Latest news with #biology
Daily Mail
9 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
This month's debuts to delight in: Endling by Maria Reva, Maggie; or, a Man and a Woman Walk into a Bar by Katie Yee, Dead Lucky by Connor Hutchinson
Endling by Maria Reva (Virago £20, 352pp) Yeva is a Ukrainian biologist who lives and works out of her mobile laboratory, scouring the country for rare-breed snails which she is trying to save from extinction. Yeva's loved ones have no time for her scientific mission and urge her to settle down. What Yeva's relatives don't know is that she is busy making money from a side job – working for a marriage agency that offers romance tours to Western men looking for submissive women. Yeva goes on dates with foreign bachelors, pretending to be entertained by them whilst thinking about her snails and racking up enough cash to refurbish her lab and continue her vocation. When Yeva meets Nastia and Solomiya, activist sisters who are planning a mass kidnap, things become ever more surreal. I was gripped by Yeva's journey across her beautiful, war-ravaged country with her fragile yet hardy snails, a symbol of hope and endurance even when death seems inevitable. Brilliant. Maggie; or, a Man and a Woman Walk into a Bar by Katie Yee (Brazen £18.99, 224pp) Our narrator, a Chinese-American woman, is out for dinner with her husband. Expecting a lovely evening, her instinct is to laugh when he tells her he is having an affair with a woman named Maggie. She did not see this coming and it's not long after his shock revelation and fast removal to his parents' palatial home that she starts to feel an ache in her chest. Her best friend tells her the pain is a manifestation of her heartbreak but the doctor tells her that it is, in fact, breast cancer. We follow the narrator as she deals with these two simultaneous sucker punches, becoming more powerful as she beds into the new life she is creating. Beautifully written, funny and sad. It's good on divorce, illness, infidelity and bi-racial relationships. Wonderful. Dead Lucky by Connor Hutchinson (Corsair £20, 304pp) Jamie works as an embalmer at a funeral home in Manchester and thinks his girlfriend of nine years, Rebecca, who works at Selfridges, is way out of his league. Embalming is a vocation for Jamie, who was only 18 when he watched his dad die from liver damage. He wants to help make death easier for other relatives to deal with. Jamie and Rebecca live in a rented flat above a kebab shop and Rebecca is desperate for them to buy a house together. But there's lots he's not telling her about his financial situation. The truth is Jamie is in the grip of a terrible gambling addiction and can't see a way out. Compelling.
Daily Mail
12 hours ago
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Pauline Hanson exposes the disturbing question her grandson asked after coming home from school
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has accused Australian schools of 'feeding innocent kids lies' about gender and has blamed the lessons for confusing her grandson. 'Innocent kids are being fed lies in classrooms, lies about their bodies, their identity, and their families,' Ms Hanson said. 'Children as young as four are being told they can choose whether they're a boy or a girl. That biology doesn't matter. That parents are wrong, and feelings are truth,' she said. Ms Hanson said her seven-year-old grandson had been left unsettled by lessons. 'My seven-year-old grandson recently came home from school and asked his mother, "Where's your penis?" - "What do you mean?" she asked, reminding him that she is female and females do not have a penis. 'My grandson then asked his mother where his vagina was. Troubled, my daughter asked him where these questions were coming from and why. "From school," he said. 'He said, "School told me that you can choose if you want to be a boy or a girl," and then added that he wanted to know when he gets to choose. 'Let's think about that for a second. He wanted to know when he gets to choose. All his life up to the age of seven years, he's been told he's a boy. 'He was reared as a boy, he looks like his father and his brother, he knows he's not like his mother, and now he gets to choose. 'Now he knows he's a boy - his parents told him that - because biological sex can't change because of words or an operation. I wonder if the school is also teaching him, if he then says he has a vagina, how he has a baby.' She argued that 'this isn't education' but 'ideological indoctrination, smuggled into schools under 'inclusion' programs and hidden from parents.' 'I want to give some examples to parents of what is being taught to their children. She claimed schools were teaching that a person's gender couldn't be determined by their genitals, that someone could be born male but feel like a girl inside, and that the sex assigned at birth could change. 'These are just a few examples of the perverse rubbish our children and grandchildren as young as four are being taught at schools in Australia. 'Schools and departments call it "sexual education". It is part of the Australian national curriculum, promoting diversity and inclusion. The Victorian curriculum teaches that gender is shaped by social and cultural factors, a concept included in the Health and Physical Education curriculum under Relationships and Sexuality. Tasmania's Growing Up Program covers identity, respectful language, growth and change, wellbeing, and respectful relationships - helping children understand themselves, respect diversity, and develop healthy relationship skills. In NSW, the Safe Schools program was ended in 2017 after opponents criticised it for teaching that gender and sexuality are fluid, that heterosexuality is not the norm, and that sex is arbitrarily assigned by a doctor at birth. 'It is all the same: transgender ideology which is pressuring our children and causing great distress and long-term harm,' Ms Hanson said. 'In many cases, no prior consent or permission is obtained from parents to teach this curriculum, and in some cases parents are denied access to or visibility of the content when requested. 'Let's be honest: the goal is to separate children from their families, from biological truth, and from anything solid enough to push back. If they can confuse them young, they can control them for life.' The outspoken senator also lashed out at the Liberal Party, accusing it of inaction. 'And where is the so-called opposition? The Liberals know it's happening. They've seen the curriculum. They've seen the consequences. But they're too weak, too captured, and too gutless to act,' she said. Ms Hanson insisted One Nation was the only party 'willing to stand up and say enough.' 'We've been raising the alarm for years, and we will not stop. Because you can't fix this by hoping. You fix it by fighting. And One Nation is the only party fighting to protect your kids from this madness. 'Our schools are being perverted into turning our kids into fodder for gender clinics where they are drugged and butchered.' She said many families no longer trust the education system and are choosing homeschooling as their only option. In Queensland, the number of homeschooled children increased by 229 per cent between 2009 and 2014, Ms Hanson claimed.
