Reproduction, analysed samples from hundreds of qualified sperm donors. While all men displayed healthy sperm, those who were more active each week had better sperm motility - how well their sperm moves and it's ability to implant an egg.

Regular exercise may improve semen quality parameters among healthy, non-infertile men, study co-author Dr. Yi-Xin Wang of Tongji Medical College of Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China, and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston,toldReuters.

While the findings suggest exercise is beneficial, it's still unclear which type of movement or the best workout length for optimal fertility.

Previously,urologist Dr. Ali Dabajatold Men's Health that maintaininga healthy weight can help with sperm health.

"If you have a lot of body fat, youre going to have a lot of oxidative stress to the body," Dabaja said.

According to Dabaja, an increase in oxidative stress can lower sperm quality.

See the rest here:
Study Finds Guys Who Exercise More Have Healthier Sperm - Men's Health

Evolutionary biologist Patty Brennan had watched a lot of birds have sex. But in 2002, in Costa Rica, she saw something she never had before: a bird penis.

Most male birds don't have penises. They mate using an opening called a cloacaderived from the Latin word for sewer. It's a cavity inside a bird's anus that's a one-stop shop for the digestive, urinary, and reproductive tracts. When birds mate, the male and female cloaca touch. The male releases sperm, and it enters the females body. It's referred to, somewhat romantically, as a "cloacal kiss."

Brennan was observing a pair of Great tinamousbrown, chicken-like birds with small heads that live in the Costa Rican forest. Instead of just the subtle and brief cloacal kiss, the male bird grabbed the female by the neck. Then, the two birds started walking around still attached, as if they were fused together. When they separated, she saw a white, tentacle-looking organ hanging from his body.

"This was unlike anything I had ever seen," she said. "I was like, is this a penis?" (According to biologist Richard Prum, the tinamous penis had been seen and described by Victorian anatomists, but the appendage was forgotten to science. Her sighting was probably the first-ever observation of the tinamou penis in action," he wrote in a 2017 book.)

That unexpected bird penis launched Brennan, now an assistant professor of biological sciences at Mount Holyoke College, into a career of studying the weird and wonderful variations of genitalia in the natural world. But unlike many scientists before her who had noticed the dizzying variety of penises out there, Brennan began to ask: What about the vaginas? A long-standing misconception in evolutionary biology was that penises were incredibly diverse, but vaginas were not. In the past two decades, biologists, like Brennan, have been finding otherwise.

While doing so, they've been uncovering how gender biases might have played a role in obscuring vaginal variety, and how excluding vaginas from the study of genital evolution led to gaping holes in our understanding of why genitals look and behave the way they do. Only by examining how male and female parts evolve together can we see how sometimes, strange genitals are a result of sexual conflicteach sex trying to get the upper hand to control the reproductive act to best suit their needs. That's what Brennan learned, not through bird penises alone, but also through the vaginas with which they interact.

After her encounter in Costa Rica, Brennan wanted to continue studying bird genitalia. She shifted her focus to ducks, a more accessible subject than tinamous. At a duck farm in California's Central Valley in 2009, she captured some duck penises in action. (These ducks had been trained to ejaculate into small glass bottles for artificial insemination.)

You might remember what she and Prum discovered because, for a short while, the duck penis went viral online. Brennan found that the penises unfurl out of a duck's body at lengths of around 5 to 7 inchessome duck penises can be almost as long as the male's body. And they were spiraled, like a fleshy cavatappi pasta noodle. Male ducks forced these long corkscrew penises onto females. The internet was horrified, and also, enthralled.

In the history of people (and scientists) marveling at genitalia in nature, this is where it often stops: Look at this weird penis! In 1979, Science published a paper on the penis of the damselfly. As Dutch evolutionary biologist, Menno Schilthuizen, wrote in his book, Nature's Nether Regions, this minuscule penis carried a miniature spoon that, during mating, cleaned out the females vagina, scooping out any remaining sperm from previous males. It was an eye-opener as well as a sperm-scooper.

This finding opened biologists' eyes to the fact that even tiny creatures had strange penises. The chicken flea's penis is rolled up in its body like a coiled spring. Other insects have musical penises, where males rub them against ribbed parts of their bodies to emit loud noises. Black widow spiders have penis tips that break off to block other males sperm from entering a female. It was somewhat of an evolutionary mystery: Why were penises so different from one another if they had the same evolutionary purposeto deliver sperm to a female's eggs?

The lock and key theory was one potential explanation, proposed in the mid 19th century. It said that male genitals were like a key, and for each key there needed to be a corresponding lock (the vagina). If the key doesnt fit into the lock, mating couldn't take place. Essentially, penises varied to keep different species from mating with one another. Another guess was sexual selectionthat females detected some particular feature of the male genitalia and used it to choose a mate, pushing the male's penis evolution in bizarre off-shoots.

Still, the focus remained on male genitalia and how it was changing and evolving, even in more recent texts on genital evolution, like important work from scientist William Eberhard on sexual selection. Brennan wrote in a 2016 paper that while Eberhard noted female choice was important in shaping male genital features, he concluded that female genitalia are relatively uniform while male genitalia are diverse.

"It created this idea, from my reading of the literature later on, that the females were somehow boring," Brennan said. "We need to look at the males, because thats where all the action is.

As a result, most of the research on genital evolution has focused on males. Nearly two times as many studies have looked at male genitals compared to females. In 2014, evolutionary biologist and gender researcher Malin Ah-King and her colleagues looked at 364 studies published over the last two decades, and found that 49 percent of them only looked at male genitals, compared to 8 percent that looked only at females, and 44 percent that looked at both.

Even the language that researchers use to describe male and female genitals has differed. A study found that active words like "coercion" are used for males, while more passive words like "avoidance" or "resistance," are provided for females. As Ah-King and her co-authors wrote: Too often, the female is assumed to be an invariant container within which all this presumed scooping, hooking, and plunging occurs.

When Brennan first saw the duck penis, though, she immediately considered the duck vagina. I looked at their penis and next question was, 'wow these penises are so big. So what do the vaginas look like?' Surprisingly, no one had investigated that before, she told me. To her, it was an obvious question. As she told science writer Carl Zimmer for a New York Times article: You cant have something like that without some place to put it in. You need a garage to park the car.

When she dissected some female ducks, "I could not believe it, she said. The differences in the vagina of a duck compared to the vagina of a chicken or a finch or quail was like the difference between night and day.

What Brennan found was a vagina like a labyrinth. Yes, duck penises were spiraledbut duck vaginas were too, in the opposite direction. Rather than finding a vagina that had evolved to fit this weird penisa garage that fit the carthe duck vagina indicated a less cooperative history.

Given that duck mating was often forced, Brennan and her colleagues hypothesized that the vagina had co-evolved to actively resist the males. The ducks vagina is swirled in a clockwise coil, so the males can only completely penetrate her with their counter-clockwise penis if she chooses to relax her vaginal muscles. Even though female ducks can't stop the male ducks from forcing themselves on them, they can control if the male could successfully inseminatereclaiming some reproductive autonomy.

Brennan and her colleagues looked at other species where the males took part in forced copulation, and then at the corresponding females. In ducks and geese, they found that when male birds forced sex on the females, females also had complicated vaginas. In species where theres no forced copulation, then the females have a regular, tube-looking vagina," Brennan said.

It also meant that the duck penis size and shape wasn't solely a result of males competing with other males, or females making a choice between malesit was the female and male ducks' competition driving the evolution.

This is the core tenet of sexual conflict: Males and females dont always agree about the best way to mate. For males, mating with a large number of females is the ideal way for them to procreate. For females, who are often left with the care of the offspring, as well as giving birth and pregnancy, being selective about reproduction is her best bet for creating progeny that will survive. This creates a conflict, where the males are going for quantity and the females, for quality.

Lets say a male animal evolves a penis hook, which allows him to latch onto a female. Even if that hook hurts the female, or gives her an infection, if it benefits the male by allowing him to reproduce more, the genes for that hook will be passed to the next generation. That puts the female a step behind, so evolution might next select for females that can defend themselves against the hook, and evolve thicker walls in their vagina. (Something very similar has happened in sharks.) This is a way of understanding the evolution of genitals as a kind of conversation, even if a contentious and competitive one. And this perspective is providing new understanding for a whole host of creatures.

The males evolve these weird penises and females evolve their convoluted vaginas in response, Brennan said. This is a lot more widespread than what we had originally realized. It's just, we have to go out there and look.

Take the earwig, an insect with a male reproductive organ called a virga. The virga has a fringe-like tip that can brush away sperm from any male that mated with a female before him. Looking at the male genitals only tells one half of the story, because the females have receptacles in their bodies to store sperm that lie just out of reach of the virga. It may seem that the males are controlling the sperm, but the females have the upper hand. As science writer Ed Yong wrote: The male can scrape away all he wants; the female decides whether to keep or jettison her sperm.

Dolphins have a complex series of vaginal folds that researchers once assumed were there to keep sea water from getting inside the female reproductive tract. Theyre realizing now how intricate their vaginas are, partly by making the effort to look closer at them. In 2017, biologist Dara Orbach made silicone molds of the dolphin vagina "revealing complex folds and spirals," the New Scientist reported. Brennan said it's now thought that those folds are actually barriers to male's penises.

Paying more attention to vaginas can help explain strange mating behavior too: In water striders, bugs that live and walk on water, the females evolved a genital shield, which can block any males that try to force them into mating. That led the males to adopt new "courting" techniques. "The males have started tapping the surface of the water while mounted on a female; the resulting ripples attract fish, and since the female is under the male, she's more likely than him to become a meal," according to post on Nature's blog. "Females can avoid this grisly end by giving in to the male's intimidation and mating with him.

