Tuesday 17 July 2007

Pic of the day: This is not exactly easy to talk about, you know, but

Grls, plz stop bleedin okthx

This would all make sense if not for the unnatural and pointless practice of menstruation

It all began when I read yet another scientific article. There is hardly a day where some unlikely fact is not uncovered, and sometimes covered again later. This time, the Amish are either genetically different from the rest of the human race, or children of old parents are likely to grow old themselves.

Well of course, you may say. Lifespan is determined by many factors, and some of these are genetic. Since children by definition inherit the genes of their parents, traits such as height, skin color and longevity are handed down through the ages. Usually there is some upside and some downside to each. All true, but this is not the point here. No, the point is that if you have your children late in your fertile years, they stand to live longer than those you had at the beginning. Now that was a shocker. But the normally very serious magazine The Economist had an article about it on July 12th.

The article touches on some other topics, most clearly that daughters seem to inherit their longevity from the father. The mechanism is still unknown, as the result was totally unexpected. But seriously, it makes perfect sense. If a line of humans tend to breed late in life, it is of utmost importance that they reach that section of life, otherwise they will die out. Now, as your biology teacher probably told you, evolution is a harsh mistress. If people risk dying out, that is their problem. They better adapt their behavior to the facts of life rather than the other way around. But if there is some way of influencing the lifespan of future generations, by some hitherto unknown mechanism, then it would make perfect sense to use it. Start having children young? Don't live too long or you will sit around meditating for twenty years after you're no longer useful and the future generations have largely forgotten you, but you're still eating their food. Having children late? Better prepare to stay alive and active for another (long) generation.

The wrench in the gears is, as most of you know already, that having children late in life incurs other risks. The chance of Down's Syndrome, for instance, increases gradually to around 1 in 20 during the last couple years before menopause. Men also accumulate mutations over their lifetime, and mutations are generally not as useful in real life as in the Marvel universe, more's the pity. So instead of flying kids you get miscarriages. There isn't much to do about that, although a severe calorie restriction over long time will greatly reduce the gonad activity even in men. It will on the other hand also make you unfit for most jobs, certain most Amish jobs. I guess you could still be a professor or something. But that's pretty much the only thing that can shut down the restless division and multiplication of sperm stem cells. Abstaining from sexual activity won't be enough, since the body will entirely on its own continue producing sperm cells anyway and periodically expel those during sleep.

The women, on the other hand, could just stop menstruating. It is an unnatural and pointless practice that currently serves no greater good except keeping male family members in fear. There is bound to be better ways of verifying one's femininity. Ways that don't send the best ova of your life down the drain, not to mention the pain and other bodily discomfort.

In the wild, women don't menstruate like crazy for nigh on 40 years. First, menstruation starts earlier now than in stone age societies, probably because of more and healthier food and less physical work. Then, in the wild, a girl is married off with great haste after her first menstruation and can get down to the serious task of having babies. After a few months, the first pregnancy commences. This lasts for about nine months. Then serious lactation for a couple years, day and night, which inhibits ovulation. (Some civilized women are immune to this, evidently an adaptation to agriculture, but others are not. It takes frequent suckling for it to kick in though.) In the wild, ovulation may easily happen as far apart as 3 years. Then the cycle begins anew. In the same time span, a modern woman has spent three dozen prime quality ova all for nothing.

There are already Pills on the market that you can take for several months, probably to cut down on the pointless bleeding all over the place. My point however is that a woman is born with all her ova already. Unlike us men, she does not continually divide stem cells to make new germ cells. They lie dormant, shielded deep within her body. I won't speculate today why women have enough of these for several hundred years of childbearing. Rather my conclusion is that if you have other interests, you should probably save your biological nest eggs, so to speak, for when you really need them. Especially since those kids will live and live and live and live, unless something unfortunate interrupts them. And of course, if you plan to have daughters, look for a man who has proved his longevity. Not that I'm volunteering or anything. At least for a few decades yet…