Washington Post
20 hours ago
- Climate
- Washington Post
Fireflies are lighting up summer skies. But the glowing bugs are still on the decline
NEW YORK — Fireflies are lighting up summer evenings across the U.S. Northeast, putting on dazzling shows in backyards and city parks. There's no official count, but experts say a particularly wet spring may have created the ideal conditions for young fireflies to grow into adults to set summer nights aglow .
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
The summertime men's health phenomenon that can affect fertility
The phrase 'summer long balls' might sound like locker-room slang, but it's increasingly being mentioned on social media and online forums as a seasonal curiosity. In hot weather, men's scrotums which contain their testicles can appear looser or more pendulous – hence the name. Male readers may have noticed how the testes sometimes seem to hang lower in the summer, yet retreat upwards with the slightest cooling breeze. (I'll stick with the term testes for anatomical accuracy, although we all know the slang terms are many and varied.) While you may think of rising and falling as the domain of soufflés, when it comes to testes, their ability to move up and down is a key part of an elegant, biological temperature-control system. For some, low-hanging testes are simply a cosmetic issue affecting swimwear choices or confidence, but others can suffer discomfort. Supportive underwear may help, although finding the right fit might require more effort than your average trip to Calvin Klein. To understand what's going on in male bodies, we need to go back to the beginning. Both testes and ovaries start life in the abdomen and migrate downward. But whereas the journey for ovaries stops in the pelvis, testes go further, exiting the abdominal cavity entirely to reside in the scrotum – a move that's crucial for sperm production. The testes produce and mature sperm cells and generate androgens, such as testosterone, which govern sexual development and behaviour. These processes are temperature-sensitive. Inside the pelvis is too warm for optimal sperm production – hence the descent to the cooler scrotum, usually in teenage years when your 'balls drop'. But to reach the scrotum, testes must pass through layers of the abdominal wall. Sometimes this journey doesn't go as planned, resulting in an undescended testis, where one (or both) remain stuck in the abdomen or groin. Surgery may be required to correct this. Even when testes do land in the right place, they don't stay still. The scrotum and surrounding tissues adjust their position in response to temperature. That's where the cremasteric muscle comes in. Found within the spermatic cord, it can contract and pull the testes closer to the body when needed – for warmth and perhaps protection. One strange but testable reflex? Try stroking the inner thigh. If functioning normally, the testis on that side will rise slightly. This reflex can also be affected by neurological disease or testicular torsion, a surgical emergency. The dartos muscle, located in the scrotal wall, plays a similar role. When temperatures drop it contracts, drawing the testes up for warmth. In heat, it relaxes – lowering the testes and helping them cool off. Fertility issues This thermal sensitivity is critical for fertility. Sustained overheating can impair sperm quality, which is why an undescended testis stuck in the abdomen or groin requires an operation. Similarly, men who are struggling to conceive may be advised to avoid tight underwear or cycling shorts, switch to looser boxers, and reduce time spent cycling because of saddle friction. The heat, pressure and tight fit of padded cycling shorts have all been suggested as potential risks to sperm health – though the evidence remains inconclusive. It's not necessarily the padding but rather the compression and sustained heat in the groin area that may affect testicular function. Temperature regulation doesn't stop there. The pampiniform plexus, a network of veins around the testicular artery, acts like a radiator. It draws heat from arterial blood to cool it before it reaches the testes, preventing overheating. Sometimes, these veins swell into a varicocele — a condition often described as feeling like a 'bag of worms'. It becomes more noticeable when standing and affects around 15 per cent of men. While often harmless, this can also affect fertility through loss of heat regulation. Some patients may also notice a dull ache in the testes, particularly after exercise or at the end of the day. So, 'summer long balls' are rooted in real physiology. During hot weather, a relaxed dartos muscle and loose scrotal skin allow the testes to hang lower – sometimes enough to notice a visible difference. If that's true for you, this isn't a malfunction but your body doing exactly what it's supposed to. While this condition might sound like something from a comedy sketch, it's actually a sign your reproductive system is working as nature intended. Dan Baumgardt is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Physiology, Pharmacology and Neuroscience, University of Bristol This article was originally published by The Conversation and is republished under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
