| Humans might be the only species that actually choose to go under the knife to have their sex changed. But sometimes gender switches are a semi-regular occurrence in other species. In Colorado, fish are changing sex at rapid rates, reportedly due to the estrogen dribbling into Boulder’s Wastewater that’s concentrated enough to turn males into females. |
| Now, we can add sea coral to the list of organisms that are changing sex as a response to environmental factors: Israeli scientists report that Japanese corals change their sex to survive the pressures of climate change. |
| Zoologist Yossi Loya from Tel Aviv University discovered that female mushroom coral becomes male when the ocean floor gets too hot. |
| The reason for this abrupt switch is because it takes more energy to be female, making male coral more adaptable to the heat. |
| Sometime during the next six months, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will consider approving the FC2, a second-generation female condom. |
| The female condom allows women to take the lead in protecting themselves from HIV infection. In short - they don’t have to rely on their male partner to take the responsibility. |
| A 2005 study by Dr. David Holtgrave found that distributing 16.6 million female condoms in South Africa could prevent 10,000 HIV infections. |
| female condoms also would save up to $35.7 million in health care costs in South Africa. |
| “The rate of AIDS diagnoses for black women was nearly 23 times the rate for white women.” High-risk sexual contact was responsible for 74 percent of those infections. |
| Despite those terrifying numbers, many women are reluctant to push their partners to wear condoms, for fear of driving them away. |
| Wider availability and affordability of the FC2 could allow women to protect themselves without having to negotiate with their partners. |
| Nearly one out of two women would rather give up sex for two weeks than go without the Internet, according to a survey released Monday. |
| Far fewer men would choose to go without sex, according to the survey of 2,119 adults carried out by the online research firm Harris Interactive and sponsored by Intel Corp., the world’s biggest computer chip maker.
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| Forty-six percent of the women polled said they would rather go without sex for two weeks than give up access to the Internet for the same period of time, according to the survey |
| Only 30 percent of men said they would rather forgo intimate relations than cyber ones. |
Ninety-five percent of those surveyed said it is “very important, important or somewhat important” to be able to access the Internet.
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| Sixty-five percent of those surveyed rated Internet access above other discretionary spending items such as cable television subscriptions (39 percent), dining out (20 percent), shopping for clothes (18 percent) or a health club membership (10 percent)See more at www.physorg.com |
| The microscopic aquatic creatures known as bdelloid rotifers are used to enduring dry spells”in more senses than one. |
| In their common habitats of moss, soil, and seasonal pools, these minuscule, transparent animals routinely survive periods of complete dessication that can last from days to years. |
| All 460 known species of bdelloids consist exclusively of egg-laying females that have essentially been cloning themselves for 100 million years. |
| Their endurance has long posed a kind of scientific mystery, as the majority of asexually reproducing species tend to fade away over time. |
| For most life-forms, going for long periods without water spells certain doom. But dehydrated bdelloids somehow reconstitute themselves when moisture returns, even though their metabolic activity stops, their cell membranes rupture, and their DNA probably gets fragmented too. |
| Britain’s Schools Minister plans to introduce sex lessons for five-year-olds. They already have them in the Netherlands. Is that why they also have the lowest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe? |
| Sex is everywhere in the Netherlands, yet the country has the lowest teenage
pregnancy rate in the West and the lowest rates of sexually transmitted
diseases among young people. |
| We don’t have formal sex education in primary schools,” he says. “The
children talk about sex when they feel like it and when they want an
explanation. We treat sex as a healthy physical activity between two adults
who are in love |
| He believes it is important to talk to children in a relaxed way about sex
before they become self-conscious and embarrassed. “It is all about
self-respect,” |
| There is no point in telling children just to say
‘no’ - this is a liberal country; you need to tell them why they are saying
‘no’ and when to say ‘yes’.See more at women.timesonline.co.uk |
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