Without knowing that the females have a genital shield, researchers' understanding of such behavior would be incomplete. It allows us to understand all of these bizarre morphologies and behaviors that we see in the context of, essentially, an arms race, said Teri Orr, a evolutionary ecologist at The University of Utah.

Spiders are another of Orrs favorites, because they can have around a dozen different pockets in them for manipulating spermsome are for receiving sperm, or moving it around. Orr frequently studies bats, and said they will store sperm for a full year in the reproductive tract. Leaf cutter ants can store sperm for around ten years.

Female chickens can eject about 80 percent of sperm from undesirable mates. Female guppies can hold onto sperm tooone study found that one in four guppies in Trinidad and Tobago were fathered by males that had been dead for 10 months. By doing so, females could wait to reproduce at favorable times of the year.

Theyre able to keep those sperm until its a good time of year for them to become pregnant, and then carry out that pregnancy and have babies when theres food available for them, Orr said. To me, that is absolutely mind-blowing. A lot of it is almost science fiction, what these species are able to do."

It also shows how the female anatomy is anything but passive. Outside of sperm storage, the vagina is awash with muscles that control contractions and movementits as mobile as the digestive tract is, Orr said. These muscles can play a part in moving the sperm where they want it to go. We didnt know what until about a decade ago, she said. And even then, its only in cattle, horses, mice and humans that its been studied. Thats such a small part of the diversity thats out there.

In 2005, more than 200 scientists met in London at The Royal Society for a meeting titled Sexual conflict: a new paradigm? Brennan said that since then, she feels the field is moving to include vaginas, and that several of the most recent papers on genital evolution acknowledge the fact that female genitals have been overlooked. But Orr said that when she presents her work at conferences, it can still feel like its regarded as out there" or niche. It hasnt reached mainstream science yet, she said. I think its going to take a little while until its fully embraced and not just a noveltybut normal biology.

It's not as if Brennan wants the research to flip and only focus on femalesthe point is that you need both pieces of the puzzle. Ive been very adamant that when youre looking at genitalia, you cant just look at the female or the male alone," she said. "You need to look at both because of that mechanical fit. I could commit the opposite sin, in a way. I could just go look at a bunch of females and never look at the males. Thats not going to tell me much.

She hopes that the field of genital evolution become more well-rounded, and also that the public will recognize its value. When Brennan's work on duck genitalia went public, conservatives latched onto it as a waste of government money (like a lot of academic research, it was partly funded by the National Science Foundation), acquiring the moniker #DuckPenisGate. Fox News put up a poll on their site where readers could vote if the research was a worthwhile use of taxpayer money, and 89 percent voted it was not. Brennan and her co-author Prum had to write articles defending the research.

The thing about basic science, Brennan said, is that you never know when a seemingly obscure discovery in nature is going to lead to an application for humans. So could secrets to our evolutionary past (and sexual conflicts) be hidden in our genital shapes? It's true that humans also have weird penises awash with unsolved questions, Brennan said. They are disproportionately wide given our body size and MRI studies of people having sex show that the shape of the male and female genitalia can change during intercourse, for reasons that are not completely understood.

Humans don't have penile spines, unlike many of our close primate relatives. Humans have also lost the baculum, a little bone inside of the penis of many animals, like bats, rodents, and primates. We have no idea what it does, Orr said. Its buried in tons of soft tissue and so its not interacting with the female, so its quite mysterious." Even less understood is the tiny little bone some animals have inside of the clitoris which humans didn't retain.

But more often, translation from basic science will come from where you least expect it. One obvious example is how the immune system of a bacteria was developed into a revolutionary gene editing techniqueCRISPR/Cas9.

In the realm of genital evolution: duck penises grow and shrink every season, which means there are probably stem cells in the penis that allow for that growth each year. If researchers could learn what those cells are and how they work, they could have all sorts of medical or cosmetic applications. Could we actually grow penile cells that might become a treatment someday? Its perfectly possible," Brennan said.

Many of the stages where pregnancy fails in humans are the same ones where bats are able to intervene and store fertilized eggs or sperm. By looking closer at those processes, it might lead to ideas for aiding issues in human or reproduction or endocrinology, Orr said.

Hypospadias is a birth defect leading to a malformed urethra; one in every 200 boys is born with some type of hypospadias. For people with such developmental problems, or others, like malformation of the uterus, research into genitals that are naturally bifurcated could lead to an understanding of what causes those hiccups, and how to fix them.

Even if those animal-human translations aren't right around the corner, the field of genital evolution has already offered something else: Recognizing the value in seeing how gender biases and language can divert research to ignore crucial elements. Anthropologist Emily Martin's 1991 essay The Egg and the Sperm highlighted how the (often incorrect) descriptions of human sperm and eggs reflected stereotypical male and female roles. It's a reminder that it could happen again, and to examine what social constructs are currently inseminating scientific research.

And Brennan wonders if the response to her research doesn't betray how touchy and judgemental people still are about genitalia, especially vaginas. It's almost as if there was something a little perverse with that line of questioning or that particular type of research," she said. "I happen to think that we actually need to understand a lot more about sex and sexual interactions than less.

She views genitals just like any other organs. If you think about our other organs: livers, kidneys, hearts, or brainsthere's much less variation and excitement. It's a rare window into what evolution can do. Genitalia are critical biological organs to be studying, she said. Im still surprised that we know as little as we seem to know. Evolutionarily, this is where the rubber meets the road.

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These Vaginas Evolved to Fight the Penis, Not Accommodate It - VICE

Of weeds many effects on the body, marijuanas impact on sperm is perhaps the least obvious and the most elusive. The research on weed and sperm is contradictory at best.

Some studies hint it could have benefits for sperm production. Others suggest it takes a negative toll. But in September 2019, scientists got a little closer to understanding just what, exactly, marijuana does to sperm.

This is #18 on Inverses 25 most WTF stories of 2019.

When scientists analyzed testicular tissue and sperm samples from a small sample of 15 men, they found endocannabinoids, as well as cannabinoid receptors and the enzymes needed to break those chemicals down. The findings were published in September in Scientific Reports.

Endocannabinoids are neurotransmitters that resemble cannabinoids, the chemicals that occur naturally in cannabis (sometimes called exogenous cannabinoids). The bodys endocannabinoid system extends from the gut to the brain. The results demonstrate that this system extends all the way to mens sperm-making machinery, too.

The scientists found traces of an endocannabinoid called 2-arachidonoylglycerol (2-AG) in testicular tissue. They also found genetic transcripts coding for endocannabinoid receptors and evidence that enzymes that break down endocannabinoids were abundantly present in germ cells (the cells that become sperm).

Study author Niels Skakkebk said at the time that the results suggest endocannabinoids play a role in sperm production.

Andrologists like me have for generations been focusing on other hormone aspects but overlooked the possibility that endocannabinoids may participate in the normal sperm and hormone production, he said.

The presence of those endocannabinoids begs a new question. What happens when you flood that system with more of these chemicals when you smoke weed? Right now, scientists arent sure.

It might come down to the amount you actually smoke. A February 2019 paper published in Human Reproduction on sub-fertile men showed that marijuana use may be related to higher sperm counts.

That paper noted that 365 men who had smoked weed before had higher sperm counts than the 297 men who hadnt smoked weed before.

Low levels of marijuana use could benefit sperm production because of its effect on the endocannabinoid system, which is known to play a role in fertility, but those benefits are lost with higher levels of marijuana consumption, Feiby Nassan, research fellow at Harvard University, said in a statement.

As 2019 draws to a close, Inverse is counting down the 25 stories from this year that made us say WTF. Some are incredible, some are icky, and some are just plain strange. This has been #18. Read the original article here.

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Scientists discover marijuana may have a surprising effect on sperm - Inverse

Good morning. Well theres no doubt about the will of the nation, with the Conservative party winning a majority that is projected to be its largest in more than 30 years.

Labour faces a reckoning after its dismal result at the general election. From the stroke of 10pm, when exit polls were published, Labour hearts were shattered, as it became clear that the red wall Labours traditional heartland was crumbling. Throughout the night it became more certain that Boris Johnson had achieved the landslide victory he craved. For full results see our election tracker.

Bitter divisions have already emerged within Labour about who is responsible for the dire losses. The party will face a fight over its future after Jeremy Corbyn announced he would not lead Labour into another general election. We have this analysis of five reasons Labour lost, though Zoe Williams writes that the Labour party being thrown into conflict is not necessarily a bad thing. You cannot rebuild while pretending everythings still standing.

Also looking for a new leader will be the Lib Dems. Jo Swinson, who started the campaign claiming she could be the next prime minister, lost her seat to the SNP in a result capping a disastrous night for her party which looks set to win 13 seats, only one more than in 2017.

But a party that one imagines will be sticking with its leader for some time is the Tories. The night saw huge wins for the Conservatives and Johnson touted the victory as one that has given his party a powerful new mandate to get Brexit done. If the wins are as big as predicted by exit polls and results declared so far, the party is on track to win the biggest Tory majority since Margaret Thatchers third election victory in 1987. Boris Johnson will waste no time, acting swiftly to bring his Brexit deal back before parliament next week.

In reaction to the news the pound surged and Donald Trump tweeted (apparently happily). The night was also a success for the SNP, which looks set to win 55 out of Scotlands 59 Westminster seats. The strong result for the party means Nicola Sturgeon will demand that Johnson give her powers to hold a second independence referendum.

