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Children Help Their Mothers for Decades
Itninja writes "NPR reported this morning on some interesting findings regarding mothers and their children. From the article: 'Some scientists have proposed that when a woman has a baby, she gets not just a son or a daughter, but a gift of cells that stays behind and protects her for the rest of her life. That's because a baby's cells linger in its mom's body for decades and -- like stem cells -- may help to repair damage when she gets sick. It's such an enticing idea that even the scientists who came up with the idea worry that it may be too beautiful to be true.'"
I wonder if this has anything to do with women living on average, seven years longer than men?
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The left over cells are also thought to play a role in auto-immune diseases that can occur after pregnancy, (iirc).
(Indeed, the fetus often gets cells from the mother, too. Many women have cells of their own, and from their mothers, and from their children...)
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
i just saw
a guy is fingered for a rape/ murder, so they check his dna against the crime scene dna and find out that he doesn't match 100%, but 50%, implying his brother did the crime
so csi seeks out all of the guy's brothers, including a crazy homeless schizophrenic one, but none of them match the dna 100% either
until the lead csi guy figures out what is really going on: the guy is a chimera
a chimera is a very very rare person where two eggs/ embryos fuse very early in embryonic development, such that only one person results, but one person where different organ systems in the body are from different genetic makeups, in essence, two brothers becoming one man
for example, the person's brain and bone marrow might be of person a, but the skin and eggs/ testicles might be of person b
so it is possible, for example, to have a child that is genetically your nephew/ niece, if only your brother's testicles are left of him and you are a chimera
the point is, the body is very well able to be made of different genetic lineages, without all of the usual immunological tissue rejection issues and such
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The amazing thing here is not that fetal cells (and their corresponding DNA) migrate througout the mother's body. After all, both mother and fetus share a circulatory system. The amazing thing is that these cells "linger for decades". After the baby is born, there should no longer be a source of the offspring's genetic material in the mother. As the prenatally produced cells die, they should not replenish without a fetus in utero. If, as this sensationalist article suggests, cells with fetal DNA exist in the mother for years, then one of two circumstances has taken place. First, these cells do not die for decades. This is unlikely, but theoretically possible. More likely is the second hypothesis, which is that fetal stem cells have migrated into the mother's body, implanted, and begun to reproduce. Depending on the type of stem cell, only certain "derivative" cells should be produced. (This explains why mom doesn't grow new body parts.) This would explain the autoimmune theory since blood cells have a higher statistical likelihood of being circulated in the mom's body. Further research should be done as to the types of fetal cells in the mother, the origins and life-expectancies of these cells, and the point in fetal development in which parent and child begin to share cells. Either way, the interesting thing is the presence of these cells long after the child's birth - not the existance of fetal cells in the mother in the first place.
He who would be a man, must be a nonconformist. -- Emerson
Woman is pregnant, baby is late by a day or so. Doctors gleefully rub hands, schedule induced labor.
Hubby exhaustively canvasses all living relatives of unborn child, some 10+ individuals, to determine if late birth is normal for this genetic mix.
All relatives concur that late births are the norm, that all children on both sides of family have been born 1 to 4 weeks late for at least four generations, at least 50 individuals. Corroborating documentation is produced by maternal grandmother for several dozen instances through an old family bible that specifically states babies were born late.
Hubby presents evidence to doctors, triumphantly, expecting congratulations and friendly response.
Chief doctor stares glassily through Hubby and states flatly: "GESTATION PERIOD IS NOT A HERITABLE TRAIT." Other doctor present nods gravely. Both refuse to examine written report.
The storal of this mory is: you can have all the data in the world, but if nobody is willing to look at it, it boots naught.
I'd even take this a little deeper and suggest that the main benefit is to the germ line cells - in a sense, the body is really just a complex vehicle for the reproductive cells. Human ova are partially developed - partially through meiosis - even before the female fetus is born. Although there has been some recent contention, it is generally thought that new female reproductive cells do not develop after birth (or are limited in number relative to the quantity that develop while in the womb). So, the fetal environment doesn't just affect the fetus - it affects that fetus' offspring, too. Furthermore, sociological research (like the Human Life History Project) shows that "the longer a woman lived after the end of her reproductive years, the more successfully her children's reproductive lives would be."