Thursday, March 19, 2009

Back to Serious

Alrighty, so here's a pertinent post, based on this article: Male 'Biological Clock' Ticking

First, a story: I had skimmed this article on Tuesday (no, I haven't been slacking as much as ya'll thought) and something came up related to these so-called clocks while walking to deep dish pizza (heavenly, btw). Unfortunately, I sucked in trying to related this story, because I forgot a few pertinent points, such as why it's bad for men to sire children when they're getting up there in years. Except I couldn't remember the word "sire" and I said "spawn" instead, and got made fun for that. Pretty amusing, I agree. I know, bad story.

Back to the article. If a man SIRES children in his 40s, the children tend to score worse on intelligence tests, and there's a higher risk of physical defects AND neuropsychological conditions. Of course, we all know that "old" mothers result in higher risk of children with birth defects, BUT they're kids tend to score better on intelligence tests.

Explanation? From puberty, men create new sperm all the time. So by the time they're in their 40s, these spermies have been replicated A LOT and so there's a higher chance of mutation. Women have fewer

1 comment:

  1. I have read about this in numerous articles. It really makes you think. It seems like my generation is having children later an later in life. I think we have yet to see the effects of this decision because our parents generation tended to have children much earlier in life. I have become obsessed with heredity. Two out of five siblings have developed some sort of mental disorder in my family. My older sister and myself (the two oldest) were conceived in my parent's 20's. My brother and two other sisters were conceived when my parents were in their thirties. Two of them have developed mental disorders and the other had a very troubled set of teenage years. I always wonder why they were affected and my sister and I weren't. Was it due to my parents' ages or simply the luck of the draw. Anyway, just stuff I think about. I may post about it in the future. Thanks for the post!

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