In hard times, more U.S. women try to sell their eggs

2 hours, 5 minutes ago

By Michelle Nichols and Angela Moore

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Drawn by payments of up to $10,000, an increasing number of women are offering to sell their eggs at U.S. fertility clinics as a way to make money amid the financial crisis.

Nicole Hodges, a 23-year-old actress in New York City who has been out of work since November, says she has decided to sell her eggs because she desperately needs cash.

"I'm still paying off college. I have credit card bills and, you know, rent in New York is so expensive," Hodges, who has been accepted as donor and is waiting to be chosen by a couple, told Reuters Television.

Hodges said there was also some satisfaction in helping an infertile couple have a child. "Yes, the money is very nice, but it's nice to be able to let a mother who wants to be a mother be a mother," she said.

Fertility organizations across the country said there had been a growing interest. The Center for Egg Options in Illinois has seen a 40 percent increase in egg donor inquiries since the start of 2008.

New York City's Northeast Assisted Fertility Group said interest had doubled and the Colorado Center for Reproductive Medicine said it had received 10 percent more inquiries.

The Reproductive Science Center of New England, which does not deal directly with egg donors, said it had gone from no inquiries to now receiving several a month.

The American Society for Reproductive Medicine recommends that total payments to donors be capped at $10,000.

A 2007 study by the society found the U.S. national average payment was $4,216. Payments by clinics in the Northeast were found to average just over $5,000, while those in the Northwest averaged just under $3,000.

WAYS TO MAKE MONEY

Katherine Bernardo, egg donor program manager at Northeast Assisted Fertility Group, said while some women saw donation as an easy way to make money, not everyone was accepted.

"There is an economic climate that encourages women to find creative ways to make money," she said. "That doesn't mean that anyone interested in egg donation actually goes on to donate because so few women are actually eligible."

Bernardo said only 5 percent to 7 percent of the applications she received resulted in the retrieval of eggs. An ideal candidate, she said, was in her twenties, healthy, attractive and well-educated.

Egg donors undergo medical, psychological and genetic testing as well as a background check. If selected, a donor must undergo hormone injections until her eggs are ready to be retrieved.

"And remember the economy puts strain on the recipients too, Bernardo said. "It's a very expensive undertaking to use a donor egg and an IVF (in vitro fertilization) cycle."

Eric Surrey, medical director of the Colorado Center for Reproductive Medicine, said women should not donate their eggs simply for the money.

"We understand that financial compensation is certainly one motivation, but should never be the sole motivation. These women are providing a great gift to others that should not be taken lightly," said Surrey, a past president of the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology.

Not as much money is on offer for men looking to donate sperm. Several sperm banks in New York City, where men are paid about $60 each time they donate, said there had not been a rise in donors.

(Writing by Michele Nichols; Editing by David Storey).

The individual breaks the boundary of his skin and occupies the other side of his senses. He tries to look at himself from any point whatever in space. He feels himself becoming space... He is similar, not similar to something, but just similar. And he invents spaces of which he is 'the convulsive possession'.

Roger Caillois

Boy marries dog to ward off tiger attacks

Wed Feb 18, 12:55 PM

By Jatindra Dash

BHUBANESWAR, India (Reuters) - An infant boy was married off to his neighbors' dog in eastern India by villagers, who said it will stop the groom from being killed by wild animals, officials and witnesses said on Wednesday.

Around 150 tribespeople performed the ritual recently in a hamlet in the state of Orissa's Jajpur district after the boy, who is under two years old, grew a tooth on his upper gum.

The Munda tribe see such a growth in young children as a bad omen and believe it makes them prone to attacks by tigers and other animals. The tribal god will bless the child and ward off evil spirits after the marriage.

"We performed the marriage because it will overcome any curse that might fall on the child as well on us," the boy's father, Sanarumala Munda, was quoted as saying by a local newspaper.

The groom, Sagula, was carried by his family in a procession to the village temple, where a priest solemnized the marriage between Sagula and his bride, Jyoti, by chanting Sanskrit hymns, a witness said.

The dog belongs to the groom's neighbors and was set free to roam around the area after the ceremony. No dowry was exchanged, the witness said, and the boy will still be able to marry a human bride in the future without filing for divorce.

Indian law does not recognize weddings between people and animals, but the ritual survives in rural and tribal areas of the country.

(Editing by Matthias Williams, Leslie Gevirtz)

Credit crisis could crunch men's testosterone: doctor

Sun Feb 15, 7:15 PM

LONDON (AFP) - The stress caused by the global economic downturn could reduce men's testosterone levels, a British doctor warned Monday.

Chronic stress caused by redundancy, financial worries or working longer hours could make levels of the hormone drop, said Richard Petty, the medical director of a top London men's health clinic.

Testosterone, the hormone produced by the testicles, triggers the development of male sexual characteristics. It is linked to sexual function, circulation and muscle mass, as well as concentration, mood and memory.

"When a man becomes grumpy or irritable, it's easy to blame work or simply the effects of ageing," said Petty.

"In the short-term, stress can increase levels of testosterone and this is useful to help people respond quickly to pressures and new situations.

"But chronic stress, which is ongoing, is a major factor in the decline of testosterone.

"Chronic stress occurs all too frequently due to our modern lifestyles, when everything from high-pressured jobs to unemployment keeps the body in a state of perceived threat."

Lower testosterone levels of the hormone can cause lethargy, irritability, lack of concentration and a low sex drive.

Petty advised men to reduce their stress levels as much as possible by resting, eating healthily and exercising.

