Double X Science - It's In Your Genes

Search Results for: label/hormone

  • Hormonal birth control explainer: a matter of health

    …levels of these four hormones drive what we think of as the menstrual cycle, which exists to prepare an egg for fertilization and to make the uterine lining ready to receive a fertilized egg, should it arrive.  Fig. 1. Female reproductive anatomy. Credit: Jeanne Garbarino. In the theoretical 28-day cycle, fertilization (fusion of sperm and egg), if it occurs, will happen about 14 days in, timed with ovulation , or release of the egg…

    Authored by on March 5, 2012

  • Biology Explainer: The big 4 building blocks of life–carbohydrates, fats, proteins, and nucleic acids

    …e X Extra: A triglyceride can have up to three different fatty acids attached to it. Canola oil, for example, consists primarily of oleic acid, linoleic acid, and linolenic acid, all of which are unsaturated fatty acids with 18 carbons in their chains. Why do we take in fat anyway? Fat is a necessary nutrient for everything from our nervous systems to our circulatory health. It also, under appropriate conditions, is an excellent way to store up…

    Authored by on June 8, 2012

  • Pregnancy 101: My placenta looked like meatloaf, but I wasn’t about to eat it.

    …of us are involved in policing the neighborhoods, some of us build structures, some of us communicate information, some of us deal with food, some of us get rid of waste, etc.  Every cell gets a job (it’s the only example of 100% employment rates!). Now back to the cells in the fertilized egg.  As they start to learn what their specific job will be, the cells within the sphere will start to organize themselves.  After about 5 days after fertil…

    Authored by on July 27, 2012

  • After Newtown missteps, journalists get guidelines

    Protip: Don’t diagnose based on speculation. by Jessica Wright                Attention journalists: If you’ve been calling people “nuts” or “deranged” in your stories, the Associated Press is recommending that it’s time you stopped. This guideline — along with the common-sense assertion that writers shouldn’t diagnose individuals with a mental illness based entirely on speculation — is part of a new recommendation added to the AP styleboo…

    Authored by on March 27, 2013

  • Miscarriage: When a beginning is not a beginning

    …heory, or ladybusiness expert, I have learned a lot about miscarriage. Only it wasn’t miscarriage, it was spontaneous abortion. Except that some didn’t like the term spontaneous abortion and used intrauterine mortality (Wood, 1994). Or fetal loss. Fetal loss is probably the most common. There is also pregnancy loss (Holman and Wood, 2001). You can use that term, too. Oh, or a-conceptions (a for abortion), compared to l-conceptions (l for live bir…

    Authored by on September 5, 2012

  • He found out he has ovaries*

    …port about the man was published in the Hong Kong Medical Journal, which you can read in its entirety here [PDF]. The man, who was born in Vietnam, had a history of medical issues, including having stopped growing when he was 10, which resulted in his being just under 4 feet, 6 inches (1.37 m) tall. He was an orphan who, according to the case study, had a “micropenis” (just what it sounds like) and a condition called hypospadias, in w…

    Authored by on June 6, 2013

  • Women suffer from brain injuries, too

    …d say, ‘You can tell Mom anything in the morning, because she won’t remember it later,’” says Corry with a chuckle. She is quiet for a moment, then sighs. “Which, of course, is very sad.” Each year in the United States, about 1.7 million experience some version of Corry’s injury, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Yet despite this staggering pervasiveness (see chart), many Americans may be unfamiliar with the term “br…

    Authored by on January 28, 2013

  • Why do we feel music?

    …ff this chair and onto the treadmill. References [1] Marin MM, Bhattacharya J.  ”Music induced emotions: Some current issues and crossmodal comparisons.”  In Music Education, edited by J. Hermida, M. Ferrero,  pp. 1-38, Nova Science Publishers. 2010 [2] Krumhansl CL. “An exploratory study of musical emotions and psychophysiology,” Can J Exp Psychol (1997): 336-53. [PDF] [3]  ”Physiological Changes Associated with Emo…

    Authored by on February 26, 2013

  • Is the bar high enough for screening breast ultrasounds for breast cancer?

    …nt movement and legislation to inform women that they have dense breasts. Merits and pitfalls of device approval The approval of breast ultrasound hinges on a study of 200 women with dense breast evaluated retrospectively at 13 sites across the United States with mammography and ultrasound. The study showed a statistically significant increase in breast cancer detection when ultrasound was used with mammography. Approval of a device of this nat…

    Authored by on September 21, 2012

  • Depressing genes

    …ch experience — yet it was obvious he didn’t have the knack for it. This student’s dogged pursuit of a mental health career made me wonder what kind of emotional turmoil he experienced which would make him think, at age 19, that psychiatry was the only vocation worth working towards. Then there were the two graduate students who both worked incredibly hard and were both prone to obsess about their experiments. Each burned off stress in quit…

    Authored by on May 17, 2013

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