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June 16 2011
“Mommy Tummy” Suit Gives Men a Chance to Feel Pregnant
For every expectant father who’s ever wished they, too, could feel a fetus kicking their bladder, science now has an answer. Researchers in Japan have put together a suit packed with balloons, sensors, and warm water so you can feel what it’s like to be pregnant.
The suit, called Mommy Tummy, mimics kicking with a system of 45 balloons that inflate and deflate, and movement sensors and accelerometers pick up on the wearer’s activities, so the “fetus,” represented by a four-liter bag of warm water, can respond to exercise or sudden movements with redoubled kicking. Vibrating actuators produce the illusion of wiggling, as New Scientist describes:
When two vibrating sources placed a distance apart move at the same time, it triggers a sensation in between the two points. So by varying vibrating pairs over time, the simulated fetus seems to squirm.
And, in a cool but somewhat unrealistic move, the scientists have hooked the suit up to a screen, so you can watch a simulation of the fetus’ response while you stroke your stomach or walk around. For the thrill-seekers out there, a 9-month pregnancy can be recapitulated in two minutes, or it can be spread out over a longer period for a ...
May 11 2011
If Drug-Slathered, Erection-Enhancing Condoms Won’t Lead Men to Safe Sex, Nothing Will
For men who find that condoms sometimes, um, lessens their enthusiasm, some good news: Durex may soon be selling erection-enhacing condoms with a pharmaceutical boost.
The condoms, developed by UK biotech company Futura Medical, are lined with a gel that increases blood flow. The gel’s active ingredient, glyceryl nitrate, has been used for as a vasodilator for over a century. The tricky part was getting the gel to stay in the condom without degrading the latex, but the company found a way (and quickly patented it).
Men who enrolled in the clinical trial took the condoms home and gave them a test run (the things we do for science!). Both they and their partners reported longer, larger, and harder erections, presumably while grinning.
The condoms are now being reviewed by European regulators, and if approved, they could be on shelves there later this year. The product is meant specifically for men who have trouble maintaining an erection while wearing a condom, but there’s no prescription required, so anyone will be able to pick up a box from the nearest drug store. No such luck for American consumers, who will be ...
January 19 2011
November 19 2010
Mother’s Fatty Diet Makes Baby Monkeys Afraid of Mr. Potato Head
What monkey mothers eat has a large impact on how skittish their offspring act in stressful situations like stranger danger–or the presence of a Mr. Potato Head in their cage.
According to researchers, even normal monkeys find the toy’s large eyes to be “mildly stressful.” But baby monkeys from mothers who were fed a high-fat diet (over 35 percent of calories from fat, modeled after a typical American diet) had a much stronger reaction to an encounter with the spud man, and also spazzed in the presence of an unknown human.
The study, presented at the Society for Neuroscience annual conference, found that in stressful situations, the female offspring were more anxious and the males more aggressive, explains LiveScience:
The babies of the moms on the fatty diet were overwhelmingly more freaked out by the toys and stranger, the researchers found. That was especially true of female monkeys, which were reluctant to approach the toys (although they responded eagerly to food). The male offspring of fatty-diet moms were more likely to behave aggressively, threatening the human intruder in the stranger test, for example.
The behavior didn’t seem to result from the mother’s body fat content–the attitude changes occurred in the children of both fat and lean monkey moms on the high-fat diet. When they looked closer, the researchers found that the difference might lie in the brain.
When they examined the brains of the offspring, researchers found disruptions in serotonin signaling, which normally provides a feeling of well-being. The researchers think that placental inflammation brought on by the high-fat diet exposed the monkey fetuses to proteins called cytokines, which are known to cause serotonin disruptions.
It also doesn’t seem to matter what the offspring eat themselves, study researcher Kevin Grove told LiveScience:
“Even if we take the offspring, after they’re weaned from their mothers, and put them back onto a normal, healthy diet, their susceptibility to stress and anxiety still remains,” Grove said. “This really appears to be a permanent issue that occurs in utero.”