> The US House judiciary committee has abruptly postponed a historic vote to advance articles of impeachment against Donald Trump, following a 14-hour meeting that devolved into a rancorous, deeply partisan debate stretching late into the night during which Republicans put forward a string of doomed amendments. It will reconvene on Friday morning.

> Baby boys born underweight have a greater chance of infertility as adults, research suggests. Experts say they have found men have a higher risk of infertility if they were born with a weight in the lowest 10% for their time spent in the womb. Odds of infertility as an adult were 55% worse for boys born below weight than for boys born at an average weight, the experts write in the journal Human Reproduction. About one in seven heterosexual couples in the UK experience fertility problems.

> Bodies of six victims of the New Zealand volcano disaster have been recovered. In a delicate operation the remains were taken on board the ship HMNZS Wellington by a team of eight military personnel for transfer to the coroner in Auckland. Police said two bodies were unable to be retrieved including one believed to be in the water. During the retrieval family members travelled by boat to perform a blessing at sea in the Bay of Plenty while local people gathered at the waterfront in nearby Whakatne to pray, sing and honour the dead.

For decades, anti-government and white supremacist groups have been attempting to recruit police officers in the United States and the authorities themselves arent even certain about the scale of the problem, write Maddy Crowell and Sylvia Varnham ORegan.

Mason Greenwood had a night to remember as Manchester United dismantled AZ Alkmaars challenge with a barrage of second-half goals. Freddie Ljungbergs Arsenal were heading out of the Europa League after going 2-0 down at Standard Lige but goals from Alexandre Lacazette and Bukayo Saka secured a 2-2 draw and place in the last 32. Diogo Jota sprang from the bench to score a hat-trick in 12 second-half minutes and ensure Wolves finished their group campaign in style, while Alfredo Morelos scored a first-half goal in a 1-1 draw with Young Boys, of Switzerland, to take Rangers through.

The World Anti-Doping Agency has been rocked by the resignation of Victoria Aggar, a highly respected member of its own Athlete Committee, who said she quit after Wada broke its promises and failed to protect clean athletes. Natalie Sciver scored a series-clinching unbeaten century as England women made it back-to-back wins over Pakistan with victory by 127 runs in the second ODI in Kuala Lumpur. And Scott Wisemantel has been appointed attack coach by Australia after leaving Englands backroom team following the Rugby World Cup.

Immediately after publication of the exit poll, sterling jumped by more than two cents against the US dollar to trade at about $1.35 on the international money markets. That was the highest level for the pound since May 2018. The pound also rallied strongly against the euro, gaining by a similar amount to 1.21. At time of writing its sitting on $1.347 and 1.205. The FTSE 100 is headed for a fillip when the stock market opens, according to futures trading. Follow the latest market reaction at our business live blog.

Labour in meltdown as Johnson seizes majority thats the Guardian after a calamitous election result for Jeremy Corbyn. The paper gets into its final edition the Labour leaders speech saying he will not lead the party into the next election but intends to cling to the helm to oversee a period of reflection. Johnson unleashed, says the i, adding Brexit in 49 days after Midlands and North tire of delay.

Exit polls point to vindication for Johnson with huge Tory majority, says the FT, which also reports that the SNP is on course to take 55 of 59 Scottish seats Scotlands Courier has SNP landslide likely to spark Indyref2. The British lion roars for Boris and Brexit the late edition of the Express (earlier versions hailed Victory for Boris AND for Brexit). The Dogs Bollox says the Sun in early editions, with the X done as the cross on a ballot paper its final version has Carrie on Boris picturing the returned PM and his girlfriend. The Times says that Election poll points to Johnson landslide. In its late edition the Telegraph goes with Johnsons historic victory, dropping the landslide headline it ran in earlier versions.

The Mail in its final edition enthuses that Conservative voters should Rejoice! Boris surges to landslide win a tweaked version of an earlier, anticipatory headline. But the Mirror calls the outcome a Nightmare before Xmas as it laments the worst Labour result since 1935. And finally, the Metros 5am edition: Landslide for Boris.

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Friday briefing: Labour supporters wake to nightmare result - The Guardian

3-Dec-2019

Design and Build | Pharmaceuticals

In vitro fertilisation is a process that mimics nature and as such, the industry requires state-of-the-art facilities to control environmental conditions and prevent contamination of the product. Giles Palmer explains

From its humble beginnings in a small cottage hospital in Oldham (UK) to its acceptance in mainstream medicine and everyday life, the in vitro fertilisation (IVF) industry has evolved continuously, and is increasingly applicable not only with the treatment of a growing variety of fertility issues but also with challenges of todays society and lifestyle choices.

Globally, infertility affects seven million people: one in six couples have a problem in conceiving. Last year we celebrated the 40th anniversary of the first test-tube baby, Louise Brown, and in doing so the birth of clinical embryology as a profession.

Over the years, IVF success rates have increased. The introduction of hormonal stimulation produced more oocytes than the early natural cycle attempts leading to a more streamlined and controlled treatment cycle leading to a better choice of embryos to transfer, and the need to cryopreserve remaining embryos.

Originally designed for patients with tubal damagewhen the oocyte could not journey from the oviduct to the uterus to implantthe application of this science has been developed to include all forms of infertility, from hormonal disorders to severe male infertility. The shift has seen the opening of new possibilities that have been both morally, spiritual and socially questioned, such as the use of donor sperm and oocytes, sex selection, genetic screening and posthumous use.

These processes are manual manipulations in laminar flow hood with heated work surfaces, cultured in special low volume incubators

Embryologists working in the lab mimic nature, closely maintaining optimum conditions of temperature, pH and osmolarity; monitoring the development of embryos, and selecting the best embryo for transfer. These processes are manual manipulations in laminar flow hood with heated work surfaces, cultured in special low volume incubators.

Culturing outside the body close to physiological conditions has paved the way for new techniques, such as intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) and preimplantation diagnosis via embryo biopsy coupled with the ever-evolving science of molecular genetics.

Recent advances in cryobiology have also meant that frozen embryos have now succeeded in producing a viable pregnancy as fresh embryos (Thomson, 2019).

Embryos are routinely cultured now to five- or six-day post insemination before being transferred to the intended mother when the embryo has reached the blastocyst stage. This ready-to-implant embryonic stage (previously difficult to achieve with suboptimal culture media) now has a success rate of 54%, according to London Womens Clinic data.

Giles Palmer, Senior Embryologist

The IVF lab is almost always adjacent to an operating theatre where procedures such as egg collection (by follicle aspiration) under sedation and embryo transfer are performed. The eggs and embryos are transferred hand-to-hand, literally, by a hatch (a passthrough you might say in the cleanroom industry) that must remain open for lengths of time up to 30 minutes.

Positive pressure and HEPA filters are commonplace in IVF laboratories, but industry standards are somewhat elusive: there is no consensus on what constitutes an IVF laboratory, and guidelines may differ greatly from country to country.

Only about 15% of IVF clinics are housed within a hospital, and currently may be designed within a medical centre, doctors offices and general buildings.

The IVF process also requires auxiliary rooms. An andrology laboratory (preferably in a separate room but not globally mandatory) is used to process the non-aseptic semen. A cryobiology room is then used to store the frozen samples. Plus, a medical gas room is also required.

Apart from gases used by the anaesthetists, mixtures of medical-grade gasses are required to produce the correct environment within the incubators for the developing embryo; typically 6% CO2 with low O2 tension.

The IVF industry might not manufacture a product, as many industries using cleanrooms, but it seems appropriate to measure success by an endpoint of the birth of a healthy child. Development and normal growth, however, can be limited in adverse air conditions. The entire IVF process is governed by the biology of sperm, egg and embryo, and we must optimise conditions to protect the product against exposure to adverse external factors. The problem lies in the lack of agreement of these conditions.

The human embryo is sensitive to light, temperature and other environmental conditions. Pollutants can settle on workspaces, and although embryos bathed in their culture media overlaid with a layer of light paraffin oil, attention has to be paid to the risk of toxins infiltrating the barrier because embryos lack an immune system to stave off harmful environmental contaminants.

It should be noted that disposables and new equipment can introduce hazards in the laboratory, too

Urban air can contain high levels of pollutants, such as carbon monoxide, nitrous oxide, sulphur dioxide and heavy metals. Indoor construction materials, such as MDF, PVC flooring, paints and adhesives, constitute the major source of volatile organic compounds (VOCs).

Once only anecdotal in the early days of IVF, studies emerged, showing the negative effect of poor air quality and ultimately, pregnancy outcome (Cohen 1997, Hall 1998, Mayer 1999, Boone 1999). It was shown that compressed gases that fed the incubators had high levels of VOCs (namely benzene, isopropanol and pentane) and it was not uncommon for the laboratory environment to have higher VOC concentrations than indoor air.

Particle monitors and VOC counters have also emerged in the IVF marketplace

The industry took notice and has produced ingenious ways to protect the embryos, from closed laminar flow hoods to improvements to filters systems with in-line gas filters and standalone portable air filtration units. Particle monitors and VOC counters have also emerged in the IVF marketplace (Forman, 2004).

It should be noted that disposables and new equipment can introduce hazards in the laboratory, too. Sterile plastic test tubes and dishes in packages need off-gassing. The polystyrene-based plastics can emit styrene (Sing, 2015), and it is good practice to open the consumables well before use and leave in a laminar flow hood. New equipment must also be burnt in (to release residual VOCs from the manufacturing process) in a separate room before use.

