Boro Nut

I suppose that's why when we imaging old spinsters we picture them with smiling happy jolly laughing faces, and not like bulldogs licking piss off nettles then?

The truth is they don't laugh at all once their men have died, as it gradually dawns on them where the money actually came from. Also, they realise that nobody will ever ever ever be forced to listen to them again.

From a medical perspective, after many years of having a man at her side, she will be unable to walk in a straight line without ballasting herself with heavy carrier bags either. One benefit though is that she will finally achieve her ambition of being able to piss in a bustop standing up.

Boro Nut

pz

This thread seems to have jumped the tracks and gone careening wildly down some strange ways. Could we get it back on track please, so that I don't have to close it?

Jackalope

[second try at posting, the server keeps logging me out]

Okay, here's a list of disorders that are likely to be triggered by pregnancy. The hormonal and immune system contortions that are needed to allow the embryo to develop inside the mother's body tend to be the culprits:

tends to develop during pregnancy:
blood pressure problems, pre-eclampsia and eclampsia
anti-phospolipid syndrome (APLS or Hughes Syndrome)
anti-cardiolipin antibodies
systemic lupus erythamatosis
diabetes mellitus

tends to develop after delivery or miscarriage:
thyroid disfunctions of various types
rheumatoid arthritis
psoriatic arthritis
ankylosing spondyltis

There are probably more, but I can't find my immunology textbooks right now...

APLS and anti-cardiolipin antibodies can cause miscarriages. And then there's the ectopic pregnancy, where the blastocyst implants somewhere inappropriate instead of in the uterine wall.

--Lee

MrDarwin

That's an excellent one to point out. Isn't it a bit odd that the blastocyst can implant and form a placenta anywhere, not just on those parts of the uterine wall where it can be carried successfully to full-term? (I believe in other mammals the fallopian tubes are much larger, or act as extensions of the uterus, and can support the much smaller, multiple fetuses that many other mammals bear--so perhaps this is a remnant from our litter-bearing ancestors.)

Edited to add a link to an overview of the primate vs. ungulate female reproductive system , demonstrating the uterine "horns", one or both of which can support a developing fetus, and which may be homologous (in an evolutionary sense) with some portion of the primate fallopian tube.

Looks like the "designer" modified this basic design for primates, but got a little sloppy in making the fallopian tubes so they would allow implantation but not permit development to full term.

ps418

I know you hate smilies, but I cant help myself - that's the funniest thing I've heard in a while!

ps418

If I remember correctly, the same proteins that allow the blastocyst to implant are the same proteins that allow clumps of metastatic (right word?) cancerous cells to bore into other body tissues.

Patrick