You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘Science’ category.
Here at DWR, there is a room for almost any topic. With that in mind today we are taking on the important question of what sort of rectal emission is most noxious and can we correlate the odoriferous emissions in question with the amount of sound generated. Yes folks, science once again has the answer.
The more I hear about math post schooling, the more interesting it becomes. As a teacher, I’m a bit perplexed as throughout my checkered math learning career all of this cool stuff remained unmentioned. All I remember is the misery and frustration of learning largely esoteric shite, that once ‘mastered’ was quickly purged once test time was over. Anyhow, latent math anxiety aside, enjoy this clip about the weirdness of fractals. :)
I’m happy that other people have the knowledge and courage(!) to demonstrate scientific fact.
This is a signal boost/handy reference that enumerates the risks women face when pregnant. It is a useful tool in dispelling the motherhood myths that surround what pregnancy is like for women and awesome it is for them. The Liz Library is a great website, but slow loading, thus its duplication here for easier access.
And that’s just talking about the immediate physical repercussions.
Below is a partial list of the physical effects and risks of pregnancy. This list does not include the many non-physical effects and risks a woman faces in reproducing, such as the economic investment of work interruptions from pregnancy and breastfeeding, or time lost from career and other opportunity costs involved in pregnancy and later child rearing (mothers comprise 90+% of primary parents), or the emotional trauma of problem pregnancies, or the numerous economic and lifestyle repercussions that pregnancy and motherhood will have on the remainder of a mother’s life.
This page was written in response to the popular, but mother-denigrating and nonsensical notion that, absent a substantial investment of some other sort, i.e. absent committed emotional and financial support of the mother of his child through pregnancy and beyond, and a familial relationship with both of them in fact, a “father” is, without anything more, a father, let alone an “equal parent.”
We have been culturally conditioned to accept some incredible and false ideas. But it is offensive to assert that pregnancy impacts men in any way equivalent to its impact on women; that fathers and mothers have comparable experiences or feelings in connection with pregnancy or their babies; that nonresident unwed fathers, based on DNA, ipso facto “should” have “rights;” that, from the standpoint of family laws or women’s choices regarding abortion, pregnancy should be viewed as nothing more than an “inconvenience”; or that the riskiest “jobs” in this world all are performed by men. (Compare the percentages of women carrying the scars of pregnancy with the percentages of men who carry the scars of battle.)
Normal, frequent or expectable temporary side effects of pregnancy:
- exhaustion (weariness common from first weeks)
- altered appetite and senses of taste and smell
- nausea and vomiting (50% of women, first trimester)
- heartburn and indigestion
- constipation
- weight gain
- dizziness and light-headedness
- bloating, swelling, fluid retention
- hemmorhoids
- abdominal cramps
- yeast infections
- congested, bloody nose
- acne and mild skin disorders
- skin discoloration (chloasma, face and abdomen)
- mild to severe backache and strain
- increased headaches
- difficulty sleeping, and discomfort while sleeping
- increased urination and incontinence
- bleeding gums
- pica
- breast pain and discharge
- swelling of joints, leg cramps, joint pain
- difficulty sitting, standing in later pregnancy
- inability to take regular medications
- shortness of breath
- higher blood pressure
- hair loss
- tendency to anemia
- curtailment of ability to participate in some sports and activities
- infection including from serious and potentially fatal disease
(pregnant women are immune suppressed compared with non-pregnant women, and are more susceptible to fungal and certain other diseases)- extreme pain on delivery
- hormonal mood changes, including normal post-partum depression
- continued post-partum exhaustion and recovery period (exacerbated if a c-section — major surgery — is required, sometimes taking up to a full year to fully recover)
Normal, expectable, or frequent PERMANENT side effects of pregnancy:
- stretch marks (worse in younger women)
- loose skin
- permanent weight gain or redistribution
- abdominal and vaginal muscle weakness
