Orgasm and childbirth

One of my long term  interests is neurobiology and I heard about this years ago as a nervous system oddity.   I wonder how many women who give birth miss out by getting drugged up and by having the wrong environment.

… As my contractions intensified and I got closer to giving birth, I remember starting to feel the sensations. It was the most incredible feeling that began in my pelvis and rippled through my entire lower body. It was wave upon wave of what can only be described as pure pleasure. My pelvis began pushing downwards involuntarily and my legs were trembling as I experienced a prolonged orgasm that lasted what seemed like hours, although during birth your concept of time is very different.

I know now that it was probably more like a series of orgasms over an hour. My husband said afterwards that I was shouting, “Oh my God, it’s so beautiful, it’s like making love”, over and over again. I was trembling and smiling. The doula said my clitoris was pulsating and I kept closing my eyes in ecstasy with each passing wave as the baby moved downwards. My husband was open- mouthed. He didn’t quite know what to say. He said later that it was obvious what was going on.

My baby arrived, without any pain relief, three hours later, and my recovery was incredibly quick because I did not tear or need stitches. I felt wonderful, but was slightly confused and embarrassed about what I had experienced. I also felt somehow guilty that I had felt something usually associated with sexual intercourse during the birth of my daughter. But when I went online, I found hundreds of women blogging about similar experiences.

…

Sheila Kitzinger, a social anthropologist specialising in birth and author of The New Pregnancy and Childbirth (Dorling Kindersley, £20)

I’ve been talking about this for years. Though asking people to “see” it is a bit much — how do you know if you’ve witnessed it?

An orgasmic birth needn’t mean you’re climbing the walls and screaming. The problem is that birth is clock-watched and managed, often aggressively, so that women can’t be spontaneous. When a woman is in labour, and has people telling her what to do and how to breathe, she can’t be spontaneous. But when she can, giving birth can be absolutely amazing — warm waves of passion. When the baby’s head reaches the perineum it stimulates an erotic response known as Ferguson’s reflex. That is, if it isn’t destroyed by her being told how and when to push.

Maggie Howell, founder and director of Natal Hypnotherapy

For the majority of women, birth is an ordeal to “get through”. However, for a small handful of women, birth can be an ecstatic, empowering and even orgasmic experience. If a woman feels completely safe, relaxed, confident and trusting in her body, then her experience can be pleasurable and enjoyable.

The process of giving birth involves the release of many of the same hormones and physical changes that take place when making love. It is therefore possible that women experience orgasm during birth.

via Orgasm and childbirth – Times Online.

Cancer drug ‘fuels tumour growth’

A type of drug designed to stunt tumour growth has actually been found to fuel cancer if given at too low a dose.

UK scientists were investigating a kind of drug called an anti-angiogenesis, still under development, which hampers the growth of tumour blood vessels.

Avastin and Sutent, which act in a similar way, have been proven to work and were not covered in this research.

But cancer experts say the study in Nature Medicine could help make those drugs more effective.

The researchers focused on a drug called Cilengitide which is designed to prevent blood vessel cells sticking together and moving – an important part of angiogenesis.

Previous tests on people have found that a few patients with brain tumours benefited from high doses of the drug, but that it failed to work for most. In this research, tests carried out on mice showed that low doses of Cilengitide actually stimulated the growth of cancers.

Further investigation showed it did this by switching on a molecule called VEGFR2, which triggers the angiogenesis process.

That is significant because although when a patient is initially given a drug, its level in the blood rises quickly ensuring a big dose goes to the tumour, after a while levels start to fall as the body begins to deal with the drug.

This is likely to be why trials of the drug have shown such poor results.

via BBC NEWS | Health | Cancer drug ‘fuels tumour growth’.

Star Explodes, and So Might Theory

A massive star a million times brighter than our sun exploded way too early in its life, suggesting scientists don’t understand stellar evolution as well as they thought.

“This might mean that we are fundamentally wrong about the evolution of massive stars, and that theories need revising,” said Avishay Gal-Yam of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel.

