Ladies, if you've always thought that your uterus just lies back, chillin and waiting for the right squiggly guy (aka sperm) to fertilise an egg, it turns out that you're wrong.
According to new research from Tel Aviv University, women can, to a certain extent, reject or accept sperm thanks to powerful uterine contractions and the motion of the uterus is argued to be at the core of reproductive success (i.e. whether or not you actually get pregnant). One anthropologist from Cornell has explained it thus:
"...The uterus actually plays a role in make sure sperm are in the right place at the right time. Apparently, uterine contractions squirt fluid, and sperm, upwards.
After conception, the uterus waits below, for about seven days, as the newly fertilized egg takes its own sweet time to float into the womb, and then the uterus goes into action again.
When the egg finally arrives, the uterus begins to contract again, performing a welcoming dance that sucks the new embryo into the soft lining of the uterine wall, and voila, we have a baby on the way."
In theory, evolution dictates then that women are able to choose (unconsciously) the best sperm and create the best genes for the future child. Yet, women often have sex even when they know that their partner is less than perfect, so.....
There goes that theory.
Source: Secret Birth Control Method
Showing posts with label evolution. Show all posts
Showing posts with label evolution. Show all posts
Pink marble fetuses all in a row
Sculptor Marc Quinn has done it again. Famous for representing the beauty of pregnancy in a disabled body without arms or legs (Alison Lapper), Quinn's latest exhibition looks at the internal view of the womb; 9 pink marble fetuses enrobed in a sort of maternal 'pipework' at London's White Cube gallery. A way of representing the mysterious baby 'bump', Quinn was inspired by the reactions to Alison Lapper's body shape as 'disfigured' and not 'pregnant'. Quinn says:
"There are nine sculptures altogether but there isn't one for each month because really the most interesting changes are at the beginning. The series does continue until birth. In the final sculpture, the baby is upside down and about to drop out -- just before the fall as it were.''
Quinn's comparison is far too simplistic. Whereas Alison Lapper is an actual woman, embodied as pregnant in his earlier work, the marble fetuses are without 'mothers'. Whereas Quinn is attempting to show the 'evolution' of human life right up until a 'baby' is ready to 'drop out' (interesting choice of words), there is no 'mother' embodied to do the 'dropping' as it were. Quinn's work is radical in that he tries to confront individuals with their own strange beginning as fetuses to counter the judgement of disabled bodies in the spirit of Lapper. Yet, Quinn never mentions that in order to 'make visible what is hidden' beneath a mother's skin, the mother cannot exist. This is precisely why 3D/4D ultrasonography is so powerful. If the mother's body remained present in the 'photo', the fetus would not seem like a separate person. The pink marble fetuses only reinvoke the traditional scientific and cultural paradigm of personhood as disembodied and masculine.
More images here: http://www.whitecube.com/exhibitions/evolution/lga/
Why pregnant women don't tip over
According to the New York Times, researchers from Harvard and the University of Texas, women have evolved a stronger, more flexible spine in order to accommodate pregnancy. Katherine K. Whitcome, a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard and the lead author of the paper, saysthe lumbar, or lower back, curve in women extends across three vertebrae, as opposed to just two in men. And the connecting points between vertebrae are relatively larger in women, and shaped differently in ways that make the stack more stable and less prone to the bones shifting out of alignment or breaking. Without this adaptation, pregnancy would be alot more painful. Even more interesting, this particular adaptation is no present in chimps so it must have something to do with walking upright.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/12/science/12cnd-pregnant.html?em&ex=1197781200&en=9ee163509360e953&ei=5087
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/12/science/12cnd-pregnant.html?em&ex=1197781200&en=9ee163509360e953&ei=5087
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