Engineering bouncing babies, 1 at a time

As hopeful moms-to-be learn, there are important considerations to the successful implantation of a fertilized human egg. A calm environment, regular hormonal injections and the timing of the implantation can all affect the outcome of an in-vitro procedure.

Now a Tel Aviv University researcher is suggesting that prospective parents and their obstetricians also look at the role that gravity and other biomechanical processes play in its success. New studies by Prof. David Elad from TAU's Department of Biomedical Engineering could help desperate couples give birth to healthy single babies - and avoid the risk of multiple births at the same time.

"I am specifically studying how the uterus contracts before the embryo implants itself onto the uterine wall," he says. These contractions play a vital role in keeping the embryo in the uterus, and knowledge of its mechanics can indicate the optimal time and site for implantation. Physical positioning of the woman and the shape and size of her uterus also affect the results of IVF implantation, Prof. Elad says.

His recent publication in the journal Fertility and Sterility suggests methods to enhance the success rate of fertility treatments.

The Gravity of the Situation

"We are all subject to the Earth's gravity forces, and all biological process must also obey Newton's basic laws of physics," says Prof. Elad, who has been studying the biomechanical engineering of pregnancy for over 15 years. "Uterine contractions push the fluid inside a woman's womb in a peristaltic fashion, which helps sperm reach the ovum in the fallopian tube. And after fertilization, this same peristalsis propels the embryo to its implantation site in the uterine wall. It's a fluid mechanics issue.

"By thinking about these biomechanical processes during IVF treatments, we can help physicians, and prospective parents, see better outcomes," he says. The chance of finding an optimal uterine position could be improved through Prof. Elad's recommendations.

"There is no such thing as a standard uterus," Prof. Elad adds. "Our research offers best practices for women of all shapes and sizes."

Avoiding Multiple Birth Dangers

To increase the chances of a successful IVF implantation, women can opt for three or more viable embryos to be implanted in the womb during one cycle. Many, emotionally and financially exhausted, take this chance even if it means an embryo will need to be sacrificed to ensure the health of another. Prof. Elad's research may spare women from having to make this difficult ethical decision.

"Besides recent reports that IVF babies are slightly more prone to genetic diseases, there is a general notion that when there is more than one embryo in the uterus, all the fetuses are subjected to risks of mild and sometimes severe medical problems in the future," says Prof. Elad. "Parents naturally want to avoid this circumstance."

New Tools for IVF Specialists

Through advanced bioengineering research, Prof. Elad, who is currently a visiting professor at New York's Columbia University, is continuing to provide "stimulating evidence" to the IVF medical community. He is working on a computer simulation program on embryo transport in the uterus, in both natural conception or after IVF procedures, to model how and when artificially inseminated embryos should be implanted in the uterus.

Who’s the IVF daddy? Anyone you care to name

SINGLE women undergoing fertility treatment will be able to name almost any other adult as their child’s second parent on the birth certificate, under laws coming into force next month.

A man being named as the “father” or even a woman as the second parent will not need to be biologically related to the baby and will not even need to be the mother’s boyfriend or girlfriend.

Guidance issued last week by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) states that, as long as a second parent agrees to take on legal rights and responsibilities, they can be named on the birth certificate and consent forms in IVF clinics. The only exclusions are close blood relations.

The arrangements come into force from April 6 and critics claim they are a further erosion of family values. Advocates say they will provide more support for one-parent families. The rules state: “The woman receiving treatment with donor sperm (or embryos created with donor sperm) can consent to any man or woman being the father or second parent.”

Critics say the laws allow single women to choose random individuals and will lead to genetically incorrect information on the birth certificate.

They say legal parents will be nominated in the way godparents have traditionally been chosen, often based on transient friendships. They fear that, if the second parent has no biological link to the child and is not the boyfriend or girlfriend of the mother, the arrangement will be fragile.

Opponents also argue the legal changes further dismantle the traditional family.

