Home Pregnancy Tests Can Lead To Better Prenatal Care

The simple intervention Home Pregnancy Tests Can Lead To Better Prenatal Care

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“This simple intervention – giving home pregnancy test kits to women who are having unprotected sex – was able to do what no other study has done: Influence women to be more vigilant about potential pregnancy,” of providing women who are having unprotected sex with a home pregnancy test could have a substantial impact on the health of potential newborns, according to a Michigan State University study.
In research published in the February edition of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, MSU’s Mary Nettleman found that significantly more women who had a home pregnancy test at home not only suspected they could be pregnant but also took tests much more frequently.

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EGG MEETS SPERM: THE FEMALE SIDE OF THE STORY

Researchers at the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet have been able to describe the 3D structure of a complete egg receptor that binds sperm at the beginning of fertilization. The results, published in the journal Cell, will lead to better understanding of infertility and may enable entirely new types of contraceptives.

For centuries, the imagination of people has been grasped by the encounter of gametes -- egg and sperm-, whose union gives rise to a new individual. At the beginning of conception, sperm binds to proteins in the extracellular coat of the egg, called zona pellucida (ZP). But the molecular details of this fundamental biological event have so far remained obscure.

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A NEW READ ON DNA SEQUENCING

The twisting, ladder-like form of the DNA molecule -- the architectural floor plan of life -- contains a universe of information critical to human health. Enormous effort has been invested in deciphering the genetic code, including, most famously, the Human Genome Project. Nevertheless, the process of reading some three-billion nucleotide "letters" to reveal an individual's full genome remains a costly and complex undertaking.

Now biophysicist Stuart Lindsay, of the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University, has demonstrated a technique that may lead to rapid, low cost reading of whole genomes, through recognition of the basic chemical units -- the nucleotide bases that make up the DNA double helix. An affordable technique for DNA sequencing would be a tremendous advance for medicine, allowing routine clinical genomic screening for diagnostic purposes; the design of a new generation of custom-fit pharmaceuticals; and even genomic tinkering to enhance cellular resistance to viral or bacterial infection.According to quantum theory, elementary particles like electrons can do some very strange and counter-intuitive things, in defiance of classical laws of physics.

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