Evidence suggests women's ovaries can grow new eggs • Hacker News Board

Re: Evidence suggests women's ovaries can grow new eggs

#31

Post by oldmanjay » Mon, Oct 10, 2016, 8:03 PM UTC

hashberry wrote: post #26

hacker_9 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have three possible theories for this: 1. Evolution saw no need for it; knowing how our eye's classify light signals into objects and figure out depth etc are not important to survival. What is important is knowing exactly if you are looking at a predator as soon as possible. 2. Too much data for consciousness to handle; There is something like 1 million connections between each eye and the brain alone. Then there…

4. Consciousness wasn't supposed to happen as living organisms do not need it to survive and reproduce. But since humans are so successful: "It's a feature, not a bug!"

What does "supposed to happen" mean in the context of evolution?

Re: Evidence suggests women's ovaries can grow new eggs

#32

Post by psyc » Mon, Oct 10, 2016, 8:07 PM UTC

bordercases wrote: post #15

colejohnson66 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What astounds me is that the human brain doesn't even know it works (at least consciously). Your brain tells your body what to do, but your consciousness has no idea how. For me, that's what's so amazing about neural networks! If you could ask an individual neuron why their f(x) is the way it is, they probably would only be able to tell you that "that gets the result the brain wants". They're like individual computer…

I wonder why we don't have several conscious thoughts at once.

I hypothesize that this is tied to our small working memory. Introspection suggests to me that working memory does not only hold small items of data, but is also where pointers into bigger networks must be anchored. When I'm thinking about a problem or project, my mind's eye saccades around the small features of the problem, but it still feels like those features are being swapped into working memory.

Re: Evidence suggests women's ovaries can grow new eggs

#33

Post by psyc » Mon, Oct 10, 2016, 8:10 PM UTC

Senji wrote: post #27

yazaddaruvala wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While most of the time, ideas in my head are extremely cohesive, there are times when they are not. For one, while talking to myself, I refer to myself as a we. In other situations, primarily ones of brainstorming, I can definitely feel multiple "quadrants" of my brain initiating different ideas. The reason I feel they are different consciouses is because each idea is driven by different motivations. Some of these ar…

That's interesting. I, don't "talk" or "think aloud" in my head myself. At all. Ideas just snap into focus at once immediately. Same goes for when I'm trying to figure out a puzzle or when programing. At the moment I learn something new it just snaps into place at once and the knowledge is integrated on the spot. Also English is a foreign language for me and the same goes for my native language. Whole concepts emerge…

This is true for me, but only for domains I know very well. The less I understand the problem, the more I have to think in my head. But there is a mode that I make use of frequently when I want the best answer I can currently produce - I just have to quiet my mind, and the best available answer immediately bubbles to top of mind.

Re: Evidence suggests women's ovaries can grow new eggs

#34

Post by gabrielgoh » Mon, Oct 10, 2016, 8:16 PM UTC

acaciapalm wrote: post #5

It continues to astound me how little we actually seem to know about anatomy, especially women's anatomy (hold the jokes, folks).

Forget internal organs, it amazes me that scholarship in the 15th century was completely ignorant the clitoris. From Wikipedia

> Gabriele Falloppio (discoverer of the fallopian tube), who claimed that he was the first to discover the clitoris. In 1561, Falloppio stated, "Modern anatomists have entirely neglected it ... and do not say a word about it ... and if others have spoken of it, know that they have taken it from me or my students"

Re: Evidence suggests women's ovaries can grow new eggs

#35

Post by acaciapalm » Mon, Oct 10, 2016, 8:28 PM UTC

kevinnk wrote: post #28

acaciapalm wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then there was that huge study that showed the birth control pill causes loss of sex drive and depression[0]. [0] https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfr...

That study showed a "link" (i.e. correlation) between hormonal contraception and first diagnosis of depression or use of antidepressants. That's not the same as showing the pill causes depression! Even the study authors explicitly say that more study is needed before we can definitively say there is cause and effect.

