Unexplained Infertility

 

“Follicular fluid from one female was better at attracting sperm from one male, while follicular fluid from another female was better at attracting sperm from a different male,” said Professor Fitzpatrick. This shows that interactions between human eggs and sperm depend on the specific identity of the women and men involved.”

The egg does not always agree with the woman’s choice of partner. The researchers found that eggs did not always attract more sperm from their partner than from another male.

Is this egg or sperm choice? Professor Fitzpatrick explained that sperm have only one job – to fertilise eggs – so it doesn’t make sense for them to be choosy. Eggs, on the other hand, can benefit by picking high-quality or genetically compatible sperm.

“The idea that eggs are choosing sperm is really novel in human fertility,” said Professor Daniel Brison, “Research on the way eggs and sperm interact will advance fertility treatments and may eventually help us understand some of the currently ‘unexplained’ causes of infertility in couples.

Don Segundo Sombra

 

En los pagos de Areco. Segundo Ramírez, del libro de Ricardo Guiraldes. Mi libro favorito. 

Heritage Center of Cochin Jewry

 What am I working on today? It is a Heritage Center of the Indian (Cochin) Jewry in a Moshav near my home city. They are brown-skinned, nice people, proud of their ethnic traditions as all the other 120 "edot" (tribes?) of Israel. They have a 2000-year history on the Malabar Coast. Thomas, one of the disciples of Jesus, settled among them and converted many, forming the  Saint Thomas Christian population of India. 

Sabiduria criolla

Inodoro toro, Mendieta perro.

4 Billion US$ Startup

In less than one year, these two boys, Din Leitersdorf and Moshe Shalev (pic), founded a business called Decart, which attracted investments from Nvidia and Amazon, now worth 4 billion US dollars. It was a year of war, bombardment, and fear. 

Magic!

Internet swamp

 A post on X claims there are 100,000 articles on Hantavirus, suggesting it is a Moderna campaign to frighten the world. The reason given is that Moderna has many vaccines in store that need to be sold.

The internet has turned into a psychological battleground; it is difficult to make sense of it. Anyway, for me, the whole thing is irrelevant. 

The Coming Plague

 The Spanish passenger of the Antarctic voyage suspected of contact with the Hantavirus was put off on an isolated islet in the Canaries.  After the Regina Coeli Sunday morning prayer, Pope Leo XIV thanked the people of the Canary Islands for allowing the arrival of the MV Hondius, affected by a hantavirus outbreak. 

The British passenger was landed on Tristan da Cunha. 

Tristan da Cunha — the world's most remote inhabited island.

It sits in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean, roughly halfway between South Africa and South America. It's a British Overseas Territory with only about 200 residents, no airstrip, and normally accessible only by a six-day boat journey.

A British Army specialist team of 8 people — six paratroopers and two military clinicians — parachuted from an RAF A400M aircraft onto the island after a suspected Hantavirus case was confirmed in a British national who had been a passenger on a cruise ship hit by an outbreak.

The logistics were extraordinary: The A400M flew 6,788 km from RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, refuelling mid-flight from a RAF Voyager tanker aircraft, before reaching the island. Haaretz