Women's bodies 'choosy' about sperm: Australian study

[demoleft]

Source: afp

AFP - A woman's body may be unconsciously selective about sperm, allowing some men's to progress to pregnancy but killing off the chances of less suitable matches, an Australian researcher said Wednesday.

University of Adelaide professor Sarah Robertson said her research suggested that sperm contains "signalling molecules" that activate immunity changes in a woman so her body accepts it.

But some apparently healthy sperm failed to activate these changes, leading to the suggestion that the female system can be "choosy" about its biological mate, she said.
...
The male provides information that increases the chances of conception and progression to pregnancy, but the female body has a quality control system which needs convincing that his sperm is compatible.

Read more: http://www.france24.com/en/20100623-womens-bodies-choosy-about-sperm-australian-study

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women have always the last word on everything - there's no escaping it. :)

[Demeter]

1. Pardon My Scoffing

[polichick]

2. But of course! :)

[Botany]

3. but in some cases this system fails

[raccoon]

5. You beat me to it! nt

[hootinholler]

6. No it didn't fail

They are too similar. I suspect that if Babs was Molly Ivans the current patriarch of the BFEE would be without heir.

-Hoot

[UpInArms]

9. Molly Ivins would never ever ever have let that slimy evil piece of living

crap touch her.

Her mind and intellect would have rejected him long before her body would have done so.

[hootinholler]

10. Yes, I agree, but sometimes absurd examples make the point best

:shrug:

Substitute someone less evil than Babs.

-Hoot

[tom_paine]

11. I disagree - two very bad, heartless, cruel Aristocrats bred a family of very bad

cruel, heartless Aristocrats.

Sounds like Poppy's "evil genes" were just what Barb's ovaries were craving to perpetuate the cruel, selfish, short-sighted global aristocracy.

Truly - a match made in hell.

[ejpoeta]

23. but jr had trouble having kids.

[dflprincess]

27. That may speak well for Laura n/t

[closeupready]

26. lol

n/t

[Jester Messiah]

4. Womens' minds no less so.

At least, regarding potential sperm delivery platforms. :evilgrin:

[RedCloud]

7. This is an outrage! Millions of prebabies murdered on a whim.

Sperm cells need to march on Washington demanding justice and also to prohibit calling sailors "sea men".

[nc4bo]

8. *Imagining women's eggs wearing jagged teeth condoms*

when coming across a less than satisfactory sperm. :rofl:

[Mz Pip]

15. There's a Woddy Allen movie

in here somewhere. :rofl:

[defendandprotect]

12. Females contribute 57% DNA -- males 43% . . .

when Mitochondria is considered --

All life begins as female --

[Gormy Cuss]

13. Choosy mothers choose Jeff.

Interesting study.

[Evasporque]

14. duzy...lol

[Dr. Strange]

16. Once again, you beat me to the punch!

Curse you, Gormy!

[Xithras]

17. Interesting. This could potentially lead to a better form of birth control.

Current birth control methods work by messing with a womans hormones to delay or stop ovulation. The Pill essentially slams the brakes on normal and natural female body processes in the hopes of preventing pregnancy.

If this is confirmed, and the female body does have the ability to selectively kill sperm, this opens the door to an entirely new class of birth control products. Instead of keeping a womans body in a constant state of hormonal imbalance, we could allow her body to function normally and just trigger an immune response to sperm when present. It's the ultimate "morning after" pill.

The fundie nuts should have less of a problem with this method too, because it's no more "destructive" than a condom.

[Tansy_Gold]

18. The fundie nuts would NOT have less of a problem

Having women in control of reproduction???? Not on your fundamentalist pro-life life!

Every sperm is sacred and every woman should be having every baby she can, dontcha know?








:sarcasm: on that last, but not on the first.




Tansy Gold, NTY

[Alcibiades]

19. Medicines that trigger such a strong immune response

are potentially dangerous, and should be used only to combat serious diseases. The chance of some sort of automimmune reaction for a drug to be taken by millions of women seems risky, particularly given so many safe and effective alternatives.

A much more cost-effective birth control program that would decrease health risks overall would be to encourage more men to have vasectomies when they have had the number of children they and their partners wanted to have. I did this, but my wife tells me many of her friends' husbands won't.

[Xithras]

25. But that's just it. We wouldn't be artificially "triggering" anything.

The baseline immune response in the female body, barring outside influence, is to seek out and destroy all invading sperm. The process described in this article suggests that sperm emit a chemical that suppresses the normal female immune response to allow the sperm to survive to fertilization. The female body apparently has the ability to ignore these signals when it chooses, allowing its normal immune processes to eliminate the sperm.

To simulate this pharmaceutically, we wouldn't have to "trigger" the response, but simply suppress the receptors in the womans body that would normally interrupt that response. The possibility of an autoimmune reaction would be no greater than what is already present every time a woman sleeps with a new man (and the rate of sexual autoimmune reactions...better known as "sperm allergies"...are incredibly low).

The only real question here is whether we can isolate the processes used by sperm to work their immunosupressive magic.

And, honestly, I think this WOULD be the ultimate form of birth control. No surgery for anyone. No remembering to take pills every day. No artificial devices or chemicals in your body all the time. Just have sex when you want, and remember to take your Sperm Killer pill the next morning.

[Alcibiades]

28. Not sure about the efficacy

The article does not go so far as to assert that this response would be reliable as birth control--the fact that large numbers of women have gotten pregnant with men they have slept with only once indicates this might be one of those things that operates at the margins.

I was thinking of Manut Bol, who died recently when a medicine to treat his kidney disease triggered Stevens–Johnson syndrome. Though this might be worth investigating, there are plenty of methods that are already safe and effective, and whatever form this pill would take would be at least as artificial as hormonal medication.

[dhpgetsit]

20. If this effect exists, and they learn to defeat it

perhaps they will unwittingly increase the number of congenital birth defects.

[Alcibiades]

21. Folks seem to be missing the most interesting part:

the selection criterion:

"Robertson said sperm was more likely to fail if the woman had not previously been exposed to that man's semen for at least three months."

Women's bodies seem to be selecting the sperm of men with whom they are in a long-term relationship. This supports the hypothesis that men made contributions to the welfare of their offspring as humans were evolving in East Africa beyond simply supplying their DNA, and could be further evidence that the "dad" strategy has been more important than they "cad" strategy in human evolution.

[ejpoeta]

22. quality control. LOL!

[cbdo2007]

24. In related news - Healthy Sperm will sometimes only fertilize certain eggs!!

Ha ha, this story is crazy. Sure, always blame it on the man not being good enough.

[anAustralianobserver]

29. The thing is that women choose the choosy men who are choosy also about the choosy women chosen.

Ahh who knows ;-)

It's undeniable though that that the sperm-men don't have a choice of the egg unless they can use sperm mind powers to influence which egg gets chosen that month.

I remember there was a similar study cited in the Timothy Leary book 'The Game of Life' from 1978, but I can't remember the details.