According to theory, the doomed star, about 100 times our sun’s mass, was not mature enough to have evolved a massive iron core of nuclear fusion ash, considered a prerequisite for a core implosion that triggers the sort of supernova blast that was seen.

The new study involves old images that have just been compared. It is one of the rare instances where the progenitor of an exploded star has been found.

The explosion, called supernova SN 2005gl, was seen at a distance of 215 million light-years in the barred-spiral galaxy NGC 266 on Oct. 5, 2005. Pictures from the Hubble Space Telescope archive, taken in 1997, reveal the star, pre-explosion, as a very luminous one.

The progenitor had been proposed previously, but now has been firmly identified, according to a study published Sunday in the online version of the journal Nature.

The progenitor star was so bright that it probably belonged to a class of stars called Luminous Blue Variables (LBVs), “because no other type of star is as intrinsically brilliant,” Gal-Yam said. As an LBV-class star evolves it sheds much of its mass through a violent stellar wind. Only at that point does it develop a large iron core, then the core collapses in an explosion.

The unexpected explosion could mean other stars may behave in ways not previously expected, including one relatively close to home, known as Eta Carinae, just 7,500 light-years away and in our own Milky Way galaxy. Extremely massive and luminous stars topping 100 solar masses, such as Eta Carinae, are expected to lose their entire hydrogen envelopes prior to their ultimate explosions as supernovae.

“These observations demonstrate that many details in the evolution and fate of LBVs remain a mystery,” said Mario Livio of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. “We should continue to keep an eye on Eta Carinae, it may surprise us yet again,”

via Star Explodes, and So Might Theory | LiveScience.

Caves Reveal Evolution of Ancient Microbes

… like many scientists who study the Earth’s history, they dream of traveling back in time. But rather than wanting to travel back to the popular age of dinosaurs, they want to travel back to the Precambrian — a pivotal period which spanned from about 4.5 to 0.54 billion years ago.

The Precambrian fascinates Macalady. “The evolutionary success of single-celled microbes during the Precambrian brought the Earth to life and set the stage for the evolution of multi-cellular organisms that thrive today,” she says, adding that during the Precambrian microorganisms evolved the ability to produce oxygen from water through photosynthesis, a development that eventually led to the irreversible oxygenation of the Earth’s surface.

But because microorganisms leave poor fossil records, Macalady doesn’t use the fossil record to study the Earth’s oxygen revolution and the evolution of microbes. Instead, she studies these phenomena by analyzing modern microbial examples from Earth’s anoxic (oxygen-free), dark regions. However, these organisms are rare and difficult to access, found only underwater or in deep, dark underground environments (or combinations of the two) where stagnant water or unusual chemical conditions prevent oxygen from penetrating.

Caving worldwide

So how does Macalady manage to access such remote dangerous environments? By collaborating with expert cavers and cave divers who guide her and her colleagues to locations that would otherwise be beyond their reach and sometimes collect samples of microbial communities on her behalf.

So far, with funding from the National Science Foundation and NASA, Macalady has managed research collaborations between scientists and caving experts in dark, anoxic environments in Italy, Mexico, Florida and the Bahamas. …

Macalady’s post-doc, Sharmishtha Dattagupta, identified a new animal-microbe relationship (or symbiosis) in the Frasassi cave system that is based on chemical energy. Such symbiosis, which is common around hydrothermal vents on the sea floor that spew hot water, had not previously been known to occur outside of the oceans.

In addition, Italian cave divers discovered a slow-growing, anaerobic slime in the Frasassi cave waters; this slime contains large populations of cells that produce energy through novel methods that Macalady’s research team is currently struggling to understand.  …

via Caves Reveal Evolution of Ancient Microbes | LiveScience.

UFO Examiner: Military jets chase UFO over AZ town

Boomerang or triangle craft, 300+ feet across spotted multiple times at apprx. 10,000+ ft. by multiple witnesses Wednesday night over Lake Havasu City/Needles, CA video taken.

First sighting

1st sighing – Wednesday night, March 18th apprx 7pm 2009 my family and I were enjoying a bbq/fish fry in my father-in-law’s backyard. I noticed the fighter jet engine noise and looked to the sky. The first thing I noticed was 4 fighters with standard strobes flying in combat formation Lead plane forward, wingman to the right and slightly behind

There were two sets of two fighters trailing an enormous craft clustered of dozens of amber lights/orbs. They were all traveling North to South at a consisant pace at first sight, then changed direction at about 280 degrees South to head North-West.

Traveling North-West, the craft and jets flew directly over our heads.

10 people were in the group, 7 people witnessed the event including myself. As the craft came dead straight above our heads, we could see clearly that it was a huge vehicle. At that time, it appeared to have a main body of amber lights and a “hull” and one wing outstretched to about 300+feet.

What was odd, was that we could all make out the triagle/boomerage shape because of the stars being blocked out as it passed them and by the small, very faint reddish glow or light at the tip of the “wing”. The fighters jets kept pace and followed, maintaining the same distance througout. …

Third sighting

3rd sighting – This time, with my binos, I saw the object perfectly.

As I write this, my adrenalin surges a little and I get chills. at 10,000+ feet, this dark craft barely fit into view through the eye peices. I have 30 power binoculars to give some perspective. It definately blocked out the background stars and was boomerang shaped.

Its amber lights at the center of the body were the strangest part. I could not tell if they were on the outide of the craft or if that part of the craft was transparent. They seemed to be clustered in an oval shape but some were slightly larger than others indicating that I could see the closest ones and the furthest ones simultaneously.

I could confirm that the wing tips had very miniscule lights on each end as well. This thrid pass, the fighters were trailing behind again. I got a sense of scale by that fact and was in awe. I handed the binos to my wife and she got a great look at it too. She has never seen anything like that and was speachless.

The craft and fighters left our sight again and I took the time to run in the house and dig out the video camera. We sat outside for about 30 minutes and I saw the craft circling for a fourth pass.

Fourth sighting

4th sighting – I was able to get it on film! I am not sure about the quality, I have not had time to review it on a large TV yet but will this afternoon. Of course lights in a dark sky could be anything but I am truly hoping the camera is sharp enough to show the darkened area of the craft when compared to the stars. that was one of the most impressive things I have ever witnessed!

Editor’s note

The map [ABOVE]  shows the proximity of Twentynine Palms Marine Corps Base and Lake Havasu City, AZ. Mapquest image.

The Venus Project

The Venus Project presents a bold, new direction for humanity that entails nothing less than the total redesign of our culture. There are many people today who are concerned with the serious problems that face our modern society: unemployment, violent crime, replacement of humans by technology, over-population and a decline in the Earth’s ecosystems.

As you will see, The Venus Project is dedicated to confronting all of these problems by actively engaging in the research, development, and application of workable solutions. Through the use of innovative approaches to social awareness, educational incentives, and the consistent application of the best that science and technology can offer directly to the social system, The Venus Project offers a comprehensive plan for social reclamation in which human beings, technology, and nature will be able to coexist in a long-term, sustainable state of dynamic equilibrium

via The Venus Project.

Wait, Where’d He Go?: Urban Camoflauge

Look around closely today. What sorts of human sized aliens could be hiding right under our noses?

via Wait, Where’d He Go?: Urban Camoflauge – Geekologie.

Major leap for faster computers

Super-fast quantum computers are now a step closer to becoming a reality, thanks to a breakthrough by scientists.

Edinburgh and Manchester University researchers have created a molecular device which could act as a building block for super-fast computers.

They have created components that could be used to develop quantum computers, which can make intricate calculations faster than conventional machines.

The academics used molecular scale technology instead of silicon chips.

They achieved the breakthrough by combining tiny magnets with molecular machines that can shuttle between two locations without the use of external force.

The manoeuvrable magnets could one day be used as the basic component in quantum computers.

‘Major challenges’

Conventional computers work by storing information in the form of bits, which can represent information in binary code – either as zero or one.