While health and safety authorities have safe limits for VOC exposure for humans, there is nothing documented for developing embryos. Industry guidelines were (and still are) vague, but both the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology and the American Society for Reproductive Medicine recognise air quality is a key factor to success (ASRM 2014, ESHRE 2004) yet without specific details.

In 2004, the IVF landscape changed in Europe with the announcement of the European Union Tissue and Cell Directive, which specified precise quality and safety requirements for the donations, procurement, testing coding and storing. A key point in this policy was clean air (EUCTD, 2004). It was meant to bring cell and tissue use on par with blood and organ handling.

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The inclusion of the IVF was both unexpected and fiercely debated (Mortimer 2005, Saunders and Pope 2005) because the original specifications would have been detrimental to in vitro embryo development.

The Directive stated: Where tissues or cells are exposed to the environment (...) an air quality of Grade A, as defined in the current European Guide to Good Manufacturing Practice, is required. The background must be demonstrated to guarantee the maintenance of Grade A in the tissue/cell manipulation while in use and unmanned. The document highlighted areas of improvements; there was little or no air management before this draft.

Where tissues or cells are exposed to the environment (...) an air quality of Grade A, as defined in the current European Guide to Good Manufacturing Practice, is required

It was argued that risk of infection is low and that the product cannot be sterilised. Equally, the cooling effects of maintaining airflow of a Grade A environment would have been detrimental to embryo culture and introduce vibrations not conducive to fine accurate manipulation needed in many techniques.

A second draft of the Directive stated a less stringent environment if Grade A was either detrimental or technically impossible, but did not define a level of air quality other than close to A.

In the UK, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), a government watchdog, supported a Grade C working environment with a background of Grade D. From 2007, all manipulations must be within a Class II laminar flow hood. This regulation meant IVF labs at the very least had to make some adjustments to facilities and standard operating procedure. In the design of a laboratory, great care should be placed on location and adjacent rooms, so to avoid proximity to laundry, canteen or pathology labs emitting possible air contaminants. In a hospital environment, however, limited available space is always a problem.

The same deal of attention should be paid during and after laboratory renovation or build. The wrong materials can be the difference between a triumphant inauguration with great IVF success rates or failure with long-lasting effects.

Construction should involve using furniture free of VOCs, preferably stainless steel and low VOC materials and adhesives.

Lab improvements can help increase IVF success by implementing cleanroom standards

In a study following the VOC measurements during a renovation of a laboratory, I was able to show key VOC emissions, such as ethyl alcohol, acetone, hexane and toluene, at various point of construction phases, and ways to alleviate and eliminate the VOCs upon completion of the work (Palmer, 2010). This may be common knowledge to the cleanroom aficionados, but was something quite new a decade or so ago.

Other papers on air quality improvements followed, illustrating how lab improvements can help increase IVF success by implementing cleanroom standards.

Heitmann et al. in 2015, for example, described how a former lab with an unreliable HVAC system was transformed. The project used the strategy of pre-filter, photocatalytic irradiation and chemical filtration, by means of activated carbon, potassium permanganate, and finally HEPA filters. Implantation rates were drastically increased, and clinical pregnancy rate increased by 10%.

Still, as IVF resides predominately in the private healthcare sector, a great variety of different types of facilities exist, from renovated listed buildings of grandeur to purpose-built installations.

There was a clear need for clarity within the existing guidelines on optimal laboratory conditions, but in a recently published article, a survey of 36 clinics using an IVF quality control app globally, little conformity could be found (Palmer, 2019).

Laboratory temperatures varied from 17oC to 35oC, and humidity from 5% to 80%; only four laboratories measured air quality; and only two measured VOCs.

The implementation of stricter guidelines is not always welcome. The mere mention of my talk on this subject at Cleanzone Middle East on social media raised a quiet storm doubting the merits of cleanroom technologies. Those raising an eyebrow pointed to costs, increase in staff required and questioned the necessity. Needless to say, the feedback was from old school scientists who had clearly not read or approved of the recent Cairo consensus published in 2018.

The Cairo meeting of experts was set out in the wake of growing evidence for recommending technical and operational requirements, control of particulates, aspirational benchmarks, and help in laboratory commissioning in the future.

The mere mention of my talk on this subject at Cleanzone Middle East on social media raised a quiet storm doubting the merits of cleanroom technologies

The meeting listed the most common agents of contamination and compared a large number of older facilities with laboratories using cleanroom concepts:

In all, there were over 50 consensus points, and it was concluded that cleanroom design should be implemented in any new IVF laboratory builds.

The global fertility rate continues to decline. Main culprits of this trend are the increase in obesity, environmental factors and lifestyle as well as psychographic changes.

Based on 2019 figures, there are over 3,000 clinics worldwide, and the need for IVF is ever-growing. In the US, 1.5% of all children born are a result of assisted reproduction, while the number is 4% in Australia and Israel, and in Denmark 6.4%.

Several economic sources have valued the market to be approximately US$16 billion, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of almost 10%. If this growth holds strong for the next five years, it would mean an industry worth nearly $40 billion by 2025.

Growth is similar in all areas of the globe and large corporations, backed by venture capitalists, are consolidating chains of clinics. Once a reserve of private consultants or small groups of doctors, IVF clinics have now gone big, resulting in chains of IVF clinics.

The success of freezing produces an ever-increasing inventory of cryo-stored embryos, and estimates from IVF research group TMR forecast 21 million people will have stored samples by 2025

The IVF industry has to invest in new facilities equipped with state-of-the-art technology to keep up with this demand and produce high and reproducible standards. The success of freezing produces an ever-increasing inventory of cryo-stored embryos, and estimates from IVF research group TMR forecast 21 million people will have stored samples by 2025. This is a huge capacity that will need significant infrastructure to back it up.

Driven by technological advances, especially in the field of fertility preservation, we will see IVF clinics even more widespread and frequently used than they are today.

Consulting on various projects, in the UK and abroad, I have seen a huge lack in understanding of what is required to construct and maintain a successful IVF facility. I welcome the introduction of cleanroom companies into the IVF industry, as many aspects of your work and products are applicable to our industry today.

The modular cleanroom initiatives, such as the Shellbe system, are particularly appealing for their capacity to produce a zero VOC laboratory customised to the clients needs.

I welcome the introduction of cleanroom companies into the IVF industry, as many aspects of your work and products are applicable to our industry today

Fickle and demanding, we embryologists may be about the conditions and the design of the IVF clinic, but I am often hampered by lack of local expertise (or material) in various places of the world. As real estate costs and availability become so prohibitive in many cities, the portable, adaptable modular lab can be designed, shipped and constructed like Lego and fit suitably in spaces that were previously unutilised.

With so much evidence and interest in our field, now is the time for the IVF industry to enter the biotechnology arena and be ready for cleanroom technology.

N.B. This article is featured in the December 2019 issue of Cleanroom Technology. Subscribe today and get your print copy!

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Cleanroom technology for the IVF industry - Cleanroom Technology

The idea of growing babies outside the body has inspired novels and movies for decades.

Now, research groups around the world are exploring the possibility of artificial gestation. For instance, one group successfully grew a lamb in an artificial womb for four weeks. Australian researchers have also experimented with artificial gestation for lambs and sharks.

And in recent weeks, researchers in The Netherlands have received 2.9m ($4.66m) to develop a prototype for gestating premature babies.

So its important to consider some of the ethical issues this technology might bring.

Growing a baby outside the womb is known as ectogenesis (or exogenesis). And were already using a form of it. When premature infants are transferred to humidicribs to continue their development in a neonatal unit, thats partial ectogenesis.

When premature infants are transferred to humidicribs to continue their development in a neonatal unit, thats partial ectogenesis. from http://www.shutterstock.com

But an artificial womb could extend the period a fetus could be gestated outside the body. Eventually, we might be able to do away with human wombs altogether.

This may sound far-fetched, but many scientists working in reproductive biotechnology believe that with the necessary scientific and legal support, full ectogenesis is a real possibility for the future.

An artificial womb would need an outer shell or chamber. Thats somewhere to implant the embryo and protect it as it grows. So far, animal experiments have used acrylic tanks, plastics bags and uterine tissues removed from an organism and artificially kept alive.

An artificial womb would also need a synthetic replacement for amniotic fluid, a shock absorber in the womb during natural pregnancy.

Finally, there would have to be a way to exchange oxygen and nutrients (so oxygen and nutrients in and carbon dioxide and waste products out). In other words, researchers would have to build an artificial placenta.

Animal experiments have used a complex catheter and pump systems. But there are plans to use a mini version of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, a technique that allows blood to be oxygenated outside the body.

Once these are in place, artificial gestation could one day become as common as IVF is today, a technique considered revolutionary a few decades ago.

And just as in the case of IVF, there are many who are concerned about what this new realm of reproductive medicine might mean for the future of creating a family.

So what are some of the ethical considerations?

The main discussion about artificial wombs has focused on their potential benefit in increasing the survival rate of extremely premature babies.

Currently, those born earlier than 22 weeks gestation have little-to-no hope of survival. And those born at 23 weeks are likely to suffer a range of disabilities.

Using a sealed biobag, which mimics the maternal womb might help extremely premature babies survive and improve their quality of life.

A biobag provides oxygen, a type of substitute amniotic fluid, umbilical cord access and all necessary water and nutrients (and medicine, if required). This could potentially allow the gestational period to be prolonged outside the womb until the baby has developed sufficiently to live independently and with good health prospects.

An artificial womb might provide an optimum environment for the fetus to grow, providing it with the appropriate balance of hormones and nutrients. It would also avoid exposing the growing fetus to external harms such as infectious diseases.

