Search Results for: label/implantation
-
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 Emily Willingham 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 Jeanne Garbarino on July 27, 2012
-
The sperm don’t care how they got there, Rep. Akin
17 c. rendition of human inside sperm. Public domain in US. [Trigger warning: frank language about sexual assault] By Emily Willingham By now, you’ve probably heard the phrase: legitimate rape. As oxymoronic and moronic as it seems, a Missouri congressman and member of the House Science, Space, and Technology committee used this term to argue that women who experience “legitimate rape” likely can’t become pregna…
Authored by Emily Willingham on August 20, 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 DXS Contributor on March 27, 2013
-
Women know something you don’t
…ford it. But it’s also true that divorce rates dropped, too, as couples couldn’t afford either another child or maintaining separate households. How did my great-grandparents and the others who contributed to this 15% drop in population do it, especially in an age without 99% effective birth control? I can’t speak for my great-grandparents, but the realistic explanation for having one child over decades of marriage is either c…
Authored by Emily Willingham on March 26, 2013
-
Pregnancy 101: The science behind the wand of destiny
…s reproductive health. For blogs, check out this list on Babble, and this list on BlogHer. [1]Wilcox AJ, Baird DD, Weinberg CR. Time of implantation of the conceptus and loss of pregnancy. N Engl J Med. (1999) Jun 10;340(23):1796-9….
Authored by Emily Willingham on November 26, 2011
-
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 Emily Willingham on September 5, 2012
-
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 Emily Willingham on March 5, 2012
-
Xplainer: How do you date a pregnancy?
…and 22. Pregnancy is often detected after the first missed period. This graphic is intentionally simple, removing all the hormones and other fun stuff (Ed: which you can find here). You’ll note that it says approximately day 14 and day 28. In textbooks, we often see that women have 28-day cycles and everything has a nice schedule. However, women are not textbooks and sometimes have shorter or longer cycles and/or have ovulation at slightly diffe…
Authored by Emily Willingham on October 3, 2012
-
Unicorns and Brainbows
Brainbow is a mouse with a rainbow brain. By Jeffrey Perkel A couple weeks ago I wrote about the beautiful world right under our noses, a world visible only under the microscope. The cover image for that post was this picture, a “‘Brainbow’ transgenic mouse hippocampus,” which placed 18th in the 2008 Nikon Small World Photomicroscopy contest. Brainbow technology also won the 2007 Olympus Bioscapes contest, with this be…
Authored by Jeffrey Perkel on May 6, 2013
