reproduction
pharyngula | December 29, 2008Another study finds that abstinence-only sex ed is a failure. Not that it will matter, proponents of such fantasy solutions will just close their eyes and pray harder.
Teens who take virginity pledges are just as likely to have sex as teens who don't make such promises -- and they're less likely to practice safe sex to prevent disease or pregnancy, a new study finds.
You know what might work? Maybe the fans of abstinence only sex ed ought to distribute this study by Rosenbaum far and wide. It's saying that the people who make virginity pledges are more likely to be dangerously diseased or…
pharyngula | December 23, 2008
Squid don't just make sperm: they package it up into fairly elaborate little torpedoes called spermatophores, which are either handed to the female with a specially modified arm called the hectocotyl arm, or squirted onto her with a penis. Once on the female (or a male, it really doesn't matter), the spermatophore everts, forming a structure called the spermatangia, in which all the packed sperm uncoil, ready to do their job, and the whole mass is anchored to the target with a cement body. These structures do show species-specific differences, but here is one example from Heteroteuthis…
pharyngula | December 17, 2008We have a long history in developmental biology of studying the most amazing freaks of nature — damage to developing organisms can produce astonishingly ghastly results as the embryo tries to regulate and recover, yielding results that are almost normal. There's even a whole subdiscipline of the field, teratology, dedicated to studying aberrations of embryology. The word is perfect, since it is derived from a Greek root that means both "wonders" and "monsters".
An unfortunate child in Colorado was the recipient of one of these wonders/monsters. Diagnosed with a brain tumor, when surgeons…
pharyngula | October 17, 2008
While Steve Jones might think human evolution has stopped, I have to say that that is impossible. If human technology removes a selective constraint, that doesn't stop evolution — it just opens up a new degree of freedom and allows change to carry us in a novel direction.
One interesting potential example is the availability of relatively safe Cesarean sections. Babies have very big heads that squeeze with only great difficulty through a relatively narrow pelvis, so the relationship in size between head diameter and the diameter of the pelvic opening has been a limitation on human evolution…
pharyngula | October 16, 2008Here's an interesting idea: since some countries have restrictive laws on abortion (rather like the ones McCain apparently would like to institute, where even the health of the mother becomes a non-excuse), a Dutch non-profit is sending a ship to provide reproductive health services to such countries, anchoring in international waters to get around local policies. It's a brilliant idea — a way to directly help women deprived of rational family planning opportunities by the wackaloons of their government.
Just one problem: how are they going to help South Dakota?
pharyngula | October 9, 2008This is too much verisimilitude. The movie below is of the mating behavior of the jellyfish Carybdea sivickisi, and the first thing you'll notice is that the scientists have set it to good old classic porn music.
The second thing you'll notice, that I found annoying, is that they used too high a power objective to film it, so everything is jerking everywhere and none of the participants stay in the field of view for any length of time. Why is it that porn is afflicted with so many gynecological close-ups? Come on, set the mood, show us whole individuals instead of fragmented zooms of body…
pharyngula | October 6, 2008The Reverend Peter Mullin doesn't like those darn pushy homosexuals — they must make him feel uncomfortable and all squirmy deep down inside. He wrote some amazingly stupid things about gays.
The Rev Dr Peter Mullen said in an blog that homosexuality was "clearly unnatural, a perversion and corruption of natural instincts and affections" and "a cause of fatal disease".
He recommended that homosexual practices be discouraged "after the style of warnings on cigarette packets".
He wrote: "Let us make it obligatory for homosexuals to have their backsides tattooed with the slogan SODOMY CAN…
pharyngula | September 15, 2008I get all kinds of personal requests — requests to flog someone's blog, links to articles people think are really neat, that kind of thing. I don't mind at all. If you think I'd be interested, go ahead, drop me a line. But, you know, I would appreciate it if you at least had the courtesy to actually look at my interests and send me stuff I might like, instead of random spam.
Mike Koelzer did not have those kinds of manners. Mike Koelzer really screwed up. This is the email Mike Koelzer sent me.
My name is Mike Koelzer and I am the owner of Kay Pharmacy in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
I thought…
pzminion | August 20, 2008Guest Blogger Danio, sneaking a few more posts in:
Remember that execrable HHS policy document that proposes an extension of the current protections for health care workers who refuse to provide or assist in treatments that they personally find morally objectionable? I did a little back-tracking on this issue, and followed the trail of HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt, who requested this regulation after a "disappointing" interaction with the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. He has since been unwavering in his support of the proposal--which he claims is not about abortion OR…
bleimanb | July 28, 2008A new exhibit at New York's Museum of Sex seeks to expose the hidden sex lives of animals, and some of its themes may be shocking to prudes. As the exhibit shows (graphically), animals engage in diverse, unconventional acts of sex, and sex plays a much larger role in many animal societies than serving merely as a means of reproduction.