The technology might also make it easier to perform surgery on the fetus if needed.

And it could see the end of long-term hospital stays for premature infants, saving health care dollars in the process. This is particularly noteworthy considering some of the largest private insurance payments are currently for neonatal intensive care unit expenses.

This emerging reproductive technology may allow women who are infertile, either due to physiological or social reasons, with the chance of having a child. It may also offer opportunities for transgender women and other women born without a uterus, or those who have lost their uterus due to cancer, injury or medical conditions, to have children.

Similarly, it could allow single men and gay male couples to become parents without needing a surrogate.

Artificial wombs could allow gay men to become parents without needing a surrogate. from http://www.shutterstock.com

Will this lead to a broader discussion about gender roles and equality in reproduction? Will it remove potential risks and expectations of pregnancy and childbirth currently only affecting women? Will this eliminate commercial surrogacy?

Equally, artificial wombs could help fertile women who for health or personal reasons choose not to be pregnant. It would allow those whose career choices, medication or lifestyle might otherwise expose a developing fetus to malformation or abnormality.

The prospect of artificial wombs might offer hope for many, but it also highlights a number of potential hazards.

For some women, using an artificial womb for gestation to continue might seem like a welcome alternative to terminating a pregnancy. But there are fears that other women thinking aboutabortion might be compelled to use an artificial womb to continue gestation.

Whether artificial wombs should be allowed to influence a womans right to choose is already under debate.

Artificial wombs might also further increase the gap between rich and poor. Wealthy prospective parents may opt to pay for artificial wombs, while poorer people will rely on womens bodies to gestate their babies. Existing disparities in nutrition and exposure to pathogens between pregnancies across socio-economic divides could also be exacerbated.

Artificial wombs might further increase the gap between rich and poor. from http://www.shutterstock.com

This raises issues of distribution of access. Will artificial wombs receive government funding? If it does, who should decide who gets subsidized access? Will there be a threshold to meet?

Other issues concern potential discrimination individuals born via an artificial womb may face. How do we prevent discrimination or invasive publicity and ensure individuals origin stories are not subject to negative public curiosity or ridicule?

Others might consider artificial wombs to be deeply repugnant and fundamentally against the natural reproductive order.

Currently, there is no prototype of an artificial womb for humans. And the technology is very much in its infancy. Yet we do need to consider ethical and legal issues before rushing headlong into this reproductive technology.

Not only do we need to ensure the technology is safe and works, but we alsoneed to consider whether its the right path to take for different circumstances.

It might be easier to defend using artificial wombs in emergency situations, such as saving the lives of extremely premature neonates. However, using them in other circumstances might need broader social and policy considerations.

Without first establishing clear regulatory and ethico-legal frameworks, the development and release of artificial wombs could be problematic. We need to clearly outline pregnancy termination rights, parenthood and guardianship issues, limitations to experimentation, and other issues before the technology is fully realized and available. We need to do this soon rather than allowing the law to lag behind the science.

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It is easy to get carried away with visions of utopian or dystopian societies. As radical and futuristic as artificial wombs might sound, it is important to pause and reflect on the present.

While this technology may solve some existing problems concerning inequality in reproduction, there are many other issues that demand our immediate attention.

Improving maternal health services, equal opportunity in the workplace, and reducing the impact of poor social determinants of health on fetal outcomes are all pressing concerns we must address now before we can consider what the future of reproductive biotechnology might hold.

This article is republished from The ConversationbyNeera Bhatia, Associate Professor in Law, Deakin University and Evie Kendal, Lecturer in Bioethics and Health Humanities, Deakin Universityunder a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Why growing babies outside the womb raises ethical concerns - TNW

In biology, a hermaphrodite () is an organism that has complete or partial reproductive organs and produces gametes normally associated with both male and female sexes.[1] Many taxonomic groups of animals (mostly invertebrates) do not have separate sexes.[2] In these groups, hermaphroditism is a normal condition, enabling a form of sexual reproduction in which either partner can act as the "female" or "male." For example, the great majority of tunicates, pulmonate snails, opisthobranch snails, earthworms, and slugs are hermaphrodites. Hermaphroditism is also found in some fish species and to a lesser degree in other vertebrates. Most plants are also hermaphrodites.

Historically, the term hermaphrodite has also been used to describe ambiguous genitalia and gonadal mosaicism in individuals of gonochoristic species, especially human beings. The word intersex has come into usage for humans, since the word hermaphrodite is considered to be misleading and stigmatizing,[3][4] as well as "scientifically specious and clinically problematic."[5]

A rough estimate of the number of hermaphroditic animal species is 65,000.[6] The percentage of animal species that are hermaphroditic is about 5%. (Although the current estimated total number of animal species is about 7.7 million, the study [6], which estimated the number, 65,000, used an estimated total number of animal species, 1,211,577 from "Classification phylogntique du vivant (Vol. 2)" - Lecointre and Le Guyader (2001)). Most hermaphroditic species exhibit some degree of self-fertilization. The distribution of self-fertilization rates among animals is similar to that of plants, suggesting that similar processes are operating to direct the evolution of selfing in animals and plants.[6]

The term derives from the Latin: hermaphroditus, from Ancient Greek: , romanized:hermaphroditos,[7] which derives from Hermaphroditus (), the son of Hermes and Aphrodite in Greek mythology. According to Ovid, he fused with the nymph Salmacis resulting in one individual possessing physical traits of male and female sexes;[8] according to the earlier Diodorus Siculus, he was born with a physical body combining male and female sexes.[9] The word hermaphrodite entered the English lexicon as early as the late fourteenth century.[10] Alexander ab Alexandro stated, using the term hermaphrodite, that the people who bore the sexes of both man and woman were regarded by the Athenians and the Romans as monsters, and thrown into the sea at Athens and into the Tiber at Rome.[11]

Sequential hermaphrodites (dichogamy) occur in species in which the individual is born as one sex, but can later change into the opposite sex.[12] This contrasts simultaneous hermaphrodites, in which an individual may possess fully functional male and female genitalia. Sequential hermaphroditism is common in fish (particularly teleost fish) and many gastropods (such as the common slipper shell), and some flowering plants. Sequential hermaphrodites can only change sex once.[13] Sequential hermaphroditism can best be understood in terms of behavioral ecology and evolutionary life history theory, as described in the size-advantage mode[14] first proposed by Michael T. Ghiselin[15] which states that if an individual of a certain sex could significantly increase its reproductive success after reaching a certain size, it would be to their advantage to switch to that sex.

Sequential hermaphrodites can be divided into three broad categories:

Dichogamy can have both conservation-related implications for humans, as mentioned above, as well as economic implications. For instance, groupers are favoured fish for eating in many Asian countries and are often aquacultured. Since the adults take several years to change from female to male, the broodstock are extremely valuable individuals.

A simultaneous (or synchronous) hermaphrodite (or homogamous) is an adult organism that has both male and female sexual organs at the same time.[12] Self-fertilization often occurs.

When spotted hyenas were first discovered by explorers, they were thought to be hermaphrodites. Early observations of spotted hyenas in the wild led researchers to believe that all spotted hyenas, male and female, were born with what appeared to be a penis. The apparent penis in female spotted hyenas is in fact an enlarged clitoris, which contains an external birth canal.[21][22] It can be difficult to determine the sex of wild spotted hyenas until sexual maturity, when they may become pregnant. When a female spotted hyena gives birth, they pass the cub through the cervix internally, but then pass it out through the elongated clitoris.[23]

Hermaphrodite is used in older literature to describe any person whose physical characteristics do not neatly fit male or female classifications, but some people advocate to replace the term with intersex.[26][27] Intersex describes a wide variety of combinations of what are considered male and female biology. Intersex biology may include, for example, ambiguous-looking external genitalia, karyotypes that include mixed XX and XY chromosome pairs (46XX/46XY, 46XX/47XXY or 45X/XY mosaic).

Clinically, medicine currently describes intersex people as having disorders of sex development, a term vigorously contested.[28][29] This is particularly because of a relationship between medical terminology and medical intervention.[30] Intersex civil society organizations, and many human rights institutions,[31][32] have criticized medical interventions designed to make intersex bodies more typically male or female.

Some people who are intersex, such as some of those with androgen insensitivity syndrome, outwardly appear completely female or male, frequently without realizing they are intersex. Other kinds of intersex conditions are identified immediately at birth because those with the condition have a sexual organ larger than a clitoris and smaller than a penis.

Some humans were historically termed true hermaphrodites if their gonadal tissue contained both testicular and ovarian tissue, or pseudohermaphrodites if their external appearance (phenotype) differed from sex expected from internal gonads. This language has fallen out of favor due to misconceptions and pejorative connotations associated with the terms,[33] and also a shift to nomenclature based on genetics.

Intersex is in some caused by unusual sex hormones; the unusual hormones may be caused by an atypical set of sex chromosomes. One possible pathophysiologic explanation of intersex in humans is a parthenogenetic division of a haploid ovum into two haploid ova. Upon fertilization of the two ova by two sperm cells (one carrying an X chromosome and the other carrying a Y chromosome), the two fertilized ova are then fused together resulting in a person having dual genitalial, gonadal (ovotestes) and genetic sex. Another common cause of being intersex is the crossing over of the SRY from the Y chromosome to the X chromosome during meiosis. The SRY is then activated in only certain areas, causing development of testes in some areas by beginning a series of events starting with the upregulation of SOX9, and in other areas not being active (causing the growth of ovarian tissues). Thus, testicular and ovarian tissues will both be present in the same individual.[34]

Fetuses before sexual differentiation are sometimes described as female by doctors explaining the process.[35] This is technically not true. Before this stage, humans are simply undifferentiated and possess a Mllerian duct, a Wolffian duct, and a genital tubercle.