The summertime men's health phenomenon that can affect fertility
The phrase 'summer long balls' might sound like locker-room slang, but it's increasingly being mentioned on social media and online forums as a seasonal curiosity. In hot weather, men's scrotums which contain their testicles can appear looser or more pendulous – hence the name. Male readers may have noticed how the testes sometimes seem to hang lower in the summer, yet retreat upwards with the slightest cooling breeze. (I'll stick with the term testes for anatomical accuracy, although we all know the slang terms are many and varied.) While you may think of rising and falling as the domain of soufflés, when it comes to testes, their ability to move up and down is a key part of an elegant, biological temperature-control system. For some, low-hanging testes are simply a cosmetic issue affecting swimwear choices or confidence, but others can suffer discomfort. Supportive underwear may help, although finding the right fit might require more effort than your average trip to Calvin Klein. To understand what's going on in male bodies, we need to go back to the beginning. Both testes and ovaries start life in the abdomen and migrate downward. But whereas the journey for ovaries stops in the pelvis, testes go further, exiting the abdominal cavity entirely to reside in the scrotum – a move that's crucial for sperm production. The testes produce and mature sperm cells and generate androgens, such as testosterone, which govern sexual development and behaviour. These processes are temperature-sensitive. Inside the pelvis is too warm for optimal sperm production – hence the descent to the cooler scrotum, usually in teenage years when your 'balls drop'. But to reach the scrotum, testes must pass through layers of the abdominal wall. Sometimes this journey doesn't go as planned, resulting in an undescended testis, where one (or both) remain stuck in the abdomen or groin. Surgery may be required to correct this. Even when testes do land in the right place, they don't stay still. The scrotum and surrounding tissues adjust their position in response to temperature. That's where the cremasteric muscle comes in. Found within the spermatic cord, it can contract and pull the testes closer to the body when needed – for warmth and perhaps protection. One strange but testable reflex? Try stroking the inner thigh. If functioning normally, the testis on that side will rise slightly. This reflex can also be affected by neurological disease or testicular torsion, a surgical emergency. The dartos muscle, located in the scrotal wall, plays a similar role. When temperatures drop it contracts, drawing the testes up for warmth. In heat, it relaxes – lowering the testes and helping them cool off. Fertility issues This thermal sensitivity is critical for fertility. Sustained overheating can impair sperm quality, which is why an undescended testis stuck in the abdomen or groin requires an operation. Similarly, men who are struggling to conceive may be advised to avoid tight underwear or cycling shorts, switch to looser boxers, and reduce time spent cycling because of saddle friction. The heat, pressure and tight fit of padded cycling shorts have all been suggested as potential risks to sperm health – though the evidence remains inconclusive. It's not necessarily the padding but rather the compression and sustained heat in the groin area that may affect testicular function. Temperature regulation doesn't stop there. The pampiniform plexus, a network of veins around the testicular artery, acts like a radiator. It draws heat from arterial blood to cool it before it reaches the testes, preventing overheating. Sometimes, these veins swell into a varicocele — a condition often described as feeling like a 'bag of worms'. It becomes more noticeable when standing and affects around 15 per cent of men. While often harmless, this can also affect fertility through loss of heat regulation. Some patients may also notice a dull ache in the testes, particularly after exercise or at the end of the day. So, 'summer long balls' are rooted in real physiology. During hot weather, a relaxed dartos muscle and loose scrotal skin allow the testes to hang lower – sometimes enough to notice a visible difference. If that's true for you, this isn't a malfunction but your body doing exactly what it's supposed to. While this condition might sound like something from a comedy sketch, it's actually a sign your reproductive system is working as nature intended. Dan Baumgardt is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Physiology, Pharmacology and Neuroscience, University of Bristol This article was originally published by The Conversation and is republished under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article