Idi Amin Dada

RIP Hans Beck

Hans Beck (6 May 1929 – 30 January 2009) was the German inventor of the toy Playmobil. He is thus often called "The Father of Playmobil."

Born in Thuringia, Beck grew up in the town of Zirndorf, beginning his toymaking career as a creator of little vehicles and figures for his younger siblings. Beck received training as a cabinetmaker but worked simultaneously on model airplanes, a product he pitched to the company Geobra Brandstätter. The owner of the company, Horst Brandstätter, asked him to develop toy figures for children instead.

Beck spent 3 years developing what became Playmobil. Beck conducted research that allowed him to develop a toy that would be flexible (unlike tin soldiers), not too complex, fit in an average child's hand and have a facial design based on child's drawing (e.g having a large head, smile and no nose). "I would put the little figures in their hands without saying anything about what they were," Beck remarked. “They accepted them right away....They invented little scenarios for them. They never grew tired of playing with them."[1] Horst Brandstätter was not initially convinced of the viability of Beck’s idea, but allowed the inventor to continue developing the product.

The 1973 oil crisis made it possible for Playmobil to be considered a viable product. Rising oil prices imposed on Geobra Brandstätter (whose headquarters are at Zirndorf), for whom Beck worked as Head of Development, demanded that the company turn to products that required less solid plastic material (during the 1960s, the company had been producing hoola-hoops and large plastic toys). More had to be done with the plastic the company bought.

The company commissioned Beck to develop an entire series. "Playmobil is a toy that doesn't impose specific play patterns on children," Beck has remarked, "but rather stimulates their imagination."[2] The system of customizable toys, with its interchangeable parts, offered unlimited possibilities for re-combination and expansion.

In 1974, the company put the series on show in its display rooms. Initial visitors were reluctant to accept the toy. Nevertheless, the toy was shown at the International Toy Fair in Nuremberg, which was taking place that same year. The toy remained popular with children. A Dutch firm subsequently agreed to buy a whole year's production. Playmobil began to be sold worldwide in 1975.

The first Playmobil sets were of Native Americans, construction workers and knights. Beck once mentioned in an interview that a jumbo jet, alien figures, and dinosaurs should never be introduced as Playmobil sets; all three have been introduced into the Playmobil universe since that time.

After training a group of product designers to take his place, Beck retired in 1998 [3], just prior to the 25th birthday of the introduction of Playmobil.

During the World Expo 2000 in Hannover, Beck was among the 100 German personalities who were honored with a statue within the German Pavilion.

He died at the age of 79 on January 30, 2009 after a serious illness.

Bus-sized boa slithers into record books

Wed Feb 4, 12:24 PM

PARIS (AFP) - Stunned scientists have found the fossilised remains of the world's greatest snake -- a record-busting serpent that was as long as a bus and snacked on crocodiles.

The boa-like behemoth ruled the tropical rainforests of what is now Colombia some 60 million years ago, at a time when the world was far hotter than now, they report in a study released on Wednesday.

The size of the snake's vertebrae suggest the beast weighed some 1.135 tonnes, in a range of 730 kilos (1,600 pounds) to 2.03 tonnes.

And it measured 13 metres (42.7 feet) from nose to tail, in a range of 10.64-15 metres (34.6-48.75 feet), they estimate.

"Truly enormous snakes really spark people's imagination, but reality has exceeded the fantasies of Hollywood," said Jonathan Block, a vertebrate palaeontologist at the University of Florida, who co-led the work.

"The snake that tried to eat Jennifer Lopez in the movie 'Anaconda' is not as big as the one we found."

"At its greatest width, the snake would have come up to about your hips," said David Polly, a geologist at the University of Indiana at Bloomington.

The investigators found the remains of the new species at an unlikely location -- at one of the world's biggest open-cast coalmines, in Cerrejon, Colombia, where giant machines had obligingly gnawed away surface layers of dirt.

Working as huge coal-laden trucks thundered by, the team sifted through the earth, laying bare the remains of supersized snakes and their likely prey -- extinct species of crocodiles and giant turtles -- and evidence that a massive rainforest once covered the ground.

"The giant Colombian snake is a truly exciting discovery. For years, herpetologists have argued about just how big snakes can get, with debatable estimates of the max somewhere less than 40 feet" (12.3 metres), said leading snake expert Harry Greene of Cornell University, New York.

Titanoboa cerrejonensis -- whose Latin name honours the coal mine -- is not only a source of jaw-dropping wonder.

It is also a useful indicator as to the world's climate after the dinosaurs were wiped out some 65 million years ago, the team say.

Unlike mammals, reptiles cannot regulate their own temperature.

As a result, they are limited in body size by the ambient temperature of where they live. For example, reptiles today are bigger in the tropics than they are in cooler latitudes.

Based on T. cerrejonensis, the scientists calculate that the mean annual temperature in equatorial South America 60 million years ago would have been 30-34 degrees Celsius, or 86-93 degrees Fahrenheit.

That makes it around 3-4 C (5.5-7.2 F) hotter than tropical rainforests today.

If so, this is a welcome piece of news about climate change.

Simulations about global warming suggest that, on present trends, the world's surface temperatures could rise by between 1.8-4.0 C (3.2-7.2 F) by 2100.

If the supersnakes are a guide, tropical rain forests could still exist at such temperatures, although a fast, massive rise in warming could well be devastating to many species.

The paper is published by the British-based weekly science journal Nature.

The world's longest snake today is the Asian reticulated python, specimens of which can grow around 10 metres (32.5 feet), and the biggest in terms of mass is the green anaconda, with some specimens weighing 227 kilos (550 pounds).