David Jones, professor of bioethics at St Mary’s University College in southwest London, said: “These fathers or second parents sound more like godparents. I wonder how wise it is to encourage people to do this because the ‘father’ or second parent will have legal rights and responsibilities.”

He added: “This sounds like social engineering on the hoof. This is now arbitrary.” Baroness Ruth Deech, a former chair of the HFEA, said: “What I object to is the falsification of the birth certificate. It is supposed to be a true record of the genetic origins of birth.

“This is putting the rights and wishes of the parents way above those of the child. It is absurd that anyone can be named as the father or the second parent.”

The HFEA points out that, for the first time, when donated sperm is used, an unmarried woman will be asked who she consents to being named as the child’s “father” or second parent. The chosen parent will also need to give specific consent.

Clinics will be obliged to offer counselling before the agreements are signed. It would be unlikely for the donor to be
named on the birth certificate because the sample is normally obtained from a sperm bank.

The health department says the new laws, set out in the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008, clarify the legal identity of parents who are not married or in civil partnerships.

For women who are married or in a civil partnership and who use donor sperm, the husband or lesbian girlfriend will automatically be named unless they make a written objection.

The laws also remove the need for clinics to consider a child’s “need for a father” when offering fertility treatment, a move to prevent discrimination against lesbian couples.

Supporters of the changes deny random individuals will be named as parents because they will need to give formal consent to legal obligations, including potentially being pursued for financial contributions to the upbringing of the child.

Evan Harris, a Liberal Democrat MP, said: “This is a big step and is unlikely to be taken by someone who does not take their responsibilities seriously.”

by Sarah-Kate Templeton

Men urged to make sperm will

Increasing numbers of women are asking hospitals to harvest the sperm of their dead or dying partner for IVF.

Experts have called for young men to make special wills recording their consent (or otherwise) for the use of their sperm if they die unexpectedly.

Michael Buist, director of intensive care at Dandenong Hospital, said requests for sperm harvesting were becoming more frequent.

"When I was first confronted with it, I thought 'this is right out of left field, I have got no idea (what to do)'," Associate Professor Buist said. "It's certainly something we have seen a bit more of recently. For people who practise in (intensive care or hospital emergency departments) it's a request that takes most people by surprise."

He is co-author of a paper in the latest Medical Journal of Australia examining the issue.

The paper found a glaring paradox in Victorian law. In many circumstances sperm may be legally harvested; for instance, by consent of the coroner in case of death, or through consent of next of kin if a patient is unconscious.

But harvested sperm cannot lawfully be used in IVF in Victoria without the explicit written consent of the man. The partner must take it to another state in which implied consent is enough.

Co-author Sarah Middleton, a lecturer at the Monash University Law Faculty, said the safest option was to insist on written consent.

Dr Middleton said sperm donation was different from organ donation. In organ donation, doctors could rely on the word of a family member about the deceased's wishes.

But in sperm donation, the person giving evidence of consent was likely to be the woman wanting access to the sperm, she said. "She may have a conflict of interest. It's about the man's reproductive rights, and I think they should survive your death."

She said the idea of taking something from a corpse to create new life was a difficult issue. "It would be good if people were encouraged to record their wishes — (but) people in this reproductive age group aren't usually going to make their intentions clear in writing."

Others have challenged the role of consent in posthumous reproduction.

In the Journal of Law and Medicine last year, Sarah Jones, of the University of Otago, wrote in a paper consent should be considered along with a fuller picture including the values of the sperm donor, the future prospects of the child and the needs and motivations of the mother.

"The interests of deceased and permanently unconscious patients are notoriously difficult to ascertain," the paper said.

Another MJA paper reported that women were freezing their eggs as a form of insurance against their decline in fertility.

The report by the Queensland Fertility Group found success rates with thawed eggs were now close to fresh IVF.

The authors said egg freezing was still an expensive and not always reliable option.


