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Skin exposure to UVB light induces a skin-brain-gonad axis and sexual behavior

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Re: Skin exposure to UVB light induces a skin-brain-gonad axis and sexual behavior

#31

Post by xyzzyz »

totony wrote: post #26

"The questionnaire we used measured romantic passion, rather than physiological/sexual passion, due to institutional review board (IRB) ethical concerns regarding sensitive sexually oriented questions." Curious about this. I understand ethical boards for psychological blind studies and such, but for questionaires?

Yes, it’s stupid. IRBs today are, on net, more of a detriment to science than a benefit. When they block a stupid voluntary questionnaire for being “unethical”, just imagine how much other useful science is not being done, because of concern lack of ethics of a similar grade.

Re: Skin exposure to UVB light induces a skin-brain-gonad axis and sexual behavior

#32

Post by INTPenis »

sitkack wrote: post #21

Could be a signaling behavior to encourage spring births. Does UVB peak in the middle of the summer? 9 months later is probably the best time to birth a child for that child's success.

I was thinking along the same lines but also harvest for fattening up.

Re: Skin exposure to UVB light induces a skin-brain-gonad axis and sexual behavior

#33

Post by techdragon »

ilaksh wrote: post #28
sitkack wrote: post #21

Could be a signaling behavior to encourage spring births. Does UVB peak in the middle of the summer? 9 months later is probably the best time to birth a child for that child's success.

That seems possible but also more directly winter may be a bad time to start a pregnancy.

Avoiding the birth of a child right before winter would be advantageous for its survival… winter being (on average, not all regions/locales obviously) the hardest month to survive evolutionarily speaking this would be a beneficial trait and be likely to stick around. Ideally you want your early hominid babies at the end of winter through spring and summer so at worst they are though the first few fragile months that put the most drain on the mother, before the harshest winter weather sets in.

While not globally consistent due to regional weather differences it makes sense for there to be a broad average seasonal benefit.

Re: Skin exposure to UVB light induces a skin-brain-gonad axis and sexual behavior

#34

Post by Godel_unicode »

ipaddr wrote: post #18
derefr wrote: post #3

Implying that a primary causal factor for globally-declining birth rates could be... increased adoption of sunscreen, leading to decreases in libido? (I'm only half-joking; the countries that are most obsessed with keeping skin white — and so are likely the highest sunscreen users — are also the countries with the lowest birth rates.)

It is probably birth control in the water supply that are causing birth rate declines.

That has been thoroughly studied and debunked. Just one example of many:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2854760/

Add to this the fact that less than 1% of the estrogen in the water supply is from The Pill.

Re: Skin exposure to UVB light induces a skin-brain-gonad axis and sexual behavior

#35

Post by xcambar »

arbol wrote: post #11
yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the countries that are most obsessed with keeping skin white — and so are likely the highest sunscreen users Isn't it rather more about avoiding skin cancer?

There are a whole host of benefits associated with sun exposure that are reduced by wearing sunscreen. “Avoidance of sun exposure is a risk factor of a similar magnitude as smoking, in terms of life expectancy.” https://www.outsideonline.com/health/wellness/sunscreen-sun-...

I am not certain how much credibility this publication deserves.

It's not scientific by nature, it focuses on outdoor activities, which is only a tangent topic, the author has no bio, there is little to no bibliographic references.

Re: Skin exposure to UVB light induces a skin-brain-gonad axis and sexual behavior

#36

Post by littlestymaar »

sitkack wrote: post #21

Could be a signaling behavior to encourage spring births. Does UVB peak in the middle of the summer? 9 months later is probably the best time to birth a child for that child's success.

As far as we know, humans are a tropical species, which means reasoning about summer and winter is likely to be more misleading than anything.

Re: Skin exposure to UVB light induces a skin-brain-gonad axis and sexual behavior

#37

Post by dekervin »

derefr wrote: post #27
numpad0 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get how reduced UV exposure is supposed to be more attributable to sunscreens than to office labors. Most industrial materials block roughly 100% of UV rays, except viewing windows which allows as much as 1%. Therefore, just staying in any modern building alone cuts down UV exposure by 99% at very least. There is absolutely no way some translucent face painting does that.

People have been working white-collar jobs indoors behind UV-reflective windows for 50+ years now. Birth-rate decline — especially to below-replacement levels — begins much more recently than that; and is only happening in certain countries. The set of countries experiencing birth-rate decline is not 1:1 correlated with the set of countries with high/increasing white-collar employment; but, AFAICT, it is 1:1 correlat…

Here is the evolution of the share of blue collar/white collar jobs [0] vs the evolution of fertility rate [1]. I am curious to hear your conclusions from that !

[0] https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft1580...

[1] https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Historical-Trend-in-US-T...

Re: Skin exposure to UVB light induces a skin-brain-gonad axis and sexual behavior

#38

Post by freemint »

xyzzyz wrote: post #31
totony wrote: post #26

"The questionnaire we used measured romantic passion, rather than physiological/sexual passion, due to institutional review board (IRB) ethical concerns regarding sensitive sexually oriented questions." Curious about this. I understand ethical boards for psychological blind studies and such, but for questionaires?

Yes, it’s stupid. IRBs today are, on net, more of a detriment to science than a benefit. When they block a stupid voluntary questionnaire for being “unethical”, just imagine how much other useful science is not being done, because of concern lack of ethics of a similar grade.

IRBs look like a net detrement to most studies because they are a mechanism to prevent really bad/unethical experiments in the far tails of distribution.

If those extreme studies were to happen at a non suppressed rate we would be asking for IRBs and talking how science can't regulate itself.

So IRBs might be effective but they suffer from the prevention paradox.

Re: Skin exposure to UVB light induces a skin-brain-gonad axis and sexual behavior

#39

Post by echelon »

littlestymaar wrote: post #36
sitkack wrote: post #21

Could be a signaling behavior to encourage spring births. Does UVB peak in the middle of the summer? 9 months later is probably the best time to birth a child for that child's success.

As far as we know, humans are a tropical species, which means reasoning about summer and winter is likely to be more misleading than anything.

> Humans are essentially tropical animals and are not equipped to deal with even mild cold. That we can live in cold climates is a result of behavioural adaptations such as wearing appropriate clothing and building shelters.

So this is why I hate winters and don't complain when it's 90 degrees Fahrenheit outside.

I would wear a jacket or hoodie in the middle of summer because of the office AC.

I need to move to Key West.

Re: Skin exposure to UVB light induces a skin-brain-gonad axis and sexual behavior

#40

Post by arbol »

xcambar wrote: post #35
arbol wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a whole host of benefits associated with sun exposure that are reduced by wearing sunscreen. “Avoidance of sun exposure is a risk factor of a similar magnitude as smoking, in terms of life expectancy.” https://www.outsideonline.com/health/wellness/sunscreen-sun-...

I am not certain how much credibility this publication deserves. It's not scientific by nature, it focuses on outdoor activities, which is only a tangent topic, the author has no bio, there is little to no bibliographic references.

Perhaps I should've mentioned that this quote was taken from a research publication.

"In a 2016 study published in the Journal of Internal Medicine, Lindqvist’s team put it in perspective: “Avoidance of sun exposure is a risk factor of a similar magnitude as smoking, in terms of life expectancy.”"

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