The 13 Worst Plastic Surgery Ads In The World. Facebook. The Ambition Myth: Debunking a Common Excuse for the Gender Wage Gap - Bryce Covert. Career and family choices aren't the only thing holding back women's earnings. Recent research shows that there is bias, too ... even if we're uncomfortable to call it out. Reuters The gender wage gap drew a spotlight in the presidential campaign, as both sides duked it out for women's votes.
But while we accept the gap's persistence, we're still guessing at its origins. One explanation, from both the right and the left, is that women are less ambitious -- either they make explicit choices to put family before work or their shrink from the opportunity to demand a higher salary or better job. This explanation seeks to explain the fact that many women are stalled in middle management and make up a pitiful percentage of America's C-suite.
(See: the debate over why a mere 14 percent of Goldman Sachs's new partners and 23 percent of its new managing directors were women this year.) When researchers have studied the ambition gap, they've discovered something peculiar: It's not there. U of A study finds human brains can harbour foreign genetic material | The Gateway. Fragments of male DNA have been found in the brains of human females, according to a recent study coming out of the University of Alberta. The study, Male Michrochimerism in the Female Human Brain, was recently published under the direction of lead author William Chan, a researcher in the U of A’s Department of Biochemistry. “We looked into various regions of the brain of our subjects, and we found the foreign (male) DNA in many different places,” Chan explained. “For example, it’s not just stuck in the forebrain or the hindbrain — it seems to be scattered everywhere.
We don’t know if there’s a reason for that yet. For now, we can only say that there seems to be a random distribution.” Chan said the foreign DNA is also untranslated, meaning it serves no discernible function. However, he added that prior to his study, nothing was known about whether or not the human brain could actually harbour foreign genetic material. “You basically have to (get samples) from cadavers.
Natural history of fetal cell microchimeris... [J Reprod Immunol. 2005. Male Microchimerism in the Human Female Brain. In humans, naturally acquired microchimerism has been observed in many tissues and organs. Fetal microchimerism, however, has not been investigated in the human brain. Microchimerism of fetal as well as maternal origin has recently been reported in the mouse brain. In this study, we quantified male DNA in the human female brain as a marker for microchimerism of fetal origin (i.e. acquisition of male DNA by a woman while bearing a male fetus).
Targeting the Y-chromosome-specific DYS14 gene, we performed real-time quantitative PCR in autopsied brain from women without clinical or pathologic evidence of neurologic disease (n = 26), or women who had Alzheimer’s disease (n = 33). Figures Citation: Chan WFN, Gurnot C, Montine TJ, Sonnen JA, Guthrie KA, et al. (2012) Male Microchimerism in the Human Female Brain.
Editor: Martin Gerbert Frasch, Université de Montréal, Canada Received: April 30, 2012; Accepted: August 23, 2012; Published: September 26, 2012 Copyright: © Chan et al. Introduction. Article: Scientists Discover Children's Cells Living in Mothers' Brains - Visualizing Birth. Image from: This article, published recently in Scientific American (December 2012), describes fascinating research on how children’s cells actually become a physical part of their mothers’ brains. Not only is the information interesting, but I believe that it may be helpful in the visualization of birth. The research acts as a strong reminder to the pregnant woman that she and her baby are physically part of one another; that her baby is a real part of her own body. During her pregnancy, a woman may sometimes wonder or feel that her baby is something completely separate from and foreign to her own body, existing as a little entity encased within her and who will need at some point to exit her body.
The connection between mother and child is ever deeper than thoughtBy Robert MartoneWhat it is that fetal microchimeric cells do in the mother’s body is unclear, although there are some intriguing possibilities. On a mother’s mind « BRAINETHICS. July 20, 2006 by tzramsoy Having a baby has a large impact on how we live our lives (trust me). But whereas men may react with amazement, wonder, even jealousy of being left aside, little actually happens to our bodies after birth. The changes that happen in women are far more obvious, not only during pregnancy but after birth also. The production of milk, and the possibility of conditional learning of milk production to the child’s crying is just one example of how body, brain and mind get tuned into caretaking. Furthermore, studies of oxytocin, a mammalian hormone that acts as a neurotransmitter in the brain, has been implicated in the bonding of the mother-infant attachment bond. Oxytocin is present in both sexes and is thought to be involved in social bonding, stress-reduction and orgasm, just to mention some. but the hormone seems to play a specific role in how mothers react to their newborns, and the establishment of a sound dyadic attachment.