Hermaphrodite is used in botany to describe a flower that has both staminate (male, pollen-producing) and carpellate (female, ovule-producing) parts. This condition is seen in many common garden plants. A closer analogy to hermaphroditism in botany is the presence of separate male and female flowers on the same individualsuch plants are called monoecious. Monoecy is especially common in conifers, but occurs in only about 7% of angiosperm species.[36] The condition also occurs in some algae.[37]

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Hermaphrodite - Wikipedia

Bees in Europe

In Europe, pollinators are mainly bees and hoverflies, but also butterflies, moths, some beetles and wasps. The domesticated western honeybee is the best-known species and is managed by beekeepers for honey production and other products. Europe also counts about 2,000 wild species.

The threat of pollinator extinction

The topic has attracted public attention, as bees and other insect pollinators are essential for our ecosystems and biodiversity. Fewer pollinators mean many plant species could decline or even disappear along with the organisms that directly or indirectly depend on them. In addition, the decline in numbers and diversity of pollinator populations affects food security with potential losses in agricultural yields.

To tackle the issue and complement efforts at EU and national levels, the European Commission presented in 2018 the EU Pollinators Initiative, the first comprehensive initiative at EU level, focusing on wild pollinating insects. Its aim is to improve knowledge about the decline, tackle the causes and raise awareness of the issue.

On 3 December, Parliament's environment committee adopted a resolution on the initiative, asking for more targeted measures to protect wild pollinators. MEPs advocate further reduction of the use of pesticides and more funds for research.

Why are pollinators declining?

Currently, there is no scientific data giving the full picture, but there is evidence of a considerable decline in pollinators, due primarily to human activities. Bees and butterflies are the species for which the best data is available, demonstrating that one out of ten bee and butterfly species is threatened with extinction in Europe.

The decline does not have one single cause, but threats include land-use changes for agriculture or urbanisation, which result in the loss and degradation of natural habitats. In addition intensive agriculture leads to homogenous landscapes and the disappearance of diverse flora, reducing food and nesting resources.

Pesticides and other pollutants can also affect pollinators directly (insecticides and fungicides) and indirectly (herbicides), which is why Parliament is highlighting the need to reduce the use of pesticides.

Particularly dangerous for honeybees are invasive alien species such as the yellow-legged hornet (Vespa velutina) and diseases such as parasites. Another factor is the changing climate with rising temperatures and extreme weather events.

See the article here:
What's behind the decline in bees and other pollinators? (infographic) | News - EU News

For the human species to continue surviving, it is essential that mature adults are capable of producing fertile offspring, to continue the existance of the species and pass on genetic information from generation to generation.

This is done via reproduction. The following is a step by step basis of how reproduction occurs from beginning to end.

Before the initial cell can develop into a mature adult, the building blocks to create that cell must be available before fertilisation can occur. Cells called gametes are produced by mature adults via meiosis which contain half the genetic information needed to produce the final cell capable of growth.

For a short time period every month, the female gamete is readily available to be fertilised by sperm, to form a zygote.

The gametes, both containing half the genetic information needed to produce the offspring, fuse together, meaning all the genetic information required for the offspring to grow is present. For this to occur, sexual intercourse must occur in order for the semen (sperm) to be ejaculated and have the potential to fuse with the ovum.

Millions of sperm are released at the point of ejaculation, and when ejected, they 'swim' towards the female egg with their thread-like tail. This race towards the egg is fuelled by a fuel tank of ATP that provides the energy for their efforts.

After a long journey, many of the sperm will have died out in their efforts to reach the egg, though some still have to the potential to fertilise it. Each will attach itself to the ovum but only one should succeed in penetrating it. Enzymes contained in the acrosome (head) of the sperm break down the wall of the egg. When fertilised, the egg secretes various hormones to prevent it from being overwhelmed by the other millions of sperm attempting to fertilise it.

Within hours of conception the fused gametes, a zygote, undergoes cell division. The presence of a hormone called progesterone prevents further female eggs being produced. Within the first week after conception the fertilised egg travels towards the uterus, where the continued growth of the zygote will occur in the form of an embryo.

The continuation of the growing embryo is elaborated upon in the next page.

Read more here:
Biology-Online

Fertility clinics have sought clarification from Minister for Health Simon Harris over the disposal of embryos created in assisted human reproduction after new regulations are introduced later this year.

The clinics say any embryos already created before the changes come into force should be allowed to be used at a time of the womans choosing, subject to medical considerations, and should not be limited to a period of three years.

Mr Harris plans to commence parts two and three of the Children and Family Relationships Act later this year, thereby banning the anonymous sperm donation and creating a register of donor-conceived children.

The Irish Fertility Society, which represents most of the fertility clinics in the State, told the Minister in a letter in May that family planning and child spacing was a private matter that should not be interfered with by legislation. Do you intend us to dispose of these embryos after the time limit has passed? That is something that is so anathema to our practice, and we will not comply with.

The department last night said the provisions of this section did not apply to embryos formed before the date on which it comes into operation.

In the letter, the society expresses strong opposition to the proposed ban on anonymous sperm donation and the creation of a register that would allow donor-conceived children obtain personal family information once they turn 18.

However, the Childrens Rights Alliance called for the urgent introduction of the legislation to ban anonymous donations in assisted human reproduction.

Children have a right to know their identity. The Act is important because it seeks to protect childrens identity by banning the use of anonymous donations in assisted human reproduction, said chief executive Tanya Ward. It also clarifies parentage for children who are conceived this way, establishing a legal relationship between them and their parents.

Ms Ward pointed out that many adoptions were not recorded properly, causing immeasurable damage to people by not being able to access their past and their history.

Assisted human reproduction can be an important and life-enhancing process for those wishing to have children when the correct medical and emotional support is provided. This does not take away from the fact that children born as a result of this process have a right to know their identity and their origins, in the same way as all other child in Ireland have.

UCC law lecturer Dr Deirdre Madden said the rights of children to access information on the identity of donors should take priority, even if this caused supply issues for fertility clinics.

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Fertility clinics seek clarification over disposal of embryos - Irish Times

By Jennifer Brinker | jbrinker@archstl.org | twitter: @jenniferbrinker

Courtesy of Office of Natural Family Planning

A newly revamped program is teaching young women about a natural approach to their health care.

The archdiocesan Office of Natural Family Planning debuted the Wonder of Eve at the archdiocesan Religious Education Institute and Leadership Conference earlier this month. The nearly hour-long program is for teenage girls and includes information on the design and function of the female body, including the reproductive system and menstrual cycles and how to track them naturally.

Ashley Frank, a certified Creighton Model FertilityCare practitioner, worked with a team, including other health care professionals, in the past year to develop the program. Funding from the Annual Catholic Appeal to the NFP Office went toward marketing as well as hiring Frank to help develop and present the program.

"We only get the top layer (of women's health care) in an anatomy or physiology class, but it doesn't dive deeper into the signs of fertility and infertility," said Frank, who received her training in natural fertility education from Dr. Thomas Hilgers and the Pope Paul VI Institute for the Study of Human Reproduction in Omaha, Neb.

The program also covers the impact artificial hormones have on a woman's body, including how it could affect future health and fertility. "A lot of girls are on the birth control pill for various reasons, such as irregular menstrual cycles, premenstrual syndrome, or PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome)," Frank said. She stressed that the information presented isn't specifically medical advice, but rather offered as an alternative option for treating these issues.

By teaching women about how their reproductive systems work through natural fertility tracking, "we want to help these girls foster a respect for their bodies and have them empowered with choices for when they are going off to college. That in itself is very powerful."

Diane Daly, director of the Office of Natural Family Planning, noted that a letter was sent to Catholic high schools promoting the new effort. Archdiocesan superintendent Kurt Nelson also has voiced his support for the program within archdiocesan high schools.

The NFP Office previously offered a similar program, but the revamping came because of feedback from a younger generation that wanted a more scientific approach, with a focus on women's health care. The program will continue to promote the Church's teaching that sex remains within marriage and other aspects related to Theology of the Body.

"We're not trying to interfere with anyone's medical care, but for people to know that there is an alternative and there are other treatments available," Daly said. "We hear over and over from people, 'Why didn't I know about this before?' We want to educate our young women to a new way of thinking."

Wonder of Eve

To learn more about the program, contact the archdiocesan Office of Natural Family Planning at (314) 997-7576.

The NFP Office also is online at stlouisnfp.org, and Facebook and twitter @stlnfp

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Wonder of Eve offers science-based approach to women's natural health care - St.Louis Review

When the U.K. government was confronted with COVID-19, it made the preliminary decision to respond by putting the elderly in tight social isolation while the virus spread among the less vulnerable general public and created herd immunity. This already looks like a disaster that delayed social shutdown measures at exactly the wrong moment. More serious scientists appeared with models showing that a let er rip strategy would lead to the disaster like the one that has materialized in Italy a country with an old population in which it is usual for the young to be domiciled with older relatives far into working age.

The models that led Britain astray briefly were predicated on a stupid error: the coronavirus was treated as having flu-like characteristics. This led the government to underestimate the immediate pressure that COVID-19 would place on hospitals if allowed to circulate freely. The world, or the part threatened by the virus, has switched to extreme social shutdown measures in an effort to lock the virus out to deny it local toeholds by reducing its effective reproduction rate below 1.0.

You know most or all of this. In the last few weeks Ive written several times that I dont know what the immediate future will look like. But I am forming a guess.

