Are Deep-Voiced Males Less Fertile?

A new research published in the journal PLoS ONE and led by Leigh Simmons, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Western Australia, revealed that low-voiced men tend to have lower sperm counts.

For the study, 54 heterosexual men, between the ages of 18 and 32, and 30 heterosexual women, aged between 18 and 30, were recruited by advertisement from the campus of the University of Western Australia. The voices of the male volunteers were recorded. Then, the female volunteers listened to the records and rated the voices in terms of attractiveness and masculinity. It was not surprise that women rated deep voices as most alluring, since studies have also found that women tend to favor masculine features, such as high muscle mass, prominent jaws, and low-pitched voices. 
Men were asked to collect semen samples with specific instructions, as semen quality  depends on the context in which the ejaculate is collected. The sperm was entered into a computer-assisted sperm-analysis system in order to analyze its ability to swim towards the target: the egg, as well as the number of sperm in the semen.

The results showed that, contrary to the phenotype-linked fertility hypothesis, men with attractive voices do not have better semen quality than those with less desirable voices. Deep-voiced men sperm were perfectly motile and fertile; in fact, all sperm counts measured in the study were within healthy parameters. The only difference is that low-pitched men tend to have lower concentrations of sperm in their ejaculate. One of the reasons for this to happen is the male hormone testosterone, which not only lowers voice pitch, but also thwarts sperm production.

This study has been misinterpreted by some people, since it was understood that lower-voiced men are likely to be infertile. But the truth is that men with deep voice; thus, lower sperm counts  are as able to procreate as higher-pitched voiced men.

Do you think alcohol and/or smoking affects and lowers men voices; thus, their sperm quality? Or is it just a biological thing? 

Is it possible to smell emotions?

According to a recent study carried out by researchers at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, it is possible for people to smell emotions such as fear or disgust through excreted chemical signals. Smelling those chemosignals (a type of pheromone) provokes the same kind of emotional response: smelling disgust provokes facial expressions indicative of disgust, for example.

The study, published in the journal Psychological Science, consisted of male participants who had to watch movies that either induced feelings of fear or disgust. Two days before watching the movie, the participants were asked to be very careful about smell contamination, which means that they could not eat smelly foods, smoke, drink alcohol, or use detergents.

After the male participants watched the fear-or-disgust-inducing movies, the researchers gathered samples of sweat from them. Then, researches gathered two groups of female participants to do a visual task while being exposed to the men’s sweat samples. As they—the female participants—did the task, their facial expressions and eye movements were monitored.

What were the results? Researchers found that the women’s facial expressions were indicative of the kind of sweat sample they smelled. In other words, when one group smelled the sweat gathered from men watching the fear-inducing movie, they produced facial expressions indicative of fear, and when the other group smelled the sweat from the men who watched the disgust-inducing movie, they produced facial expressions indicative of disgust.

Another recent study had already shown that it is possible to smell the emotions of other people. This study, conducted by researchers at Rice University and presented in The Association for Psychological Science in 2010, found that people in close romantic relationships are able to smell emotions such as fear and happiness in each other.

According to Denise Chen, a psychologist at Rice University, familiarity with a partner enhances detection of emotional cues in that person’s smell.

Many people claim to have a sensitive nose. Are you one of them? Can you “smell” your close ones’ emotions?

Breast Milk Is Not a Babies Thing Anymore

            Breast milk is commonly related to infants of an extremely early age; however, as anomalous as it may sound, this dairy product may help grown-ups as well—mainly adults whose inner microorganisms, which contribute to the immunological system, have been compromised—provided the proteins, minerals and enzymes that it contains.

            A kind of protein that is pretty plentiful in human milk is CD14, which works at the moment in which the immunological system responds at pathogen agents in the intestines; in addition, a group of researchers from Nestlé believe that this protein can help those people who suffer from a type of bowel inflammatory syndrome known as Crohn’s disease.

            The laws in the United States forbid putting transgenic milk on the market; nonetheless, researchers are working in the north-eastern area of Brazil along with the government of that country, testing this milk to find a cure for the widespread child diarrhoea originated by a bacterium named Escherichia Coli that has caused up to the ten percent of infant mortality.

There is an enzyme that is present not only in fluids such as tears and saliva, but it is also—not so abundantly—in human milk: this is lysozyme. This enzyme may be exploited for medical purposes, given that it is known as a particle able to destroy E. Coli in pigs and mice; besides, scientists from the University of California, Davis have transported the human gene of this enzyme to goats for hasting its production.

Another constituent of breast milk that can help to protect against E. Coli and diseases such as Shigella and Salmonella is lactoferrin, a protein that connects particles of iron. Treatments with this protein have been proven on pigs, which immunological system is similar to ours, and results show that lactoferrin can provide an improvement in immune systems of children and elderly or chronically ill people.

  Provided the benefits that human milk carries for both infant and adult immunological system, would this be the most suitable alternative for giving it a boost or there should be another way of protecting our bodies? Let's consider that human milk is aimed to babies.

