After a gestation period of around ten months, fawns are born in early summer – when the weather is warm and food is plentiful for the mother. Six months would actually be enough for the embryo’s development, but then offspring from mating in the later portion of summer would be born in winter. Therefore, nature prolongs the gestation period by a hormone-regulated pause in the development of the early embryos. Many animal species use this process, called diapause, to adjust their reproduction to environmental conditions.
Tag: reproduction
In Vitro Fertilization Goes to the Dogs
It’s official: In vitro fertilization is no longer a treatment reserved for making small humans. The assisted reproduction technique that has led to the birth of more than 5 million human babies around the world can now be used to produce puppies.
Can Green Tea Cause Infertility
Are you a green tea lover? Read this carefully as the cup packed with anti-oxidants and other health benefits may adversely affect your fertility and development in case of frequent use, warn researchers. In experiments over fruit flies, the team from University of California-Irvine discovered that excessive consumption adversely affected development and reproduction in fruit fly populations.
Some Mothers do ‘ave ’em: Mice with Two Mums Bred in China
Researchers unlock some of the mysteries of reproduction in an experiment that created healthy mouse pups from two female sources
Why Frozen Sperm Can’t Save Earth’s Imperiled Species—Yet
Zoo Animals are giving humans a run for their money in the assisted reproduction department. Mei Xiang, a giant panda at the National Zoo, gave birth to twin babies this past Saturday, thanks to artificial insemination. And earlier this month, scientists announced the birth of a bouncing baby black-footed ferret, conceived with cryogenically preserved sperm from a father who had died twenty years ago.
Unused Embryos Pose Difficult Issue: What to Do With Them
In storage facilities across the nation, hundreds of thousands of frozen embryos — perhaps a million — are preserved in silver tanks of liquid nitrogen. Some are in storage for cancer patients trying to preserve their chance to have a family after chemotherapy destroys their fertility. But most are leftovers from the booming assisted reproduction industry. And increasingly families, clinics and the courts are facing difficult choices on what to do with them — decisions that involve profound questions about the beginning of life, the definition of family and the technological advances that have opened new reproductive possibilities.
Will Sex become Purely Recreational by 2050?
The late Austrian scientist Carl Djerassi, a key player in the development of the birth control pill, boldly proclaimed last year that IVF is the future of procreation.”Over the next few decades, say by the year 2050, more IVF fertilizations will occur among fertile women than the current five million fertility-impaired ones,” he told The Telegraph. “For them the separation between sex and reproduction will be 100 percent.”
Egg or Sperm? Scientists Identify A Gene that Makes the Call
Providing insight into the sometimes mysterious biology of reproduction, researchers in Japan have identified a gene that controls whether the reproductive precursor cells known as germ cells eventually become sperm or eggs.
Caution Greets Claim Human Sperm Grown in Lab
Human sperm cells have been grown in a laboratory in a breakthrough that could lead to a treatment for male infertility, scientists claim. A French firm said it had produced “fully formed” sperm from basic reproduction cells. The research has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal, and experts greeted the news with caution. However, if proven, the technique could offer hope to people who cannot have children
An App for Hacking Fertility Now Also Works for Men
In our culture, reproduction is often seen as women’s work. From pregnancy to childbirth through nursing a newborn child, women are often expected to take the central role in creating new life by default. Similarly, when problems of infertility arise, the focus is often slanted toward females.