* Nick Miller

Florida is scrambling crocodiles' brains with magnets

Strapping a magnet to a crocodile's head seems like two counts of animal cruelty for the price of one, just to appease old people in Florida who are racist against crocodiles in their backyards.

Florida state wildlife officials are taping magnets to poor crocodiles' heads when they catch them in people's yards or wherever they're not wanted (because people are racist against crocodiles, but for some reason not Crocs), even though they're gentle creatures. Magnets attached to the side of their heads throw off their internal navigational system, which it's believed is based on Earth's magnetic field, so the crocs don't return to where they're caught—which they do, normally, even if you take 'em a long way away. They'll move up to 10 miles a week to get back to where they were.

Personally, if people don't like crocodiles they much, I think they should send monkeys after them. I mean, Donkey Kong does pretty awesome against them, and then it's just nature doing its thing. It took him three tries, but I mean, there haven't been any of them for Donkey to deal with in a while.

Update for commenters complaining about crocs vs. alligators: Reuters is also reporting it's crocodiles they're strapping magnets to, not alligators, though that might be an alligator in the picture, which is from the Florida Fish and Wildlife website. And The University of Florida says there are crocodiles in Florida, they're just endangered (as the original article says, there are about 2,000 in the wild in Florida).

Try Snake-Wine

Snake wine (Vietnamese) is an alcoholic beverage that includes a whole venomous snake in the bottle. It originated in Vietnam and can be found around Southeast Asia. The snakes, preferably venomous ones, are usually not preserved for their meat. They are preserved to have the snake poison dissolved in the liquor. However, because snake venom is protein-based, they are unfolded and therefore inactivated due to the influence of the denaturing effects of ethanol.
A large venomous snake can be placed into a glass jar of rice wine, often with many smaller snakes, turtles, insects, or birds, and left to steep for many months. The wine is drunk as a restorative in small shots or cups.
Body fluids of snake are mixed into wine and consumed immediately in the form of a shot. Snake blood wine is prepared by slicing a snake along its belly and draining its blood into a mixing vat with rice wine or grain alcohol. Snake bile wine is done through a similar method by using the contents of the gall bladder. Snake meat, liver, and skin can be prepared to accompany the drinks.

The Bandra-Worli Sealink - An Exclusive Preview

It was a dream Sunday! Sid from Evavo Massage Chairs had talked about getting permission to get a personalized tour of the Bandra-Worli Sealink about a year ago. somehow, either I was traveling or the guy who was supposed to be our guide was on leave and so on and so forth. I was pleasantly surprised by Sid a couple of days ago when he said Sunday was possible. I jumped at this opportunity & Adrian-Vandana also showed a keen interest in joining me at dawn on Sunday. We decided at 6:15 am as the meeting time so as to photograph the dawn over Mumbai from the top of the main supporting pillar! Let me give you a brief introduction about this unique infrastructure project which is so special to Mumbai.
The Bandra Worli Sea Link will be an 8-lane, cable-stayed bridge with pre-stressed concrete viaduct approaches, which will link Bandra and the western suburbs of Mumbai with Worli and central Mumbai, and is the first phase of the proposed West Island Freeway system. The Rs. 1600 crore project of Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) is being executed by Hindustan Construction Company (The same company developing Lavasa - Free India's first man-made hillstation!). Although expected to have been completed by December 2008, after a long delay of 5 years, construction is still underway due to political issues raised by the fisherfolk who wanted a different site for the exit ramp at Worli & the construction was stalled for over a year due to a court injunction. As per the Times of India, the bridge is now slated to open on May 1, 2009 on Maharastra day. The Sea Link will enable speedy travel between Bandra and Worli, cutting travel times up to one hour.