"I need a lung, a heart, and a trachea please!"

Cells of thyroid have been lately created in laboratories by assemblies of scientists; besides, from the skin of a woman’s arm, some others have been able to create a new ear, and were awarded a Nobel Prize for figuring out how to reprogram cells so that they can turn into a variety of cells types. This is clear substantiation that creations of man may have added a new item to the list: human parts.

Donor organs may become an outdated practice—or at least something not that essential anymore; waiting an eternity for a transplant would a thing from the past. To use the patient’s cell for his/her own benefit would mean that recipients would be less likely—or not likely at all—to reject the new parts; moreover, moral debates would be outwitted.

The director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Anthony Atala, states that examiners have been able to grow flat tissues such as skin, concave organs as the bladder, and tubular compositions like blood vessels; moreover, Atala explained that technical journalism began to bring up the topic of growing new organs back in the 30’s, yet the application of this concept is a recent event.

Creating these complex organs is a procedure that consists in taking out cells from the proposed recipient, which usually come from the area that needs to be cured; numerous assemblies of scientists around the world have been developing strategies for making this possible. The latest achievements are sperm, red blood cells, eggs, and a human trachea.

Would you rather trust these “manufactured” organs for saving your life or a loved one’s or stick to the idea of donating?

Cloud seeding: Making clouds cry

Three quarters of our planet are covered by water. However, it is ironic that the biggest amount of it is salt water. In fact, only 2.5% of the world’s water is fresh and, therefore, drinkable or suitable for agriculture. That’s why droughts—periods of time in which a determined region has lack of water supply, usually caused by low precipitations—are considered so dangerous for humans. A drought affects production of food (fruits, vegetables and animal products) and production of hydroelectric energy, among other activities. But now, scientists may have found a weapon to fight against droughts.

It is called cloud seeding. It consists of the use of chemicals like liquid propane, dry ice or silver iodide to improve clouds’ process of condensation of water and increase the amount of precipitations. This can be made using generators, planes and even rockets. The steps of this process depend on the climatic characteristics of the region.

Weather seeds rocket launched in China

This technique is currently used with different purposes in Europe, Asia, North America, Australia and even African countries.  For example, Russian and Ukrainian air forces seeded clouds over Chernobyl to decrease the amount of acid rain in that area through “forced” precipitations.

Even though cloud seeding has many benefits, it is also claimed that may carry side effects for weather and health. The use of chemicals is highly criticized, and some detractors postulates that it contributes to the global warming instead.

Is this a technique to be imitated? In what way could it be improved? May we need this technique in Chile right now? Check the video from the TV program Five Ways to Save the World on the use of this technique in the US.

All we need is Love

Have you ever thought that the love our moms and caregivers give us in the initials years of our lives make a huge difference in our future outcome?

According to Professor Allan Schore, of University of California, Los Angeles, “the way a baby is treated in the first two years determines whether or not the resulting adult has a fully functioning brain.” 

The image below shows the enormous disparity among a brain that was fostered by its mother, who provides it with nourishment versus a brain that was abandoned and neglected.

The study suggests that 80% of brain cells that an individual will ever have are shaped during the first two years after birth. This means that, if the course of producing brain cells and connections between them goes wrong the insufficiencies are permanent, and this result will lead the person into a “cycle of deprivation” that is lack of educational success, continual unemployment, poverty, crime, and addiction. The reason why this is called “cycle” is because parents of the dismissed child were also treated in the same way, so they are repeating the action without knowing.

All this makes me think about rehabilitation programs, whose goal is to reinsert into our society all the individuals who have an unusual behavior. Jails, meanwhile, try to punish people who transgress the law.

Do you think these programs are useful in terms of integration? Do people who have been scorned when babies are able to change this undesirable omen?

For more information:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/children_shealth/9637682/Whats-the-difference-between-these-two-brains.html

Pills for your alcoholism

The process of getting rid of a bad habit has always been difficult for people, especially if more than just a habit we are talking about an addiction, but now that could be a more bearable process, at least for alcoholics.

Stop drinking is the first step to start rehab, but what about the anxiety and dependence feelings after that? Well, a clinical study led by researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, U.S., showed that there is a very effective pill to treat those symptoms and increase percentages of succeeding in stop drinking.

The pill called Topiramate or Topamax is a derivative of the naturally occurring sugar monosaccharide D-fructose and it is known for being used to treat seizures and migraine headaches and after this also for treating alcoholism.

The study contemplated over a hundred alcoholics and it turned to be effective in more than a half of the cases reducing dependence and cravings even in those cases that hadn’t stop drinking at the moment of entering the study. Also, it was proved to improve physical and psychological health by lowering cholesterol levels, blood pressure, body mass index and reducing risk of developing cirrhosis. It is important to say, as well, that long term studies have shown no serious problems related to the drug/pill, so it seems to be only benefits for consumers and it could be the solution for some people’s problem, couldn’t it?

For more details follow the link attached: