sid_melo blogreen: 02/21/14

sexta-feira, 21 de fevereiro de 2014

6 Reasons to Delay Baby's First Bath

Updated February 20, 2014

Written or reviewed by a board-certified physician. See About.com's Medical Review Board.

Delaying Your Baby's Bath Has Benefits

Cultura/JFCreatives/The Image Bank/Getty Images There are many reasons to consider not having your baby bathed in the first hours or even days after birth. Many hospitals seem to have an urgent need to have the baby bathed in the first hours after the newborn has been born, but as parents, you can make the decision on when to bathe your baby and who is the one to do it. There are several benefits to delaying baby's first bath and you may reconsider when you would like it to happen after learning about the advantages of waiting. (Much of the research on bathing newborns is related to the preterm or low birth weight baby.)

Babies are born with a natural skin protectant

In utero, babies are protected from their watery environment by a special substance called vernix, found on their skin. You may notice some vernix on your just born baby, it looks a bit like a white, waxy cream cheese, and some babies seem to have a lot and others not so much. Babies tend to lose the vernix the longer the mother is pregnant, so those babies born at 42 weeks might not have a lot of it visible anymore, though usually there is still some hidden in the folds of their skin and under their arms. Babies born earlier often have a larger amount. Newer research indicates that vernix has immune properties and leaving it on your baby's skin provides a layer of protection while your new baby's immune system is getting stronger. I think this is a great benefit especially for babies who are born in the hospital, with lots of potential for exposure to hospital-acquired infections. Vernix also is the best moisturizer ever and helps to keep your baby's skin soft and supple. It's important to note that the research is on the properties of the vernix but as of now there is no clinical data to prove this connection.
Amniotic fluid, which bathed the baby before birth has the ability to provide some extra resistance to infection as well, so the longer it remains on the skin, the better for baby.
Baby wants to be near mom

After birth, your newborn baby wants to be as close to you and your breasts as he can get. Snuggling on your chest, close to the food source, where he can hear you, smell you and feel you against his skin is a source of comfort for your new little one. Being close to your breasts can help encourage breastfeeding and support the baby making a smooth transition to life on the outside. Taking your baby away from you soon after birth for the purpose of a bath can disrupt the process of your baby getting to know you, feeling safe and secure, and interfere with those very important first feedings.
Lowered body temperature

New babies are still figuring out how to maintain their own body temperature. Taking a baby away from his mother for a bath, may result in the baby working harder to keep their body temperature in the normal range. I have seen babies who need to be placed under the heat lamp to bring up their temperature after their bath. Mom's chest is the perfect place to maintain baby's temperature. A mother's chest has the ability to heat up or cool down to help the baby stay at just the right temperature. Adding a bath into the mix just makes it harder for baby to maintain their body temperature.
Keep stress hormones low and blood sugar normal

Being separated from her mother can add an additional layer of stress to a new baby just figuring out life on the outside. When your baby is taken from you to be bathed, she may cry, feel uncomfortable and upset. This causes her body to release stress hormones in response to this new situation. Her heart rate and blood pressure may go up, she may breathe a bit faster and become agitated. Working hard to respond to this stressful situation may also lower her blood sugar temporarily. If your baby's blood sugar is being monitored due to mother's gestational diabetes, or her size at birth, the baby's health care providers may be concerned and want to introduce formula to bring her blood sugar back up to the normal range. When she remains closes to you, she is better able to regulate all of her body systems and maintain her blood sugar where it should be.
A bath with mom or dad sounds nice

Since your baby feels most secure when she is close to a parent, you might consider taking the first bath with your baby, when you are ready. Getting in the tub with your baby and holding her in your arms is a wonderful way to have that first bath. Your baby will feel secure and loved, when she does not have to be separated from you in the first days. She will enjoy the soothing water while being held, happily splashing and giving little kicks. It might feel so good that she may even fall asleep! Remember, little babies are very slippery when wet, so you will need someone to hold the baby while you get in and out of the tub. It creates special memories to take that first bath with your baby, rather than having staff do it, shortly after birth, when mom is still recovering herself and not really able to engage in the process.
Handle with gloves

In many hospitals, it is policy for staff to handle all unbathed babies with gloves on their hands, so as to protect staff from coming into contact with any amniotic fluid, blood, or vernix that remain on your newborn. Considering that the transmission of hospital-acquired infections is on the rise, some consider it good practice to have all hospital staff wear gloves when handling a newborn baby, even if a bath has already occurred. Some studies show glove use in very low birth weight babies have fewer infections when staff handle the baby with gloves on, despite the bath status.

There are many benefits to delaying the bath of your newborn until both you and baby are stable and ready to participate in this special "first" moment. There is no medical reason that a newborn must be bathed in the first hours or days. I encourage you to learn more about the appropriate time to bathe your baby and make a choice to do so when you and your baby are ready. Sharing your wishes with hospital staff can be done respectfully and your wishes can be honored.

South Korea's autonomous robot gun turrets: deadly from kilometers away

DoDAMM's Super aEgis 2: South Korea's autonomous robot gun turret

If there's one place you don't want to be caught wandering around right now, it's the demilitarized zone that separates North and South Korea. Especially since South Korean military hardware manufacturer DoDAMM used the recent Korea Robot World 2010 expo to display its new Super aEgis 2, an automated gun turret that can detect and lock onto human targets from kilometers away, day or night and in any weather conditions, and deliver some heavy firepower.

The border between North and South Korea is a pretty amazing strip of land. Around 2.5 miles (4 km) wide, it stretches the entire width of the Korean peninsula and it's recognized as the most heavily fortified border in the world. Over the last 60 years, as North and South Korea have faced off in an aggressive and frequently violated ceasefire, this Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) has been one of the deadliest places on Earth for humans. Step into the zone and there's hundreds of thousands of soldiers on either side ready to put a bullet in you just for being there.

As a fascinating aside, this has also made it one of the world's best-kept nature preserves - the complete absence of human interference leaving a more or less pristine habitat for all kinds of wildlife, endangered and otherwise.

The DMZ's history is full of incredible stories; the gigantic tunnels dug by North Korean incursion forces, the tragically doomed friendships between North and South Korean soldiers operating in the zone, the almost unbelievable defection of a South Korean farmer across the DMZ into North Korea. And perhaps this history will go on to include ice-cold robotic killers.

Through military eyes, the existence of a shoot-on-sight no-go zone several kilometers wide opens up options for some interesting high-tech hardware, like DoDaam's Super aEgis II, which we had a chance to look over in person at the Korea Robot World Expo 2010.

The Super aEgis 2 is an automated gun tower that can find and lock on to a human-sized target in pitch darkness at a distance of up to 1.36 miles (2.2 kilometers). It uses a 35x zoom CCD camera with 'enhancement feature' for bad weather, in conjunction with a dual FOV, autofocus Infra-Red sensor, to pick out targets.

Then it brings the pain, either with a standard 12.7mm caliber machine-gun, a 40mm automatic grenade launcher upgrade, or whatever other weapons system you want to bolt on to it, including surface-to-air missiles. A laser range finder helps to calibrate aim, and a gyroscopic stabilizer unit helps correct both the video system's aim and the direction of the guns after recoil pushes them off-target.

Each 140 kg (308.6 lb.) unit can be rigidly mounted or put on a moving vehicle, where the gyro stabilization would be a huge asset. They can operate in fully autonomous mode, firing first and asking questions later, or they can be put into a manual mode for more human intervention. All machines communicate back to headquarters through a LAN cable or wireless network.

There's no word about whether the Super aEgis 2 has been deployed in the Korean DMZ in the wake of several recent incidents that threaten to push the peninsula into full-scale, potentially nuclear war, but Dodaam has been exporting units as far afield as the United Arab Emirates.

Two weeks traveling across Spain, from Basque Country, to Galicia, Andalucia and finally Barcelona. (Video)

A Spanish road trip - clik link

www.lifecool.com

What to wear to a wedding

Have you been invited to a wedding, but aren't quite sure what to wear?

The best .338 sniper rifle in the world

Image: MoD

November 26, 2008 The sniper is one of the most feared specialists of war and he is one workman who definitely relies on the right tools. There are a surprising number of sniper rifle manufacturers out there, so it’s a big call when one declares itself to be the best .338 in the world, though the raw specifications of the Accuracy International L115A3 sniper rifle suggest there is merit to the claim. The UKP23,000 (USD$34,000) rifle was designed incorporating performance-enhancing features gleaned from international target shooting and fires an 8.59mm bullet which is heavier than the 7.62mm round of the previous L96 and hence less likely to be deflected over extremely long ranges. Put the 6.8kg rifle in the right hands and it can hit a human-sized target from 1400 metres. Even at that range, it hits harder than a .44 Magnum does in the same room.

The muzzle velocity of the L115A3 is 936 metres per second (up from 838m/s) giving it an effective range of 1400 metres compared to the L96’s 800m, and not surprisingly, the Schmidt & Bender day sights now magnify up to 25 times, compared with the L96’s 12 times.

The L115A3s are part of the British Ministry of Defence’s Sniper System Improvement Programme (SSIP), which includes new night sights, spotting scopes, laser range finders and tripods.

The first batch of SSIP systems was deployed to Afghanistan with members of 16 Air Assault Brigade earlier this year and reports suggest the claim of "the best .338 sniper rifle in the world"

Portsmouth-based Accuracy International was established in 1978 by two-times Olympic shooting Gold medallist Malcolm Cooper, and its high-accuracy sniper rifles are in use with military and police forces worldwide including many elite military units (the British SAS and reportedly the US Delta Force too).

In terms of the best .5o sniper rifle in the world, that mantle almost certainly goes to the McMillan Bros Tac-50 used by Canadian Special Forces in Afghanistan that holds the all time record kill at 2430 meters.

The skill of Canadian snipers combined with the fire power of the “Big Mac” made it very dangerous for the Taliban fighters to expose themselves if only for a few seconds. There are many accounts of the 2430 meter kill shot on the net. That's two and a half kilometres!

Can Alcohol Really Be Good For Your Heart?

Is alcohol good for your heart? - click link

Q -Warrior brings head-up displays to the battlefield

The Q-Warrior is designed provide foot soldiers with comprehensive situational awareness

"Great battles are won with artillery" – Napoleon Bonaparte. In the 21st century, he’d probably change that to information. The trick is to get that information to soldiers on the front line quickly and in a manner that won’t distract them from the job at hand. To this end, BAE Systems’ Electronic Systems in the UK has developed the Q-Warrior – a head-up display for foot soldiers that’s designed to provide a full-color, high resolution 3D display of the battlefield situation and assets.

Call it military intelligence, situational awareness, or just knowing what’s going on in the next foxhole, but information has always been a vital military asset. Today, modern warriors have access to lasers, satellites, GPS, high-speed digital communications, and all the rest, but for the soldier on the ground it still tends to boil down to gestures and shouting that Julius Caesar would recognize. It is, in other words, a classic bottleneck.

For the engineer, the tricky bit is coming up with something that can keep a soldier in the know without distraction. Head up displays have been available to fighter pilots since at least the Second World War, and today everyone from helicopter jockeys to Iron Man has one. But a squaddy lives in a different, dirtier, and more chaotic world than that of a pilot. It requires a peculiar mix of awareness and concentration that doesn't take well to needless distraction or irrelevant data, so coming up with information systems for the infantry is less a matter of adapting technology and more one of almost building from scratch.

The Q-Warrior is the latest version of BAE's helmet-mounted display technology based on its Q-Sight range of display systems. Now undergoing field testing by the US military, it looks a bit like something an Apache helicopter pilot might wear, but that’s about as far as the similarity goes. Instead of controlling FLIR cameras and look-and-shoot weapon pods, Q-Sight is intended to give foot soldiers and special forces “heads-up, eyes out, finger on the trigger” situational awareness, friend-or-foe identification, and the ability to coordinate a small unit even when away from their vehicles.

Consisting of a large eye projector screen that is low power demand, low fatigue and has fast day/night transition, yet delivers high transmission, high-resolution color in a collimated, high-luminance, high-resolution see-through display, the Q-Warrior is also designed to allow for large movements of the helmet while maintaining the overlay of the display on the real world.

BAE says that the Q-Warrior will provide soldiers with their own portable command, control, and communications system in 3D with exact target designation and charting. With the Q-Warrior, a soldier will be able to see the location of friendly warplanes, including their speed, altitude, and payload, as well as being able to designate targets. The display will also track friendly and enemy forces with symbols overlaid on the real-world view, navigational waypoints and related data, and visual feeds from drones and other platforms.

According to BAE, the Q-Warrior will initially be used by the section commander level and with special forces, but that the technology will eventually spread to become standard frontline kit.

“The biggest demand, in the short term at least, will be in roles where the early adoption of situational awareness technology offers a defined advantage,” says Paul Wright, Soldier Systems’ Business Development Lead at BAE Systems’ Electronic Systems. “This is likely to be within non-traditional military units with reconnaissance roles, such as Forward Air Controllers/Joint Tactical Aircraft Controllers (JTACS) or with Special Forces during counter terrorist tasks. The next level of adoption could be light role troops such as airborne forces or marines, where technical systems and aggression help to overcome their lighter equipment.”

Source: BAE Systems

6 studies that offer fascinating conclusions about human sexuality

At TED2013, Christopher Ryan explains the evidence that, before the dawn of agriculture, humans had overlapping sexual relationships. Photo: James Duncan Davidson

In today’s talk, Christopher Ryan, the co-author of Sex at Dawnwith Cacilda Jethá, takes a deeper look at the standard narrative of human sexual evolution we’ve long upheld: men provide women with goods and services in exchange for women’s sexual fidelity. According to this model, Ryan points out, the war between the sexes is built into our DNA.

But based on their research, Ryan and Jethá have quite a few bones to pick with this narrative. Ryan explains that our sexual patterns are an outgrowth of agricultural models—which accounts for only about five percent of human history. For the other 95 percent, human sexuality was “a way of establishing and maintaining the complex flexible social systems, networks, that our ancestors were very good at.” In hunter-gatherer societies, there were overlapping sexual relationships between members of a community—a more fluid system than the Victorian model we’re wedded to today. In fact, several contemporary societies around the world argue against the sexual myth we’ve built up, too.

“My hope is that a more accurate updated understanding of human sexuality will lead us to have greater tolerance for ourselves, for each other, greater respect for unconventional relationship configurations like same-sex marriage or polyamorous unions, and that we’ll finally put to rest the idea that men have some innate instinctive right to monitor and control women’s sexual behavior,” Ryan says. “And we’ll see that it’s not only gay people that have to come out of the closet: we all have closets we have to come out of.”

Below, read up on some more lines of research that suggest out-of-the-box ideas about our sexuality.

Question: Is bisexuality a sexual orientation, something that’s temporary or an outgrowth of the sexual fluidity we all exhibit?
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Research: In a 2008 study, Lisa M. Diamond of the University of Utah presented the results of a decade-long assessment of nearly 70 women who identified as lesbian, bisexual, or sexually unlabelable. Five times over the course of the study, the women detailed their sexual identities, attractions, behaviors, and their social and familial relationships.
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Results: Based on Diamond’s findings, bisexuality is not a “transitional stage that women adopt ‘on the way’ to lesbian identification” or an “experimental phase” for heterosexuals. Her results, instead, supported that, “Bisexuality may best be interpreted as a stable pattern of attraction to both sexes in which the specific balance of same-sex to other-sex desires necessarily varies according to interpersonal and situational factors,” she writes.
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Question: Which comes first—desire or arousal?
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Research: In a study from 2004, described in this New York Times article, Ellen Laan, Stephanie Both and Mark Spiering of the University of Amsterdam examined participants’ physical responses to sexual images.
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Results: The research indicates that we respond physically to highly sexual visuals before our mind even engages with them. In other words, desire doesn’t precede arousal—it’s the other way around. And we aren’t even aware it’s happening.
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Question: Do men and women respond differently to sexual images?
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Research: The same New York Times article describes an Emory University study that tracked participants’ eye movements and brain activity while they looked at sexually explicit photos.
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Results: Men and women didn’t have the same reactions, but they might not be the ones you’d expect. Men looked at the faces in the photographs much more than women did, and everyone quickly flipped past close-ups of genitalia. Brain activity was gender-dependent: in particular, men had a lot more activity in the amygdala than women did.
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Question: Does geography influence the body types we idealize and are attracted to?
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Research: There’s a lot written about the effects of culture and media on the bodily standards we uphold. But the International Body Project, a survey of 7,434 people worldwide, aimed to investigate whether there were more base-level factors motivating our ideal body types, too.
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Results: The researchers found that places with low socioeconomic status tended to value heavier female body types, while places with high socioeconomic status tended to favor thinner bodies—possibly because body fat acts as an indicator of status when resources are scarce. And the effect of media shouldn’t be underestimated: “Our results show that body dissatisfaction and desire for thinness is commonplace in high-SES settings across world regions, highlighting the need for international attention to this problem,” the researchers write.
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Question: Do men and women have different sex drives?
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Research: A recent New York Times Magazine article describes a University of Wisconsin, Madison “meta-analysis” of more than 800 studies of our sexual habits conducted over 15 years.
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Results: The researchers found that “the evidence for an inborn disparity in sexual motivation is debatable,” the Times Magazine piece reports. The study “suggests that the very statistics evolutionary psychologists use to prove innate difference — like number of sexual partners or rates of masturbation — are heavily influenced by culture. All scientists really know is that the disparity in desire exists, at least after a relationship has lasted a while.” Women’s desire does decrease, but not as a matter of course—as a result of monogamy in particular.

