For The Union-Tribune
Heir pollution
Researchers report that both maternal and paternal exposures to outdoor air pollution can negatively affect human embryo development in in vitro fertilization cycles. In other words, air pollution may make it harder to get pregnant.
The study in Environment International presented a new approach to understanding the associations between air pollution, fertilization and embryo quality by evaluating the independent associations between maternal and paternal air pollution exposure at times when a female’s ovaries are producing eggs (also known as oocytes) and when a male’s testicles are producing sperm.
They found that ambient exposure to organic carbon — a major element of the hazardous fine particulate matter emitted from combustion sources such as vehicle exhaust, industrial processes and wildfires — consistently showed negative impacts with oocyte survival, fertilization and embryo quality.
Body of knowledge
The opposite of cross-eyed is wall-eyed.
Get me that. Stat!
Half of all lifetime mental illness begins by age 14, and 75 percent by age 24, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
Doc talk
Remodeling — Altering a body part. For example, bone is constantly being remodeled in response to exercise or inactivity. Heart tissue is remodeled in response to a heart attack or high blood pressure.
Phobia of the week
Anatidaephobia — fear of ducks watching you (it’s their beady little eyes)
Best medicine
Old doctors never die. They just lose their patience.
Observation
“There’s another advantage of being poor — a doctor will cure you faster.”
— American humorist Kin Hubbard (1868-1930)
Ig Nobel apprised
The Ig Nobel Prizes celebrate achievements that make people laugh, then think. A look at real science that’s hard to take seriously, and even harder to ignore.
In 2024, the Ig Nobel Prize in demography went to Saul Justin Newman for his unpublished paper that found supercentenarians (persons over 110) and extreme age records tend to come from places with no birth certificates, rampant clerical errors, pension fraud and short life spans — all age-old issues.
Sum body
Six facts about blood:
1. Doctors still use bloodletting to treat certain ailments, such as hemochromatosis, a hereditary condition causing your body to absorb too much iron.
2. Scientists didn’t understand how blood circulation worked until the 17th century and William Harvey’s discoveries.
3. Blood types were first categorized in 1901.
4. Blood makes up roughly 8 percent of your body weight.
5. A healthy red blood cell lasts for approximately 120 days.
6. It’s estimated that up to 15 percent of people may faint at the sight of blood.
Curtain calls
William Bullock of Pittsburgh, Pa., is credited with inventing the first web press, which uses a continuous web or roll of paper to print on both sides simultaneously. It’s best known for printing newspapers. On April 3, 1867, while adjusting one of the giant presses being installed at the Philadelphia Public Ledger, he tried kicking a drive belt onto a pulley. He missed, and his leg was caught and crushed in the machine. The leg developed gangrene and Bullock died nine days later during an operation to amputate it.
LaFee is vice president of communications for the Sanford Burnham Prebys research institute.