- pelvic floor disorder (occurring in as many as 35% of middle-aged former child-bearers and 50% of elderly former child-bearers, associated with urinary and rectal incontinence, discomfort and reduced quality of life — aka prolapsed utuerus, the malady sometimes badly fixed by the transvaginal mesh)
- changes to breasts
- varicose veins
- scarring from episiotomy or c-section
- other permanent aesthetic changes to the body (all of these are downplayed by women, because the culture values youth and beauty)
- increased proclivity for hemmorhoids
- loss of dental and bone calcium (cavities and osteoporosis)
- higher lifetime risk of developing Altzheimer’s
- newer research indicates microchimeric cells, other bi-directional exchanges of DNA, chromosomes, and other bodily material between fetus and mother (including with “unrelated” gestational surrogates)
Occasional complications and side effects:
- complications of episiotomy
- spousal/partner abuse
- hyperemesis gravidarum
- temporary and permanent injury to back
- severe scarring requiring later surgery
(especially after additional pregnancies)- dropped (prolapsed) uterus (especially after additional pregnancies, and other pelvic floor weaknesses — 11% of women, including cystocele, rectocele, and enterocele)
- pre-eclampsia (edema and hypertension, the most common complication of pregnancy, associated with eclampsia, and affecting 7 – 10% of pregnancies)
- eclampsia (convulsions, coma during pregnancy or labor, high risk of death)
- gestational diabetes
- placenta previa
- anemia (which can be life-threatening)
- thrombocytopenic purpura
- severe cramping
- embolism (blood clots)
- medical disability requiring full bed rest (frequently ordered during part of many pregnancies varying from days to months for health of either mother or baby)
- diastasis recti, also torn abdominal muscles
- mitral valve stenosis (most common cardiac complication)
- serious infection and disease (e.g. increased risk of tuberculosis)
- hormonal imbalance
- ectopic pregnancy (risk of death)
- broken bones (ribcage, “tail bone”)
- hemorrhage and
- numerous other complications of delivery
- refractory gastroesophageal reflux disease
- aggravation of pre-pregnancy diseases and conditions (e.g. epilepsy is present in .5% of pregnant women, and the pregnancy alters drug metabolism and treatment prospects all the while it increases the number and frequency of seizures)
- severe post-partum depression and psychosis
- research now indicates a possible link between ovarian cancer and female fertility treatments, including “egg harvesting” from infertile women and donors
- research also now indicates correlations between lower breast cancer survival rates and proximity in time to onset of cancer of last pregnancy
- research also indicates a correlation between having six or more pregnancies and a risk of coronary and cardiovascular disease
Less common (but serious) complications:
- peripartum cardiomyopathy
- cardiopulmonary arrest
- magnesium toxicity
- severe hypoxemia/acidosis
- massive embolism
- increased intracranial pressure, brainstem infarction
- molar pregnancy, gestational trophoblastic disease
(like a pregnancy-induced cancer)- malignant arrhythmia
- circulatory collapse
- placental abruption
- obstetric fistula
More permanent side effects:
-
future infertility
-
permanent disability
-
death.
I’d like to recommend reading this particular book as it offers a laypersons guide to how our minds evolved and the inelegant solutions and workarounds that are now standard in the homo sapiens brain. Consider this summary of why sometime we become angry and that anger dominates our rational capacities.
“What occasionally allows normal people to spiral out of control is a witch’s brew of cognitive kludges: (1) the clumsy apparatus of self-control (which in the heat of the moment all too often gives the upper hand to our reflexive system); (2) the lunacy of confirmation bias (which convinces us that we are always right, or nearly so); (3) its evil twin, motivated reasoning (which leads us to protect our beliefs, even if those beliefs are dubious); (4) the contextually driven nature of memory (such that when we’re angry at someone, we tend to remember other things about them that have made us angry in the past). In short, this leaves “hot” systems dominating cool reason; carnage often ensues.
– Gary Marcus. Kluge – The Haphazard Evolution of the Human Mind, p. 156.
A short and quick look into some of the ‘winners’ of a nuclear disaster.
I’m not going to build my next out mushrooms quite yet though.
Minute Physics, unlike myself has the answer. :)
bleatmop
Mystro
The Arbourist
Dead Wild Roses 
Your opinions…