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Can Refrigeration Bring us Back to Life?

The seemingly miraculous revival of a newborn baby that had initially been pronounced dead and refrigerated in Israel is raising eyebrows among scientists and doctors.

Some wonder if the baby really died before being put in a morgue refrigerator for more than five hours and then apparently reviving. And though the baby has since died (possibly, again), some doctors remain baffled about whether the extreme cooling had a life-preserving effect.

“We don’t know how to explain this, so when we don’t know how to explain things in the medical world we call it a miracle, and this is probably what happened,” hospital deputy director Moshe Daniel said, according to Reuters.

However, there could be a less divine and more scientific explanation for the recovery via refrigerator.

“There have been a number of well-documented case histories of adults and children who drowned in very cold water, even trapped under ice for hours, and were successfully revived many hours later,” Alistair Jan Gunn, a professor of physiology and pediatrics at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, told LiveScience. “Of course, this is used routinely in modern cardiac bypass.”

Decreasing a body’s temperature can induce a state of suspended animation, where metabolism slows and the body needs less oxygen and energy to survive.

“There is some historical precedent for how this might work,” said Dr. Neil Finer, chief of the University of California-San Diego‘s division of neonatology. “Many years ago some babies were put into ice water at birth to try to revive them. There were reports that this actually could be effective and that some children survived.”

Induced hypothermia has even been studied as a treatment for various injuries, sometimes with astonishing results.
In some experiments, such as those conducted by Hasan Alam at Massachusetts General Hospital, animals such as pigs and dogs survived normally-fatal injuries and blood loss by being cooled to a state of hibernation while doctors repaired their injuries.

Cooling therapy has even shown promising results in infants with hypoxic–ischemic encephalopathy, or brain damage due to lack of oxygen, according to a 2005 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine .

Sources: The Times Of India

Battleaxe Mothers Mostly to Have Sons Than Daughters

Dominant, aggressive women are more likely to have sons than daughters, scientists believe.
A study in New Zealand found a possible link between high testosterone levels in women and giving birth to boys.

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The findings question the idea that the sex of babies is determined by chance.

A team led by Dr Valerie Grant of the Department of Medical and Health Sciences at the University of Auckland, found a link between high levels of the male hormone testosterone in cows‘ wombs and their likelihood to have a bull calf.

The link could explain patterns in human populations such as the phenomenon dubbed the “war time effect” – in which disproportionate numbers of boys are born at the end of periods of hardship such as wars.

Previous studies have found links between dominant behaviour in female animals and higher levels of testosterone. Stress is also believed to boost levels of the hormone.

The team extracted follicles from cow ovaries and tested for testosterone before fertilising the eggs. Those eggs which had been exposed to higher levels of testosterone were more likely to develop into male embryos.

“Results showed that follicular testosterone levels were significantly higher for subsequently male embryos,” the team wrote.

The findings suggest that sperm carrying “Y” chromosomes – present in male animals – are more likely to fertilise an egg if it has been exposed to testosterone.

While in cows high testosterone was linked to dominant behaviour, in humans it was associated with everything from lower divorce rates to right wing political views and spatial ability.

Sources:Telegraph UK.Co

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