New Highly Radioactive Leak at Japan's Fukushima Plant

Feb 19, 2014

By Mari Saito

TOKYO (Reuters) - The operator of Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant said on Thursday that 100 metric tons of highly contaminated water had leaked out of a tank, the worst incident since last August, when a series of radioactive water leaks sparked international alarm.

Tokyo Electric Power Co told reporters the latest leak was unlikely to have reached the ocean. But news of the leak at the site, devastated by a 2011 earthquake and tsunami, further undercut public trust in a utility rocked by a string of mishaps and disclosure issues.

"We are taking various measures, but we apologize for worrying the public with such a leak," said Masayuki Ono, a spokesman for the utility, also known as Tepco.

"Water is unlikely to have reached the ocean as there is no drainage in that tank area."

Tepco said water overflowed from a large storage tank at the site late on Wednesday after a valve had remained open by mistake and sent too much contaminated water into a separate holding area.

A worker patrolling the area, around 700 meters from the ocean, spotted drips of water leaking through a drain attached to the side of the tank.

The utility has been harshly criticized for its response to the three nuclear meltdowns following the quake and tsunami at the plant, 220 km (130 miles) north of Tokyo.

A nuclear regulatory official last week said Tepco delayed release of record-high measurements of strontium-90 in groundwater despite repeated requests by the regulator.

Initial measurements of the latest incident showed the leaked water had a reading of 230 million becquerels per liter of beta-emitting radioactive isotopes, including strontium 90.

That level is almost equal to that recorded in last year's leak of 300 metric tons of contaminated water, deemed a "serious incident", or level three, on the seven-point international scale for radiological releases.

The legal limit for releasing strontium 90 into the ocean is 30 becquerels per liter.

Although Purebred Dogs Can Be Best in Show, Are They Worst in Health?

Why diseases plague purebred dogs and how breeders, owners and genetics can help

Cavalier King Charles spaniel

The Cavalier King Charles spaniel, treasured for its tender disposition, is prone to genetic diseases and numerous other inherited health ailments. Credit: Crystal Rolfe/Flickr

With its sweet and loving disposition, combined with silky fur and elegantly droopy ears, the Cavalier King Charles spaniel is a popular breed—with families paying hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dollars per puppy. Unfortunately, though, it is almost certain that their pet will also come with genetic disorders.

By age five, for example, half of all Cavaliers will develop mitral valve disease, a serious heart condition that leaves the dogs susceptible to premature death. By the same age, up to 70 percent will suffer from canine syringomyelia, a debilitating neurological disorder in which the brain is too large for the skull, causing severe pain in the neck and shoulders, along with damage to parts of the dog’s spinal cord. And although Cavaliers may be a particularly obvious case of purebreds with problems, they aren’t alone. Most purebred dogs today are at a high risk for numerous inherited diseases. Why did this happen—and what can be done about it?

