How are we celebrating tonight? With a homemade-dumpling party, of course! These are actually quite simple: a chopped base of veggies and/or meat, wrapped up into little pre-made wrappers, and boiled, steamed, or fried. Having grown up around dumpling parties, they are delicious and not too intimidating.
A few interesting comments by professors this week about the female reproductive system. Yesterday an endocrinologist showed us a graph demonstrating that the age of onset of puberty has gone down over the past ~125 years, and then pointed out that the age of adulthood, for social intents and purposes, has gone up dramatically (we're in our 20s and in med school). I realized that a hundred or so years ago, puberty and adulthood aligned, and we had no need to ask the kinds of social questions that we're debating now as a society.
Today, our anatomy professor explained why a "coathanger" abortion poorly done, rather than irritating the uterus as intended, pierces into the cavity above, leading to infections, bleeding, and often death. He commented that clinicians used to see more of these, but since Roe v. Wade the number has gone down.
(photo courtesy of a classmate)
But it's not all male professors. Our histology professor yesterday described for us the sensation of breast feeding from a mother's perspective, as it relates to the cells and mechanisms on her slides. Pretty interesting!
1 comment:
At the same time, there are socioeconomic and ethnic dimensions to consider when thinking about the onset of puberty and adulthood.
I notice that all of the countries in your graph are ethnically primarily N/NW-European. It's plausible to me that a country becomes more K-selected as it develops and becomes more prosperous and likewise that poorer countries are more r-selected...but if that's true that would only account for the advancing age of adulthood.
Why would the age of puberty be declining? Aside from hormones in milk (and chemicals in plastic baby bottles, etc.), one reason may be mass immigration from more r-selected populations (i.e., less developed countries), and a stronger safety net, which may result in greater reproduction among domestic r-selected populations (i.e., the poor).
From a Harvard SPH-led study published in 2000: "Results indicated that Latina girls reached menarche significantly earlier than did their White counterparts. However, after controlling for socioeconomic indicators, the significant age difference in menarcheal onset between Latina and White girls disappeared. This finding highlights the importance of including socioeconomic factors in explorations of menarcheal differences across race/ethnicity. Latinas reached menarche earlier than African Ameri- cans, and this difference across racial/ethnic groups persisted even after con- trolling for SES indicators."
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