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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.'"
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.
A qualified poet once testified under oath that beauty was truth, truth beauty, and hoped thereby to prove that the guilty party in the case was Life itself for failing to be either beautiful or true. The judges concurred, and in a moving speech held that Life itself was in contempt of court, and duly confiscated it from all those there present before going off to enjoy a pleasant evening's ultragolf.
Yes, there is the "Good Hypothesis": that the cells stay in the mom and try to protect her for the rest of her life.
And yes, there is the "Bad Hypothesis": that the cells gather at inflammation sites and contribute to mom's autoimmune diseases.
But there is also a third hypothesis:
That both of the first two hypothesis were concocted by by a wily editor of The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy in order to increase the level of universal uncertainty and paranoia and so boost sales of the Guide?
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
"Service Pack".
So My mom has a fetus cache? Or did I leave a cookie?
And All I Ask is a Tall Ship And a Star to Steer Her By
I wonder if this has anything to do with women living on average, seven years longer than men?
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My personal collection of cells can actually mow my Mom's entire lawn.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
The miracles of the vagina never cease to amaze me....9 months trying to get out and the rest of your life trying to get back in.
Babies are the new brocolli! Eat more babies!
Experience negative health benefits from children.
I know mine drive me crazy.
From a evolution and survival of the species standpoint, it makes sense. Since the offspring is so dependant on the mother for food for many years after birth, the species needs to ensure that the mother lives to provide.
are 30 years old and still living in the basement.
sigs, as if you care.
I read something related to this in a neurobiology article back in October. See this link.
For the lazy, some scientists in Singapore and Asia activated a flourescent green protein in rat males and bred them with normal rat females. After giving birth, the mother rats had neuronal cells with the protein expressed in their brains, making it clear that those cells formerly belonged to their fetuses. And check out this quote:
"Moreover, after the scientists chemically injured the mouse brains, nearly six times as many fetal cells made their way to damaged areas than elsewhere, suggesting the cells could be responding to molecular distress signals released by the brain."
Seems like it makes for a pretty damn good argument for this theory to me.
Hero of Allacrost, a FOSS RPG for *NIX/*BSD/OS X/Win
I've got some cells that are lingering inside your mom too.
nothing
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
Since that's never been observed (and I'm sure someone has looked at the stats, it's such an easy study), this can't be true.
I suspect these so-called "scientists"
You go on and ASSUME something, and then you put "scientists" in quotes.
Because, clearly, the master of assumptions is more of a scientist than these lab-coat wearing bozos!
You can't take the sky from me...
"Dance with me, mom! Dance the dance of life!" ...fumble, trip, crash...
...sigh... the things I did for you, giving you birth through excruciating labour for hours... ...sigh... the things I did for you, leaving my fetal cell behind to help you heal...
So is this mean, I can finally talk back to my mom with same tone?
mom:
son:
ps: Mom, I love you. I'm just kidding.
"Don't let fools fool you. They are the clever ones."
Hey, you know what, you're right. The professional researchers who did this work must have overlooked it. All that work wasted!
Seriously.. why is it that with every science story that comes on here, there's some tool who says "Hey, what about [ridiculously simple and/or well-known concept]?"
How do you think these people get to be researchers? Lotto?
Indeed, and such a study was done. The conclusion was a statistically significant increase in the lifespan of mothers vs. childless women, although environmental factors (status level and level of education) were more significant.
Interestingly, older mothers had a slower rate of aging than young mothers.
I haven't RTF, but I heard the NPR report on the way in this morning. They actually addressed abortions, still borns, etc. None of that seems to matter in this finding, merely conception (and probably enough development for the zygote to become a fetus so that there is blood, but I don't think that was said explicitly.)
My UID is the product of 2 primes.
Thanks. Now when my mom asks me what I've done for her, I can deflect the guilt trip.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Now when my mom and I get into an argument and she uses the line "Hey! I brought you into this world!" I can counter with:
I gave you super healing!
"There are more important things than stopping terrorism. Upholding the Constitution is one of them." - Ars Forumer.