Immediate harsh social shutdowns are meant to buy time. If they work very well, we could achieve what the Chinese claim to have done in Wuhan province, ground zero for the disease. The trick, epidemiologically, is to get everybody out of the infected category, breaking the link between the susceptible crowd, which hasnt been exposed, and the recovered group, which enjoys immunity of some uncertain duration. If we can reach and maintain that state for long enough, the virus will have no local human hosts left.

COVID-19 thus goes locally extinct, and even the susceptible are safe until the immunity of those who have recovered starts evaporating, or the virus mutates. Those are problems for a future we would have time to avoid by manufacturing fast tests, treatment drugs and a vaccine.

If we cant suppress the virus, for economic or biological reasons, we are back to an unchosen let er rip strategy. Eventually we will get herd immunity. The British werent wrong about that part. With each person who recovers or dies, the viruses lurking in the infected population have fewer chances to propagate, and the community reproduction rate slows.

The herd immunity threshold, which would come to something like two-thirds of the population for this virus, is the point at which the reproduction rate is just zero: there are no targets left. But we would start benefiting before we reach that precise point. Past a peak of new cases, the reproduction rate, which is at its largest when nobody is immune, begins to shrink as the virus itself shunts more people into the recovered/dead bin.

It seems obvious that our most important goal is to avoid becoming Italy. When hospitals reach their capacity to handle COVID-19 sufferers in extreme respiratory distress, the mortality rate explodes. At the same time, it may not be practical for us to keep everyone locked up at home for six months. If we had very good data about who is at great risk from COVID-19, and who is likely to be able to walk it off like a cold, it might turn out that we are able to release the naturally strong from confinement now, or very soon.

Theyd spread the virus amongst themselves while the weak stayed indoors. Some would get sick this is a plan for voluminous death, but with functioning hospitals. If our data was good enough, we could free only enough people to keep intensive care units from filling. We would go slowly, painfully slowly, perhaps choosing age groups to leave social isolation a few people at a time.

Isnt that just the stupid British strategy? Yes but based on evidence, which should be obtainable, instead of nonsense. We dont know that the shutdown strategy we are pursuing will work, or be tolerable. I have hope for the shutdown, and I see other possible escapes from this predicament, along with untried approaches like Asian-style social mask use. But I havent seen anybody (apart from Dr. David Katz in Fridays New York Times) talk about the possibility of a modified British strategy an intentional, organized, careful creep toward herd immunity.

The British strategy was stupid mostly because the underlying numbers were stupid, and because total suppression of the virus was a much better thing to try first. I dont doubt this. I would plead with every reader to practice social isolation.

And even a modified British approach may not be possible. We are seeing, in an anecdotal way, some badly afflicted people with no prior comorbidities. But all the information Ive seen still suggests that COVID-19 preys with particular savagery on the old, the diabetic, those with heart disease and the hypertensive (possibly because of their medications). With enough data about this we might be able to develop a points system or a colour code. Compromised reds stay indoors, maybe for a good long time, while greens get on with life and economic production.

My brain bursts without blood pressure medication, so Im probably a red. I could stay in for a year (and work) if theres a functioning outside world, but its already functioning poorly enough to make isolation less convenient. The next fortnight or so will show us whether were headed to where we want to go: toward Wuhan. If not, I expect our public health officials and politicians to consider, and begin hinting at, a change of destination.

National Post

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Colby Cosh: How the British got their COVID-19 strategy so wrong (but might still be right) - National Post

WOMEN are being advised not to undergo IVF during the coronavirus pandemic over fears that the virus may have negative effects during pregnancy.

A report by the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE) says all couples who are considering fertility treatment "should avoid becoming pregnant at this time."

Although the statement makes clear there is "no strong evidence of any negative effects" of coronavirus on pregnancies, it says there have been some reports of women with COVID-19 giving birth prematurely.

In the report, it advises those who are already undergoing IVF to freeze their eggs or the embryos that they have created as a "precautionary measure."

It states: "We advise that all fertility patients considering or planning treatment, even if they do not meet the diagnostic criteria for Covid-19 infection, should avoid becoming pregnant at this time.

"For those patients already having treatment,we suggest considering deferred pregnancy with oocyte or embryo freezing for later embryo transfer."

The report also advises that patients who are pregnant or those undergoing treatment not travel to areas with high infection and contact with potentially infected people.

The ESHRE found cases of women who tested positive for Covid-19 who delivered healthy babies without the virus.

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It said there have been reports of premature babies - but cautioned this was based on limited data.

One case reported that a baby was born with Covid-19 but again there was no strong evidence that this was the result of transmission from the mother or "vertical transmission".

It is estimated that more than 68,000 women in the UK undertake IVF every year, many of whom are in their late thirties.

The Government has included pregnant women in it's 'at risk' group when issuing advice on coronavirus.

Mothers-to-be are strongly advised to follow social distancing measures and to avoid public transport or going out to cinemas and restaurants.

Professor Chris Whitty, England's Chief Medical Officer, said that including pregnant women in this group was a "precautionary measure" as experts are "early in our understanding of this virus".

And his deputy, Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, said it's hoped that these new measures will reduce the infection rate and protect those at higher risk.

He told the BBC: "When it comes to this coronavirus, it is a new disease, it's been with humans around the world for just a few months.

"We are being very precautionary in terms of the advice we are giving to pregnant women to increase their social distancing."

Earlier today the NHS revealed that they would send their pregnant staff to low risk hospitals in areas with few cases of the virus.

"We know that a whole range of normal infections are more serious in pregnancy and the advice we're giving is extremely precautionary."

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Women advised not to have IVF during coronavirus outbreak after some mothers report giving birth prematurely - The Sun

A few weeks ago I was having a conversation with my friends sister. She works at a fertility clinic, so it seemed like a good opportunity to ask a question that has perplexed me ever since I watched Meet the Parents: Why do men have nipples?

After satisfying my curiosity with an eloquent explanation that touched on evolutionary biology and embryonic development, she raised the stakes.

Can I ask you a question? she said. What do you know about your own fertility?

For one of the rare times in my life, I had nothing to say. Ive never given much thought to my personal fertility. Abstractly, maybe my wife and I plan to have kids one day but never in concrete terms. Most males, I suspect, are in a similar position.

Fertility has long been viewed as a female issue. Given the biological optics, this is easy enough to understand. Female fertility has visible checkmarks from beginning to end: menstruation, pregnancy, birth, menopause. Male fertility, on the other hand, is much more opaque. We start producing sperm during puberty, and the assembly line continues production until our dying breath. We dont see it; we dont talk about it. Until, one day ideally by design we find out whether what weve been producing all our lives is actually any potent.

This narrative is basically whats used in Genesis to explain how a century-old Abraham becomes a father, and it captures the average mans understanding of his own fertility to this day.

But scientific knowledge and medical technology have come a long way since a 90-year-old Sarah gave birth to Isaac.1 Its telling, however, that societal discourse at least in western societies has barely advanced. Thats all starting to change. Shifting demographics, innovations in reproductive healthcare and a burgeoning industry have started to modernize the conversation were having about male fertility.

Fertility rates have dropped steeply over the past six decades. According to data from the World Bank, the global fertility rate in 1960 (measured as births per woman) was 5.0. In 2017, that number fell to 2.4. The decline in the United States has not been as precipitous, but it is still striking: 3.7 in 1960 versus 1.8 in 2017.

While many factors have contributed to couples having fewer children, the age at which they are attempting to conceive has played a significant role. The average age of an American woman having her first child in 2018, a CDC report found, was 26.9. That figure surges when filtering for things like education level (30.3 for women with a college degree) and geography (31.3 in Manhattan). For comparative purposes, the average age in 1980 was 22.7.

Dr. Meir Olcha is an OB/GYN who specializes in reproductive endocrinology at the New Hope Fertility Center. I asked him whether this demographic shift has led to higher instances of infertility.

We know that infertility affects somewhere between 10 and 15 percent of all couples. That number has been fairly stable for at least the past three decades, but some things have changed, he said. There are more women today attempting pregnancies at older ages. The failure rate is higher in older women because its more difficult to get pregnant as one ages.

While the public burden of infertility falls almost exclusively on women, the clinical causes are much more evenly distributed. Approximately one in seven couples struggles to conceive. Among those couples, one third of the cases relate to a problem with the male, another third relate to a problem with the female, and the final third represent cases where there is a problem with both. Treatments exist for both sexes, but our collective awareness of them is incredibly lopsided.

You certainly dont see a third of marketing geared towards men, Dr. Olcha said. I think thats something about our culture and not necessarily anything about science. You see lots of ad campaigns out there about freezing your eggs, but try to find a campaign that says, Freeze your sperm!

Dr. Olcha acknowledges that weve come a long way just to achieve the current status quo. In the 1970s, women didnt talk about infertility. It would be very taboo to say you had to do IVF to have your child. And yet today, with all the media coverage and social media, women are much more free about talking about fertility, infertility, everything. Its just a natural part of conversation now. I think eventually that will kick into men as well.

Thats what a handful of companies and investors are betting on, at least.

Over the past two years, startups specializing in sperm testing and storage have penetrated the fertility market, demonstrating impressive growth while educating consumers on the oft-overlooked arena of male reproductive health. Legacy, a Harvard-incubated startup founded by Khaled Kteily in 2018, is at the tip of the spear. The company, which recently completed a second round of fundraising, offers at-home testing kits and affordable sperm storage. Raising awareness is a central part of Legacys mission. According to a 2017 study published in the academic journal Human Reproduction Update, sperm counts have declined by 50-60% over the past 40 years.

