Thursday 8 December 2016

Caesarianing the Opportunity?


There has been recent debate about whether the use of Caesarian sectioning might produce a change in human morphology as it allows women with relatively narrow pelvises to give birth, potentially passing on this property to succeeding generations (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/07/caesarian--sections-mother-blaming-small_pelvises). It does not seem to me to be very likely that this will have a major effect as not all such sections are to enable the relatively large-headed baby to pass through the pelvic opening (cosmetic and emergency factors may also be involved). I also suspect that inheritance of a narrow pelvis is not down to a simple gene/ combination of genes (and, pretty obviously, the baby has 2 parents). One might also mention that any medical correction (e.g. Glasses or contact lenses for myopia) would improve the possibility of passing on these features to the next generation but we don't generally agonise about this. In general, diversity is biologically useful.

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What's In a Critter's Name? 11. Comma butterfly

The Comma butterfly ( Polygonia c-album) gets its name from the punctuation-like mark, on the underside of its wings.