Showing posts with label environment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label environment. Show all posts
Friday, April 29, 2011
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Fertility and the Environment
D. Mail 19.4.10
"MOTHERS-TO-BE 'CAN HARM SON'S FERTILITY' "
A man's fertility can depend on his mother's lifestyle. A large-scale review of factors affecting sperm production found that how a woman looks after herself in pregnancy could have a major effect on her unborn baby's ability to father a child in adulthood. Smoking & exposure to pesticides & traffic pollution do more harm in the first weeks of life than in the adult body, according to Richard Sharpe, one of UKs leading reproductive biologists. This could be because exposure to toxins in the womb cuts the number of sertoli cells, highly specialised cells needed to 'nurse' young sperm through to maturity during a man's life. With as many as 1 in 5 men having a low sperm count & UK couples spending almost £2billion a year at IVF clinics, it underlines the importance of a woman doing the best for her baby during pregnancy. A study of the after-effects of a major chemical leak from an Italian factory found males who were in the womb at the time grew up to have lower than expected sperm counts. The professor's research concluded that chemicals in food, cosmetics & cleaning products are to blame for some of the birth defects in baby boys' genitals & raise the risk of testicular cancer in later life. Dr. Allan Pacey, a Sheffied Uni expert in male fertility said this highlights the importance of women not exposing their baby to harmful chemicals during pregnancy. He said that men can damage their sperm production & would-be-fathers should limit their exposure to things that damage sperm production, such as recreation & prescription drugs.
"MOTHERS-TO-BE 'CAN HARM SON'S FERTILITY' "
A man's fertility can depend on his mother's lifestyle. A large-scale review of factors affecting sperm production found that how a woman looks after herself in pregnancy could have a major effect on her unborn baby's ability to father a child in adulthood. Smoking & exposure to pesticides & traffic pollution do more harm in the first weeks of life than in the adult body, according to Richard Sharpe, one of UKs leading reproductive biologists. This could be because exposure to toxins in the womb cuts the number of sertoli cells, highly specialised cells needed to 'nurse' young sperm through to maturity during a man's life. With as many as 1 in 5 men having a low sperm count & UK couples spending almost £2billion a year at IVF clinics, it underlines the importance of a woman doing the best for her baby during pregnancy. A study of the after-effects of a major chemical leak from an Italian factory found males who were in the womb at the time grew up to have lower than expected sperm counts. The professor's research concluded that chemicals in food, cosmetics & cleaning products are to blame for some of the birth defects in baby boys' genitals & raise the risk of testicular cancer in later life. Dr. Allan Pacey, a Sheffied Uni expert in male fertility said this highlights the importance of women not exposing their baby to harmful chemicals during pregnancy. He said that men can damage their sperm production & would-be-fathers should limit their exposure to things that damage sperm production, such as recreation & prescription drugs.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Corn and Dead Zones in the Gulf
While you get a lot or reporting on the BP spill, how about lack of coverage on the impact of the corn based ethanol dead zone in the gulf?
And has anyone bothered to ask how all the GMO corn and soy beans will effect the biochemistry of the Gulf waters as well as marine life or land life?
This isn't too different than the cover-up you never hear about in Idaho's Silver Valley at the nation's largest Superfund site.
And has anyone bothered to ask how all the GMO corn and soy beans will effect the biochemistry of the Gulf waters as well as marine life or land life?
This isn't too different than the cover-up you never hear about in Idaho's Silver Valley at the nation's largest Superfund site.
Excerpt from Dead Zone in Gulf Linked to Ethanol ProductionRead complete article http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/07/06/MNF91E84SL.DTL
by Carolyn Lochhead, Chronicle Washington BureauCorn is biggest culprit
The gulf dead zone is the second-largest in the world, after one in the Baltic Sea. Scientists say the biggest culprit is industrial-scale corn production. Corn growers are heavy users of both nitrogen and pesticides. Vast monocultures of corn and soybeans, both subsidized by the federal government, have displaced diversified farms and grasslands throughout the Mississippi Basin.
"The subsidies are driving farmers toward more corn," said Gene Turner, a zoologist at Louisiana State University. "More nitrate comes off corn fields than it does off of any other crop by far. And nitrogen is driving the formation of the dead zone."
The dead zone, he said, is "a symptom of the homogenization of the landscape. We just have a few crops on what used to have all kinds of different vegetation."
In 2007, Congress passed a renewable fuels standard that requires ethanol production to triple in the next 12 years. The Department of Agriculture has just rolled out a plan to meet that goal, including building ethanol refineries in every state. The Environmental Protection Agency will decide soon whether to increase the amount of ethanol in gasoline blends from 10 percent to 15 percent.
A 2008 National Research Council report warned of a "considerable" increase in damage to the gulf if ethanol production is increased.Pet cause of Congress
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