Men today are about half as fertile as their fathers and grandfathers were, Sarah Steinle, Legacys Head of Strategic Partnerships, tells InsideHook. On top of that, couples are waiting longer to have children. Theres a growing body of research that shows older men experience fertility decline and also have a higher risk that their partners will have complications during pregnancy.

Like women, mens fertility also decreases with age. The cliff isnt absolute i.e., there is no male equivalent of menopause but the scientific evidence is clear: the older men get, the more the quantity and quality of their sperm diminishes. This is why many men are starting to freeze their sperm. Ms. Steinle, who previously worked at one of the leading egg-freezing clinics in New York, believes that society is moving towards a more proactive approach to fertility.

The process that is used to freeze eggs is called cryopreservation, she explains. That was considered experimental until 2013. After that point, once it was proven to be effective, it became much more popular and widely accepted. For that reason, fertility preservation for proactive purposes has become a topic of conversation that people are much more comfortable having in general. Not even as it relates to women men as well.

Before sperm is frozen, it is tested. Not to sound repetitive, but fertility testing is something women have been doing for a long time, particularly those actively trying to get pregnant. For their male partners, the increasing prevalence of testing has helped raise awareness.

The women in those relationships are testing and tracking their fertility. So these men are now becoming aware of solutions like Legacy that are allowing them to do the same. Theyre basically testing their sperm in order to get to the root of the issue faster, which saves couples a lot of time, a lot of heartbreak, a lot of money, Ms. Steinle said.

Legacy offers a range of testing and freezing packages. The sperm analysis is lab-grade, assessing more than 50 data points that evaluate count, concentration, volume, motility (movement) and morphology (shape). As of now, the quality of sperm that is frozen at a traditional clinic compared to a company like Legacy is higher due to a 10-15% decline in motility that occurs when the sample is shipped from a clients home to the lab. The technology used for in vitro fertilization (IVF), Ms. Steinle told me, reduces the impact of this decline.2

Along with similar startups such as Dadi, Legacy is appealing to clients through an emphasis on affordability, discretion and most importantly convenience. The process they promise is simple: a testing-kit is mailed to the client, the client produces a sample in the comfort of his own home, and then he sends it off to the lab in a secure pre-packaged container. Two days later, he receives a detailed testing report. From personal experience, I can confirm that they deliver on this promise.

The FedEx package I received contained a navy-blue box emblazoned with an ornate shield. I opened it half-expecting to find a luxury wristwatch. Instead, I encountered an empty biohazard bag, a soft plastic vial full of a clear yet syrupy liquid labeled transport media, an empty plastic lab cup, a pre-addressed FedEx priority overnight package and idiot-proof step-by-step directions. From start to finish, the process was comfortable and easy.3

Two days after returning the package, as promised, I received my test results along with lifestyle recommendations based on a survey I had previously completed. The recommendations felt pretty intuitive, since I already knew that sperm health is starting to be viewed as a biomarker of overall health (for example, the report said I should consider drinking less), but the test results were nonetheless enlightening and comforting. The next time someone asks what I know about my own fertility, Ill be able to say, a lot.

If the test surfaces any kind of alarm bell, customers are encouraged to consult a doctor to determine next steps. Dr. Olcha, the reproductive endocrinologist, has extensive experience in this field. When we think about male infertility, its usually divided into two segments. Either there is an issue with production, or there is an issue with transport, he said. In other words, two questions are essential to the diagnostic process: Is sperm being produced? And if so, is it being transported correctly from the testicle through the penis?

Though lifestyle certainly affects sperm health, pre-existing genetic conditions are often the underlying issue behind more serious male infertility cases. Men who carry the gene for cystic fibrosis, for example, are usually missing certain parts of their anatomy, such as the vas deferens, the tube that carries sperm from the testicle to the outside world. While a man would know if he had cystic fibrosis a hereditary disease that affects the respiratory and digestive systems he wouldnt necessarily know if he was carrying the gene. This kind of fertility problem is treatable, since the man is producing sperm. Doctors can surgically extract sperm through a process known as TESE.

The procedure is this, Dr. Olcha explains. You open the scrotum, you go into the testicle, and then you dissect out some of the tubules. When you open up those tubules, you find sperm cells. Those are the sperm that we freeze.

So when, if ever, is male fertility untreatable? Thankfully a minority of cases, Dr. Olcha says. These are the cases that involve some sort of production problem typically associated with an underlying genetic condition. One example is Klinefelter Syndrome, a condition in which a man is born with an extra X chromosome, making his chromosomal makeup XXY rather than XY. Men with Klinefelter Syndrome produce little to no sperm.

Microdeletion of the Y chromosome is another condition thats difficult to treat. For these men, a piece of their Y chromosome is missing, Dr. Olcha says. They look like normal men. They have beards and normal testosterone levels, maybe a bit on the lower side, but they have no sperm production. And those cases are unfortunately very difficult to cure.

Even in these rare cases, proactive fertility testing offers a clear benefit in terms of managing expectations and gaining an accurate understanding of ones personal reproductive health. The broader implications of this increased testing and awareness suggest that were not far away from a future where the discourse around fertility is considerably more gender-balanced.4 Companies like Legacy are well positioned to facilitate this societal change.

Legacy, which ultimately envisions itself becoming a comprehensive resource for men as they move through the process of fatherhood, has used its business-to-business efforts to help lay the foundations for sperm testing to become a more widely covered employee benefit. Ms. Steinle had a quick response when I asked about any stigma or discomfort involved in the physical procurement of a testing sample.

Its our belief that eventually every man between the ages of 20 and 45 will be going through this type of process. Its easy, its affordable, its kind of a no-brainer. Men do this on a regular basis anyway, so we call it masturbating with a purpose.

Notes

1. Despite these gains, no modern woman has come close to surpassing Sarahs feat of biblical fertility. Mangayamma Yaramati, a 74-year-old woman from southern India, gave birth to twin girls last September. Its much more likely that well see Abrahams paternity record fall in our lifetimes. Ramjit Raghav, a wrestler and farmer who was also from southern India (he passed away last month), fathered a son at the age of 96. In an interview with The Telegraph, Mr. Raghav said, I credit my stamina and virility to my diet of vegetables and grains.

2. When these sperm samples are used [for IVF], its typically through a process called ICSI, Ms. Steinle said. The doctor will choose one specific sperm in the sample usually there are millions so theyll choose one specific sperm and insert it into the egg in order to fertilize it. For that reason, if theres a decline in motility, it doesnt really matter, because the embryologist is the one who is actually picking the sperm.

3. It did, however, lead to some domestic conversations about masturbation that reminded me of this wonderfully unbearable scene in American Pie. The elegant blue testing box sat on our counter for a week before I was ready. My wife referred to it affectionately as my splooge kit, which actually made it feel like less of an elephant in the room.

4. Not to be lost in this discussion is the fact that a womans biological clock is still, and will always be, the single most definitive fertility metric. A more in-depth analysis would contextualize declining global fertility rates by examining topics such as the evolving demographics of the workplace, the increasingly prevalent occurrence of households with a female breadwinner, and how these factors have changed the calculus of family planning.

Original post:
Welcome to the Age of Male Fertility Testing - InsideHook

(PRWEB) February 18, 2020

Inovi Fertility & Genetics Institute, a new boutique fertility clinic located in the heart of Houston, TX, will be launching a state-of-the-art laboratory in February as part of its advanced in vitro fertilization (IVF) and andrology treatment services.

We are excited to provide the thriving, fast-growing community of Houston with the convenience and unparalleled value of an ultra-modern, on-site fertility laboratory, said Dr. Stephan Krotz, founder of Inovi. Our clients will benefit from being able to receive both comprehensive care and innovative lab services all under one roof.

The Inovi Fertility & Genetics Institute, which has been open and actively seeing patients since last fall, has already distinguished itself by taking an integrative approach towards assisted reproductive techniques (ART). They provide both basic and advanced fertility care, fertility preservation treatments, and third-party reproduction services, including egg donation and surrogacy.

As a boutique clinic, Inovi also offers a full suite of complementary services, such as fertility yoga sessions, as well as access to an extensive reservoir of information and resources. Our goal is not only to provide our patients with high-quality, advanced care but also to offer them a personalized concierge experience that will support them emotionally during their fertility journey, Dr. Krotz stated.

Currently, many fertility clinics in the Houston area outsource their laboratory services to medical centers and satellite offices, forcing patients to spend significant time traveling to multiple locations. Not only will Inovis integrated laboratory provide a solution to that problem, but their central location makes them easily accessible for the entire Greater Houston metropolitan region.

Built and equipped with the latest cutting-edge technologies, the Inovi laboratories will offer a vast array of diagnostic services and procedures, including:

Internationally recognized as a progressive reproductive health and fertility expert, Dr. Krotz has a notable history of using advanced technologies and methods to treat infertility. In 2009, he created the first artificial human ovary while at Brown University a medical achievement that was designated by Time Magazine as one of the Top 10 Medical Breakthroughs of 2010. Dr. Krotz, with his experience and ability as an innovator in Reproductive Medicine, and his team are focused on bringing the patient experience to a new level and advancing the delivery of fertility care in Houston and beyond.

Prospective patients in the Greater Houston metropolitan area can start their fertility journey today and take advantage of Inovis state-of-the-art boutique facility by setting up an appointment. For more information, visit http://www.inovifertility.com or contact the clinic at (713) 401-9000.

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Inovi Fertility Launches State-of-the-Art Fertility Lab in Central Houston Location - PR Web