Quantum computers will use quantum binary digits, or qubits, which are far more sophisticated as they are capable of representing not only zero and one, but a range of values simultaneously.

Their complexity will enable quantum computers to perform more quickly than conventional machines.

Professor David Leigh, of Edinburgh University’s school of chemistry, said: “This development brings super-fast, non-silicon based computing a step closer.

“The major challenges we face now are to bring many of these qubits together to build a device that could perform calculations, and to discover how to communicate between them.”

The study, by Edinburgh and Manchester university scientists and published in the journal Nature, was funded by the European Commission.

via BBC NEWS | UK | Scotland | Edinburgh, East and Fife | Major leap for faster computers.

Crawling the Web to Foretell Ecosystem Collapse

By trawling scientific list-serves, Chinese fish market websites, and local news sources, ecologists think they can use human beings as sensors by mining their communications….

The six billion people on Earth are changing the biosphere so quickly that traditional ecological methods can’t keep up. Humans, though, are acute observers of their environments and bodies, so scientists are combing through the text and numbers on the Internet in hopes of extracting otherwise unavailable or expensive information. It’s more crowd mining than crowd sourcing.

Much of the pioneering work in this type of Internet surveillance has come in the public health field, tracking disease. Google Flu Trends, which uses a cloud of keywords to determine how sick a population is, tracks epidemiological data from the Centers for Disease Control. Less serious projects — like this map of a United Kingdom snowstorm based on Tweets about snow — have also had some success tracking the real world.

These research efforts seem to indicate that people are good sensors, but pulling the information from what they post in human-readable formats and transforming it into quantitative models of the world is tough. The Global Public Health Intelligence Network has developed an epidemic warning system that pulls in data from news wires, web sites, and public health mailing lists. The GPHIN, which is probably the most advanced and uses highly variegated information, only picks up on about 40 percent of the 200 to 250 outbreaks that the World Health Organization investigates each year.

Nonetheless, Daw and and his co-authors from the Stockholm Univeristy Resilience Centre, say traditional ecological monitoring has its problems, too. Humans can make huge changes to ecosystems faster than the standard methods of data collection can keep up.

“The challenge is that existing monitoring systems are not at all in tune with the speed of social, economical and ecological changes,” the researchers write on their blog.

By looking at human data, not just fisheries and ecological readings, they think they’ll be able to detect ecosystem tipping points before they happen.

via Crawling the Web to Foretell Ecosystem Collapse | Wired Science from Wired.com.

Scientists find giant solar twists

Scientists have, for the first time, detected giant twisting waves in the lower atmosphere of the Sun, shedding light on the mystery of the Sun’s corona (the region around the Sun, extending more than one million kilometres from its surface) having a vastly higher temperature than its surface. The findings of this investigation, which will help us understand more about the turbulent solar weather and its affect on our planet, are published today in Science.

The massive solar twists, known as Alfvén waves, were discovered in the lower atmosphere with the Swedish Solar Telescope in the Canary Islands by scientists from Queen’s University Belfast, the University of Sheffield and California State University Northridge.

The increase in solar temperature from approximately 6000 degrees on the visible surface of the Sun (photosphere) to well over a million degrees in the higher overlaying solar corona, has remained at the forefront of astrophysical research for over half a century. The new observations reveal the process behind this phenomenon, whereby these unique magnetic oscillations spread upward from the solar surface to the Sun’s corona with an average speed of over 20km per second, carrying enough energy to heat the plasma to well over a few million degrees.

Prof. Mathioudakis, the leader of the Queen’s University Belfast Solar Group, said, “Understanding solar activity and its influence on the Earth’s climate is of paramount importance for human kind. The Sun is not as quiet as many people think. The solar corona, visible from Earth only during a total solar eclipse, is a very dynamic environment which can erupt suddenly, releasing more energy than 10 billion atomic bombs. Our study makes a major advancement in the understanding of how the million-degree corona manages to achieve this feat.”

via Scientists find giant solar twists.