Consequences of breeding
For almost 4,000 years people have been breeding dogs for certain traits—whether it be a physique ideal for hunting pests like badgers or a temperament suitable for companionship. But the vast number of modern breeds—and the roots of their genetically caused problems—came about over the past two centuries, as dog shows became popular and people began selectively inbreeding the animals to have specific physical features. Over time the American Kennel Club (AKC) and other such organizations have set standards defining what each variety should look like. To foster the desired appearance, breeders often turn to line breeding—a type of inbreeding that mates direct relatives, such as grandmother and grandson. When a male dog wins numerous championships, for instance, he is often bred widely—a practice known as popular sire syndrome (pdf)—and his genes, healthy or not, then are spread like wildfire throughout the breed. As a result, purebred dogs not only have increased incidences of inherited diseases but also heightened health issues due to their bodily frames and shapes, such as hip dysplasia in large breeds like the German shepherd and the Saint Bernard, and patellar luxation, or persistent dislocation of the kneecap, in toy and miniature breeds.

How did we get to this situation? “Historically, a breeder’s primary concern was to produce dogs that look like the breed standard,” explains James Serpell, professor of ethics and animal welfare and director of the Center for the Interaction of Animals and Society at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine. “Even if they did recognize health problems, breeders were too driven to produce what was perceived to be the most perfect breed.”

In the 1850s, for example, the bulldog looked more like today’s pit bull terrier—sturdy, energetic and athletic with a more elongated muzzle. But by the early 20th century, when dog shows became popular, the bulldog had acquired squat, bandy legs and a large head with a flattened muzzle. This altered figure makes it nearly impossible for them to reproduce without assistance, and the facial changes cause severe breathing problems in a third of all bulldogs. Breeders frequently turn to artificial insemination because the female bulldog’s bone structure cannot support the male’s weight during mating. Most cannot give birth naturally either, because the puppies’ heads are too big for the birth canal.

Large head size and short legs are part of the written standard, so Serpell believes these standards would have forced the bulldog into extinction if breeders did not rely on artificial insemination. “By essentially requiring judges to select animals that are the written standard, the club, in a way, signed the bulldog’s death warrant,” Serpell says.

Despite the negative effects of controlled breeding, animal science experts point to the value of selecting for consistency. “A breed standard is the template providing information about the appearance and temperament and reflects the original function and purpose of the breed,” says Milan Hess, a Colorado-based veterinarian who works with the AKC. When choosing a dog as a pet, consumers look to the breed standard for certainty. “They know what it will look like and how it will act,” says Thomas Famula, an animal-breeding specialist at the University of California, Davis.

Healthy choices
With the search for consistency yielding unforeseen flaws, however, who is to blame? Although the AKC sets the breed standards, it is principally a registry organization and has little control over the actual breeding process. Famula believes dog breeders hold the highest responsibility because they make the decisions about which dogs to mate. “In the end, breeders are the ones creating the next generation of dogs,” Famula explains. But researchers like Famula and Jerold Bell, a geneticist at the Tufts University Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, note that breeding practices are greatly influenced by the puppy buyers who Bell believes are largely ignorant about genetic issues. “The public is completely unaware. They see a cute dog and are sold,” Bell says. When purchasing a puppy, buyers can ask for medical tests and family history of diseases; but this rarely happens. “Although it’s ultimately the breeders’ responsibility, if there’s no pressure from the buyer, the system won’t change,” he adds, emphasizing that most of the top 10 diseases plaguing all dogs are controlled by single genes which, when identified, are easy to eliminate in the next generation.

Meanwhile many organizations breeding dogs for police work or to aid the disabled routinely do use data registries to maintain health information and make smart pairing decisions that reduce the prevalence of inherited ailments. The Seeing Eye, a guide dog school in Morristown, N.J., for example, uses genetic testing and keeps a database that tracks all dogs’ potential problems. “We have a geneticist on staff who evaluates each dog as a potential breeder, and we occasionally bring in dogs from other guide schools to ensure our gene pool doesn’t get too restricted,” says Michelle Barlak, senior public relations associate at The Seeing Eye.