-Thomas Like this: Like Loading... Son's DNA found inside mother's brain - health - 27 September 2012. Mothers always have their children in the back of their minds – now it seems that this is quite literally true. Fetal DNA can enter a mother's brain and remain there for decades, according to autopsies of female brains. During a pregnancy, cells from mother and fetus can cross the placenta and survive for decades in the skin, liver and spleen – a phenomenon called fetal microchimerism.
Fetal DNA can also cross the blood-brain barrier and enter the brain of pregnant mice (Stem Cells, doi.org/ctfj7v). But it's unclear whether the same happens in humans, says Lee Nelson of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. If it does, having foreign DNA in your brain may be one possible explanation for why certain neurological disorders, such as Alzheimer's disease, are more common in women who have had children (European Journal of Neurology, doi.org/dwwz99).
To investigate this, Nelson and her colleagues autopsied 59 brains of deceased women – 33 of whom had Alzheimer's disease. Way in. Our Selves, Other Cells. Photo: lunar caustic Is it any solace to sentimental mothers that their babies will always be part of them? I’m not talking about emotional bonds, which we can only hope will endure. I mean that for any woman that has ever been pregnant, some of her baby’s cells may circulate in her bloodstream for as long as she lives.
Those cells often take residence in her lungs, spinal cord, skin, thyroid gland, liver, intestine, cervix, gallbladder, spleen, lymph nodes, and blood vessels. Here’s what happens. During pregnancy, cells sneak across the placenta in both directions. Moms usually tolerate the invasion. Living With Someone Else’s Cells Of course, we nosy mothers would like to know exactly what our children’s cells are up to while they hang out in us.
It turns out that when fetal cells are good, they are very, very good. Some fetal cells have the potential to grow up and be anything. Then there’s baby on the brain. How we hurt the ones we love Maternal cells are busybodies. Scientists Find Children's Cells Living In Mothers' Brains. Image Courtesy of Shutterstock Many would argue that the mother-baby bond during pregnancy is the strongest human connection possible. During pregnancy, a mother is connected physically and psychologically to her child, and her baby depends on her for everything from nutrition, to blood flow to warmth and more. Of course, after a baby is born, mother and child remain close, but the relationship separates into that of two entirely separate individuals.
Or does it? A fascinating new study shows that this close mother-baby connection may not end after a woman gives birth. It’s not entirely clear why male cells end up in female brains, but the researchers on this study point out that the most likely source is to acquire these cells during a pregnancy with a male fetus. . + Male microchimerism in the human female brain + Source: Scientists Discover Children’s Cells Living in Mothers’ Brains. Son's DNA Shows Up in Mom's Brain | Fetal Cells & Brain Disorders.
A mother may always have her children on her mind, literally. New findings reveal that cells from fetuses can migrate into the brains of their mothers, researchers say. It remains uncertain whether these cells might be helpful or harmful to mothers, or possibly both, scientists added. Recent findings showed that during pregnancy, mothers and fetuses often exchange cells that can apparently survive in bodies for years, a phenomenon known as microchimerism. Scientists had found that in mice, fetal cells could even migrate into the brains of mothers. Now researchers have the first evidence fetal cells do so in humans as well. The investigators analyzed the brains of 59 women who had died between the ages of 32 and 101.
They looked for signs of male DNA ―which, they reasoned, would have come from the cells of sons. Nearly two-thirds of the women — 37 of the 59 — were found to have traces of the male Y chromosome in multiple regions of their brains. Scientists Discover Children’s Cells Living in Mothers’ Brains. The link between a mother and child is profound, and new research suggests a physical connection even deeper than anyone thought. The profound psychological and physical bonds shared by the mother and her child begin during gestation when the mother is everything for the developing fetus, supplying warmth and sustenance, while her heartbeat provides a soothing constant rhythm. The physical connection between mother and fetus is provided by the placenta, an organ, built of cells from both the mother and fetus, which serves as a conduit for the exchange of nutrients, gasses, and wastes. Cells may migrate through the placenta between the mother and the fetus, taking up residence in many organs of the body including the lung, thyroid, muscle, liver, heart, kidney and skin.
These may have a broad range of impacts, from tissue repair and cancer prevention to sparking immune disorders. Microchimerism is the persistent presence of a few genetically distinct cells in an organism.