You heard it here, potential mothers-to-be: Watch what you eat while pregnant, or your child could end up with a lifelong potato head paranoia.
Related Content:
DISCOVER: How Did 9/11 and the Holocaust Affect Pregnant Women and Their Children?
Discoblog: Nutritionists to America: For the Love of God, Don’t Try the Twinkie Diet
Discoblog: Mozart Won’t Make Your Baby Smarter, But the Right Food Might
80beats: Can Mom’s Diet Shape Baby’s Genes? Study of Pregnant Mice Suggests So
80beats: “Metabolic Sins of the Father”: Fat Dads May Give Their Kids Diabetes
Not Exactly Rocket Science: You are what you eat – how your diet defines you in trillions of ways
Image: flickr / beeep
September 15 2010
Pregnant Women Need Fear No Cell Phone Radiation: Belly Armor Is Here!
If requiring stores to label their cell phones with radiation-output levels wasn’t enough, San Francisco has found a new way to revel in cell phone hysteria: Now one of its trendy maternity boutiques sells radiation-shielding maternity clothes.
These clothes are specifically designed to shield their little unborn hipster babies from computer and cell phone radiation. Radiation-shielding maternity clothing has been popular in China for years, but a young company is now marketing its line of Belly Armor directly to San Francisco’s expectant mothers.
The clothing, which start at $59 for a T-shirt, is made by a company called RadiaShield, whose website encourages expectant mothers to “protect their child within” from the radiation of daily lives. Fact check: most of the radiation that a cell phone emits is actually a low-frequency, non-harmful type of radiation called non-ionizing radiation. It doesn’t contain enough energy to remove electrons from an atom, unlike higher-energy, higher-frequency, known-to-be harmful radiations like x-rays and UV light.
As our daily exposure to these non-ionizing radiations have increased with the advent of personal electronics, people have started to worry that this additional exposure may have health implications. Though many studies of non-ionizing radiation have shown it to be harmless (and in one strange study, possibly even beneficial), not all expectant mothers are reassured by these studies. Laura Riley, medical director of labor and delivery at Massachusetts General Hospital, told TIME her point of view on the product:
… products like Belly Armor prey on consumers’ unsubstantiated fears. “There are no conclusive studies that have shown that low radiation from everyday devices is harmful to anyone, much less to a pregnant woman,” Riley says.
The fabric used to make these T-shirts and blankets, which RadiaShield claims is woven with 82 percent silver fibers, blocks most wavelengths of the non-ionizing radiation emitted by electronic devices. With its typical subtlety, The Register makes the point that while the Belly Armor does protect from the small range of low frequency radiation we encounter from our cell phones and wifi computers, there are still other types of radiation being emitted in our homes that the fabric doesn’t protect from:
OK, so wear a Belly Armor T-shirt, or drape yourself in multiple blankets. But you’re still not out of the woods, actually: look up there in the corner of the ceiling! My God! The burglar-alarm MOTION DETECTOR is quite possibly BEAMING OUT DEADLY RAYS at 10.5 GHz – WELL OUTSIDE the tested band in which Belly Armor is known to work!
The best advice so far also comes from The Register:
But frankly, if you’re the sort of person who is seriously considering the purchase of Belly Armor, you probably already own and wear a hat made of tinfoil. Why don’t you simply wrap a length of trusty kitchen aluminium round your midsection, too?
Related content:
80beats: Cell Phone Towers Cleared: Study Finds No Link to Childhood Cancer
80beats: Can You Fear Me Now? Cell Phone Use Not Linked to Brain Cancer
80beats: Cancer Doctor Issues a Warning About Cell Phones, and Causes Panic
Discoblog: Worst Science Article of the Week: Use a Cell Phone, Damage Your Baby
Discoblog: NCBI ROFL: OMG! ur cell phone is mkng u impotent.
Image: iStockPhoto
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