Presently, the Mahim Causeway is the only link connecting the western suburbs to island city of Mumbai. The existing north–southwestern corridor is highly congested and during the peak hours results in a bottleneck at Mahim Causeway. The sea link will act as an alternate route between the western suburbs of Mumbai and central Mumbai, in addition to the existing Mahim Causeway. This link will also form a part of the west island freeway.Access will be controlled on the Worli end by toll plazas on the Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan Road, and on the Bandra end by toll plazas at Love Grove Junction.

Vehicular traffic measuring about 120,000 PCU travels on the Mahim Causeway everyday and during peak hours and it takes about forty minutes to travel from Mahim to Worli, a distance of about 8 km. MSRDC has awarded the contract of constructing the Bandra Worli Sea-Link – Package - IV to the HCC (Hindustan Construction Company) and its foreign partner, the China Harbour Engineering Corporation, which has successfully completed similar projects. HCC has the responsibility of maintaining the bridge during the damage liability period of five years.

The original project design was modified to include two separate towers for the main cable stay bridge. In addition to this, the bridge was realigned around 150 meters into the sea and an additional cable stay bridge was introduced at the Worli side to increase the height of the bridge to accommodate the demands of local fishermen of Worli Koliwada to ease the vessel movement under the bridge closer to their habitat. Due to the change in the scope of work, the project was delayed in the initial stages, which resulted in increased project cost. Presently the work is in full swing and the Bandra Worli Sea-Link is expected to be complete by May 2009. The new projected date is almost a year later than earlier estimates.According to what we saw, it might really open towards early next year... I won't be surprised if it opens on May 01, 2010!

The Bandra Cable Stay Bridge, part of the Bandra Worli Sea Link (BWSL) was connected to the approach spans on May 27, 2008. This is a significant milestone towards completion of the Sea Link being built by HCC prior to the onset of Mumbai’s monsoon last season.We could actually drive to within a couple of kilometres from the exit ramp at Worli. The Bandra Cable Stay section of the BWSL spans 600 m in length and towers to a height of 126 m (equivalent to a 44 storied building). We could actually go up in the Italian construction elevator upto 100 metres(see pictures)!!!! The Cable Stay system comprises 2,250 km of high strength galvanized steel wires which support the Cable Stay Bridge weighing 20,000 ton. An engineering marvel and the first-ever open Sea Bridge of its kind, the Bandra Worli Sea Link is one of the most complex and advanced construction projects in India.And we actually got a chance for an exclusive preview today!!!!! Thank you, Sid!

The project was initiated more than 10 years ago but it was delayed due to public interest litigations and inability on the part of the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation Ltd (MSRDC Ltd.), which is the main developer of the project, to adhere to the project milestones. Mr Anil Deshmukh, State Public Works Minister (Public Undertakings), addressing the media, said that the original cost of the bridge was Rs 400 crore but due to opposition from the Worli fisherfolk the project was delayed and costs escalated. The project was then Added up more 3.6 km adding up total cost of aroung 1200, escalating it from Rs 400 crore to Rs 1600 crore. Which extended Bandra-Worli Sea Link to 2.0 Km to 5.6 Km, adding up more 3.6 Km which extended it up till Haji Ali. Mr Anil Deshmukh added that the toll on the sea link would be collected for 30 years. For passenger car, the toll would be Rs 30 and for light commercial vehicle, it would be Rs 45.

Our head was spinning with all the information on display at the HCC site-office, pre-sun-rise. We were all geared up for some fresh salty sea-air on the bridge. Finally at 6:45am, our personal deputed guide, Mr Rampati Yadav got into our car & guided us onto the ramp. What a massive structure- It did not lool that awesome from the reclamation roads. This was something else. We had a couple of photo-stops on the ramp, met a couple of engineers & then onto the 44th floor (well maybe 38th floor!)in the construction lift for a view of a lifetime. We all thanked Mr Tendulkar & Sid for having given us this "Top Of The City View" which we will cherish for a lifetime. now, yeh dil maange more.... I hope we can get a view from the top during peak monsoons:)

Life