It's difficult to truly prove, but many women have noticed this and complained about it. It is only now that they are finally actually looking in to the possibility.

I find it incredibly ironic that people take it as a given that women's hormones might affect moods (PMS, anyone?), but then brush off women's concerns that taking large doses of female hormones might --in fact!-- have an affect on mood.

Re: Evidence suggests women's ovaries can grow new eggs

#36

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Oct 10, 2016, 8:28 PM UTC

kevinnk wrote: post #28

acaciapalm wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then there was that huge study that showed the birth control pill causes loss of sex drive and depression[0]. [0] https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfr...

That study showed a "link" (i.e. correlation) between hormonal contraception and first diagnosis of depression or use of antidepressants. That's not the same as showing the pill causes depression! Even the study authors explicitly say that more study is needed before we can definitively say there is cause and effect.

[deleted]

Re: Evidence suggests women's ovaries can grow new eggs

#37

Post by acaciapalm » Mon, Oct 10, 2016, 8:40 PM UTC

thr328982 wrote: post #11

> would raise the prospect of new treatments to allow older women to conceive This is a bit of ethical problem. Pregnancy at older age brings many risks to mother and child.

Sperm from older men also has higher risk of producing kids with genetic defects[0]

[0]http://genetics.thetech.org/older-dads’-kids-higher-risk-gen...

Re: Evidence suggests women's ovaries can grow new eggs

#38

Post by photogrammetry » Mon, Oct 10, 2016, 9:05 PM UTC

Declanomous wrote: post #29

sambe wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by "epigenetic code"? Epigenetic means not encoded in DNA. Heritability is hotly debated (and anything positive in that area tends to be overstated in the media). Wiki has a few links on contested terms and taking caution vs enthusiasm of eg Chopra. There have also been several stories like this http://epgntxeinstein.tumblr.com/post/127416455028/over-inte... over the last months.

I realize epigenetic traits are not encoded in DNA. It's perfectly acceptable to use the term code to refer to an epigenetic "configuration". I didn't point out this fact because I figured the people reading Hacker News probably know that things can be encoded without using DNA, and I felt the distinction was needlessly pedantic. I recognize the limited scope of epigenetics, however epigenetics do play a significant…

They are encoded in DNA. They are patterns in the physical structure of DNA beyond the raw A,T,G,C etc. Please be accurate in HN comments, and don't oversimplify for 'clarity' or 'readability,' especially for a topic as complex as the heritability of epigenetic traits.

Additionally, Wikipedia [0] is a quite satisfactory source for information on epigenetics. Your casual dismissal of it suggests that you don't even know the basics of the topic, and shouldn't be mocking 'Joe Average' or the media for what you perceive to be their ignorance.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetics

Re: Evidence suggests women's ovaries can grow new eggs

#39

Post by chongli » Mon, Oct 10, 2016, 9:18 PM UTC

colejohnson66 wrote: post #14

acaciapalm wrote: post #5

It continues to astound me how little we actually seem to know about anatomy, especially women's anatomy (hold the jokes, folks).

What astounds me is that the human brain doesn't even know it works (at least consciously). Your brain tells your body what to do, but your consciousness has no idea how. For me, that's what's so amazing about neural networks! If you could ask an individual neuron why their f(x) is the way it is, they probably would only be able to tell you that "that gets the result the brain wants". They're like individual computer…

To do such would require a subset of the brain to contain more information than the whole, which is clearly impossible.

Re: Evidence suggests women's ovaries can grow new eggs

#40

Post by epistasis » Mon, Oct 10, 2016, 9:21 PM UTC

>The findings were presented at the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology annual conference in July and are described in a journal paper that is in review.

WTF why is the Guardian reporting on this now? It would make more sense to report on the conference presentation, or to wait for the publication to be in general circulation. But reporting during the paper review is not timely, and if it doesn't pass peer-review you're going to be stuck with your pants down.