Home of A Dude's Guide To Babies: fatherhood funnies and advice for new dads
Powered by Twitter Tools
Share on Facebook Tags: A Dude's Guide to Life, Astronomy, Awestruck, dude, dude's guide, Guide, Lot, Toolsby Richard
It should come as no surprise to any dude who’s been reading this blog for more than a week, that I’ve got a serious love on for, not only outer space, but those jaw-dropping pictures of same.
Which is why I’m so excited about something I stumbled on a couple of days ago.
It’s the third annual Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition from the Telegraph, a newspaper in Great Britain. Sure it’s great that there’s an eclectic mix of professionals and your bog-standard backyard sky snapper, but the really cool thing is the newspaper has an entire gallery of the best of the snaps displayed on its website. Now, that’s what I’m talking about.
So, take that.
And that.
The Elephant-Trunk Nebula
Yeah, these are some amazing pictures. Definitely go over to the website and give it a look. Maybe even give it a vote, yeah?
Share on Facebook Tags: A Dude's Guide to Life, Astronomy, Aurora, Blog, Cool Thing, Couple Of Days, dude, Eclectic Mix, Elephant, Elephant Trunk, Entire Gallery, Great Britain, Guide, Nbsp Nbsp Nbsp Nbsp Nbsp, Nebula, Norway, Outer Space, Photographer, pictures, richard, science, Sky, Snapper, space, Surprise, Telegraph, Vote
by Richard
In the first study of its kind to track the father’s age against incidence of autism and schizophrenia, it’s been found that the older a father is, there is a significant increase in the likelihood that the child born will have autism or develop schizophrenia.
No need to panic just yet, if you’re an older dude thinking about having children, though. According to the researchers, the overall risk for a dude in his 40s and older is only about 2 percent and there might be mitigating factors that are completely unknown or even unsuspected at this time.
So, sort of a good news/bad news thing.
It’s thought that the reason for this slight, but statistically significant, increase in the risk of children developing these disorders is because, as dudes age, there is an increase in the cases of random mutations in the gametes produced by his body. In other words, when we get old, our “boys” start getting a little. . . funny.
A genetic mutation can be either good or bad. Although, the spectacular mutation you might be thinking of (like telepathy or control of magnetism) is, so far, unknown, almost everything that defines us as humans came about as the result of a mutation. It’s the entire basis for evolution. But that’s beside the point.
The point is, a mutation is a random change in the genetic sequence passed down from a parent to a child. The child will be different from the parent in some way that is not accounted for by the combining of two different strings of DNA, one from the father and one from the mother.
But the study, published online in the journal Nature, provides support for the argument that the surging rate of autism diagnoses over recent decades is attributable in part to the increasing average age of fathers, which could account for as many as 30 percent of cases.
The findings also counter the long-standing assumption that the age of the mother is the most important factor in determining the odds of a child having developmental problems. The risk of chromosomal abnormalities, likeDown syndrome, increases for older mothers, but when it comes to some complex developmental and psychiatric problems, the lion’s share of the genetic risk originates in the sperm, not the egg, the study found.
While previous studies have suggested as much, this is the first study to actually find quantifiable support for the thesis that it’s the father’s gametes that give rise to the increased risk of mutation.
The research team found that the average child born to a 20-year-old father had 25 random mutations that could be traced to paternal genetic material. The number increased steadily by two mutations a year, reaching 65 mutations for offspring of 40-year-old men.
The average number of mutations coming from the mother’s side was 15, no matter her age, the study found.
“This study provides some of the first solid scientific evidence for a true increase in the condition” of autism, said Dr. Fred Volkmar, director of the Child Study Center at the Yale School of Medicine, who was not involved in the research. “It is extremely well done and the sample meticulously characterized.”
So it’s basically nothing that should stop you from procreating if you’re an older dude (not like the idea of having to get up in the middle of the night for years even when you’re in your 40s should), it does give you something else to think about.
The more you know. . .
And to find out more, go head over to the article in The New York Times and read the rest. It’s some interesting stuff and they do get into it in a bit more detail than I can here.
Share on Facebook Tags: 40s, A Dude's Guide to Babies, A Dude's Guide to Health, Assumption, autism, Autism Children, boys, children, Different Strings, disease, Dna, dude, evolution, fathers, Gametes, Genetic Material, Genetic Mutation, Genetic Sequence, Good News Bad News, Having Children, Incidence Of Autism, Journal Nature, Likelihood, Magnetism, Medicine, Mitigating Factors, Mutations, Nature, New York Times, Random Change, Random Mutations, richard, Schizophrenia, Schizophrenia In Children, Telepathy