Moving forward
It is possible to improve a breed and maintain its characteristics, of course. Consider the dalmatian. The challenge: the genes responsible for the breed’s sought-after characteristic spotting pattern also result in high levels of uric acid in the breed’s urine, predisposing them to the formation of urate crystals that frequently cause urinary blockages. Selecting against uric acid, however, would result in a spotless dalmatian. Now there’s new hope from work that began in 1973, when Robert Schaible, a geneticist at the Indiana University School of Medicine, started the Dalmatian–English Pointer Backcross Project. He paired an AKC champion dalmatian with an English pointer, a breed with normal uric acid levels and a disposition similar to that of the dalmatian, and then crossed a dog from that litter to another dalmatian and so on. In 2011, after 15 generations, the AKC allowed dalmatians from this healthier pedigree, spots intact, to register.

Looking ahead at the future of purebreds, Serpell emphasizes that the goal is not to get rid of them but rather to put the health of the animals first. “I don’t think anyone wants the breeds to disappear,” Serpell says. “I don’t want the bulldog to disappear, I just want the bulldog to be transformed back into an animal that can function properly and is reasonably healthy.”

This article is provided by Scienceline, a project of New York University's Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program.

Are Men the Weaker Sex?

Contrary to cultural assumptions that boys are stronger and sturdier, basic biological weaknesses are built into the male of our species. These frailties leave them more vulnerable than girls to life’s hazards, including environmental pollutants such as insecticides, lead and plasticizers

Small boy standing at a pond.

Boys, because of their basic biology, have some weaknesses that girls don't have. Credit: Maria Guimarães/Flickr

We can, thankfully, remove one threat to the future existence of the human male from our worry list: The male Y chromosome, after dwindling from its original robust size over millions of years, apparently has halted its disappearing act.

But don’t start cheering yet. Contrary to cultural assumptions that boys are stronger and sturdier, basic biological weaknesses are built into the male of our species. These frailties leave them more vulnerable than girls to life’s hazards, including environmental pollutants such as insecticides, lead and plasticizers that target their brains or hormones. Several studies suggest that boys are harmed in some ways by these chemical exposures that girls are not. It’s man’s fate, so to speak.

First of all, human males are disappearing. Mother Nature has always acknowledged and compensated for the fragility and loss of boys by arranging for more of them: 106 male births to 100 female newborns over the course of human history. (Humans are not unique in this setup: Male piglets, as an example, are conceived in greater proportion to compensate for being more likely than female piglets to die before birth.) But in recent decades, from the United States to Japan, from Canada to northern Europe, wherever researchers have looked, the rate of male newborns has declined. Examining U. S. records of births for the years between 1970 and 1990, they found 1.7 fewer boys per 1,000 than in decades and centuries past; Japan’s loss in the same decades was 3.7 boys.

Boys are also more than two-thirds more likely than girls to be born prematurely – before the 37th week of pregnancy. And, despite advances in public health, boys in the 1970s faced a 30 percent higher chance of death by their first birthday than girls; in contrast, back in the 1750s, they were 10 per cent more likely than girls to die so early in their lives.

Once they make it to childhood, boys face other challenges. They are more prone to a range of neurological disorders. Autism is notoriously higher among boys than girls: now nearly five times more likely, as tallied by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They are more susceptible than girls to damage from very low-level exposure to lead. Yet another problem: Boys also suffer from asthma at higher rates. There’s also a stronger link between air pollution and autism in boys.

What is up here? Why do boys face such a burden of physical challenges?

The answer is that the male’s problems start in the womb: from his more complicated fetal development, to his genetic makeup, to how his hormones work.

The nine-month transformation from a few cells to an infant is a time of great vulnerability. Many chronic illnesses are seeded in the womb. In our species, the female is the default gender, the basic simpler model: Humans start out in the womb with female features (that’s why males have nipples). The complicated transformation in utero from female to male exposes the male to a journey packed with special perils. When the first blast of testosterone from the Y gene comes along at about the eighth week, the unisex brain has to morph into a male brain, killing off some cells in the communication centers and growing more cells in the sex and aggression centers. The simpler female reproductive system has to turn into the more complex male reproductive tract, developing tissues such as the testis and prostate. Further, it takes a greater number of cell divisions to make a male; with each comes the greater risk of an error as well as the greater vulnerability to a hit from pollutants.

