fertility

A woman’s voice tends to rise in pitch the closer she is to ovulation according to research published today in the Royal Society Journal Biology Letters.

Researchers believe this is because a higher pitch is more attractive and more feminine, thus signalling fertility to potential partners.

Body weight and fertility have long known to be related to each other -- women who are too thin, for example, can have trouble becoming pregnant.

Now, a master switch has been found in the brain of mice that controls both, and researchers say it may work the same way in humans.

Since the 1962 publication of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, awareness of how environmental toxicants can impact fertility has increased.

Researchers now provide evidence that adverse reproductive effects of toxicants may extend not only to the children of exposed individuals, but also to the next generation.

(University of Nottingham) Researchers at the University of Nottingham are set to take part in one of the first studies of the effect of environmental chemicals on female mammals.

Small molecules known as miRNAs, which are generated naturally by the body, regulate the conversion of genetic information into proteins.

New data have now indicated that miRNAs can control the fertility of female mice by regulating the development and function of the corpus luteum, the structure that forms at the site of release of the fertilized egg and that is required to maintain pregnancy at the early stages.

Researchers at Yale School of Medicine have found that in-utero exposure to the hormone grhelin, a molecule that controls appetite and hunger and nutrition, can result in decreased fertility and fewer offspring.