But Andrew, you told me that baby pandas came from marshmallow trees!
I'm going to put the rest of this post (And steamy pics. Steamy, that is, if monkey sex is your thing) below the fold, so as not to upset our readers who peruse Zooillogix as a family.
Here'…
pharyngula | July 8, 2008Good work, Canada, and it's an honor long due.
Now 85, Morgentaler, a Polish Holocaust survivor who immigrated to Montreal after the war, opened his first abortion clinic in 1969 and performed thousands of procedures, which were illegal at the time.
Morgentaler, a trained family physician, argued that access to abortion was a basic human right and women should not have to risk death at the hands of an untrained professional in order to end their pregnancies.
Morgentaler's clinics were constantly raided, and one in Toronto was firebombed. Morgentaler was arrested several times and spent months…
grrlscientist | June 30, 2008tags: Ovulation, medicine, technology, streaming video
Recently, human ovulation was captured on video for the first time ever. Two researchers, Stephan Gordts and Ivo Brosens of the Leuven Institute for Fertility & Embryology in Belgium, performed transvaginal laparoscopy, which involves making a small cut in the vaginal wall and observing the ovary with an endoscope. "This allows us direct access to and observation of the tubo-ovarian structures without manipulation using forceps," reports Gordts. Below the fold is part of their video. [0:55]
Read more about it.
pharyngula | April 24, 2008…Republican Representative John Duncan of Tennessee. Confronted with a vast amount of evidence provided by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Public Health Association, the US Institute of Medicine , the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the American Psychological Association that abstinence-only education does not work, does not reduce the incidence of either teen pregnancies or sexually transmitted disease, and that it is a waste of money, the honorable Mr Duncan declared his complete disinterest in data and expertise.
Rep. John Duncan, a Tennessee…
zooillogix | April 11, 2008Adorable!
Surinam toads of the family Pipidae have a broad, flat shape and leaf-like appearance, but who cares about that...? They embed fertilized eggs in the mother's back from whence the babies emerge! Adorable? Horrifying? What was your reaction to the movie Alien?
Damn... it looks like Pharyngula beat us to the punch. Whatevs... Surinam Toad stays.
pharyngula | March 24, 2008Britain is experiencing some dissent over research on human-animal hybrid embryos. One the one hand, you've got researchers and charities arguing that this is a technique to probe deeper into the genetic and molecular properties of developing organisms, and is key to developing treatments for genetic diseases and developmental abnormalities; on the other side, we have plaintive lowing from the do-nothings and ignoramuses about the "sacredness" of human life, and kneejerk rejection by the usual collection of suspects, the Catholic church.
In his Easter address today, Cardinal Keith O'Brien,…
pharyngula | March 19, 2008
Fossils are cool, but some of us are interested in processes and structures that don't fossilize well. For instance, if you want to know more about the evolution of mammalian reproduction, you'd best not pin your hopes on the discovery of a series of fossilized placentas, or fossilized mammary glands … and although a few fossilized invertebrate embryos have been discovered, their preservation relied on conditions not found inside the rotting gut cavity of dead pregnant mammals.
You'd think this would mean we're right out of luck, but as it turns out, we have a place to turn to, a different…
pharyngula | March 12, 2008Usually, when I read one of these common stories about people denying themselves reasonable medical care for religious reasons (such as the Jehovah Witness's proscription against blood transfusions, or the Christian Scientist's insane denial of illness altogether), I find myself siding with the doctor trying to overcome their foolishness, rather than the deluded theists. This one is an exception.
To make it short, a Jehovah's Witness couple are expecting twins; one of the twins has a circulation defect that prevents pulmonary circulation, meaning it would suffocate to death as soon as it was…
pharyngula | March 2, 2008The principal of a high school in Texas (where else?) is censoring the school's yearbook.
Senior Megan Estes, editor in chief of The Elk, said the point of the article, featuring two seniors who also are teen mothers, was to show fellow students how the girls are coping with motherhood and how their lives have changed. Estes said the principal told her he felt the article "glamorized" the teen mothers' mistakes.
Principal Paul Cash said the topic of the article conflicts with the school's abstinence-based curriculum. He also said he does not think the community would want that topic covered…
pharyngula | February 11, 2008It's been yet another long, long day — I was one of many invited speakers at a conference on Networks and Neighborhoods in Cyberspace at the Twin Cities branch campus of the University of Minnesota Morris, and I got to make an early morning drive there and a late afternoon drive back. Drive, drive, drive. It gets old. Especially on those mornings when it is -15°F (around -25°C for those of you who insist on more civilized measurements.) If you've seen the movie Fargo you know what the scenery is like: endless snow-covered fields, endless rows of posts for barbed-wire fences, a succession of…