On top of that challenge, the human male’s XY chromosome combination is simply more vulnerable. The two XXs in the female version of our species offer some protection: In disorders where one X chromosome has a genetic defect, the female’s healthy backup chromosome can take over. But with his single X chromosome, the male lacks a healthy copy of the gene to fall back on. The X chromosome, which never shrank, is also a larger chromosome “with far more genetic information than the Y chromosome,” finds Irva Hertz-Piciotto, a University of California, Davis autism researcher, “so there may be some inherent loss of key proteins for brain development or repair mechanisms in boys.” This is a clue to the higher autism rate among boys, she asserts.

Females also have a stronger immune system because they are packed with estrogen, a hormone that counteracts the antioxidant process. “Estrogen protects the brain; it’s a no-brainer, pun intended,” explains Theodore Slotkin, professor of neurobiology at Duke University’s School of Medicine. “It repairs and replaces, even after neural injury.” Low estrogen even leaves boys more sensitive to head injuries. The male brain “is simply a more fragile apparatus, more sensitive to almost all brain insults,” lead poisoning expert Herbert Needleman told writer Julia R. Barrett of Environmental Health Perspectives.

It’s the high levels of testosterone in the womb at critical times in gestation, according to British psychopathologist Simon Baron-Cohen, that are responsible for what he calls “the extreme male brain” – the kind exhibited by autistic boys – low in empathy, high in systematizing. And, in fact, recent decades of U.S. research do find unusually low estrogen and high testosterone levels among boys with autism.

If the balance of hormones is out of whack in males, what made that happen? Researchers are coming up with some clues.

In the New York City neighborhoods near Columbia University’s Center for Children’s Environmental Health, families for years routinely sprayed their apartments with a popular insecticide, chlorpyrifos, until it was banned from household use in 2001. The researchers found that prenatal exposure to the chemical seemed to have more of an effect on reducing the IQs of boys than girls. Disruption of their male hormones may be the reason. “One possible explanation for the greater sensitivity of boys to chlorpyrifos is that the insecticide acts as an endocrine disruptor to suppress sex-specific hormones,” said study leader Megan Horton of Columbia.

Similarly, pregnant mothers’ exposure to phthalates – used in making some vinyl products and toys as well as some personal care products – has been linked to bigger changes in the behavior, such as aggression and attention problems, of their sons than their daughters. Phthalates also may feminize male genitalia.

Boys also seem to be more vulnerable to bisphenol A, an estrogenic substance used to make polycarbonate plastics as well as some thermal receipts and the linings of food and beverage cans. Boys, but not girls, exposed to higher BPA levels in the womb or during childhood had more hyperactivity, aggression and anxiety problems, according to a University of California, Berkeley study. In addition, pregnant women exposed to higher levels of the chemical gave birth to baby boys with lower thyroid hormones. No such effect was detected in the baby girls. No one knows what these lower levels may mean for the boys’ health because they remained within normal boundaries, but it could have important effects because thyroid hormones guide brain development.

Some of these chemicals act like fake estrogens, others like fake testosterone, but both types seem to disrupt normal development. Animal tests show that a dose of these chemicals inflict the most damage when it hits a fetus. And, because of their biological vulnerabilities, it’s boys who may experience the most effects.

While not forgoing the push for fairness and equality, it seems wise to accept the scientific reality of male weaknesses. This likely won’t mean the end of men, but their vulnerability to environmental contaminants and diseases could have serious ramifications for the future of the entire human race unless we find ways to protect them from harm.

Alice Shabecoff is the coauthor with her husband, Philip Shabecoff, of Poisoned for Profit: How Toxins Are Making Our Children Chronically Ill, Random House 2008, Chelsea Green, 2010.

This article originally ran at Environmental Health News, a news source published by Environmental Health Sciences, a nonprofit media company.