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Happy Sunday − and welcome to the best of The Conversation. Here are a few of our recently published stories:
I’ve had several male friends over the years who have voluntarily given up alcohol while their wives were pregnant. I always considered it an admirable and loving gesture of solidarity during a prolonged period when women are told by doctors that any drinking could potentially harm the fetus in their womb. And though I’m currently childless, I’ve pondered doing the same if my partner were to become pregnant.
But while the act is certainly well-intended, it looks like I and other men could do more for our partners – and our future progeny – by cutting back on our wine or beer consumption before conception rather than only after pregnancy begins. That’s according to new research by Michael Golding, a professor of physiology at Texas A&M University.
“When it comes to diagnosing babies born with birth defects associated with alcohol consumption, such as fetal alcohol syndrome, historically only the mother’s drinking habits are taken into consideration.” Golding wrote in a reader fave last week. “Research clearly shows that sperm carry a vast amount of epigenetic information – meaning heritable shifts in the way genes are expressed that don’t result from changes in the DNA sequence – that strongly influences fetal development and child health.”
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Little to no attention has been given to the father’s potential contribution to fetal alcohol syndrome disorders.
Katleho Seisa/E+ via Getty Images
Michael Golding, Texas A&M University
Public health messaging has focused on the drinking habits of the mother during pregnancy. But a growing body of research shows that what dad is drinking before pregnancy matters too.
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Paul Hayne, University of Colorado Boulder
Some dark craters on the Moon are never exposed to light − ice could be hiding in these permanently shadowed regions, and India’s Chandrayaan-3 mission marked a big step toward finding it.
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Lydia Ross, Arizona State University; Carlos Casanova, Arizona State University; Kathryn Chapman, University of Florida; Sherman Dorn, Arizona State University
The opt-out movement caught on heavily in Colorado in the late 2010s. A group of education scholars is exploring the reasons why.
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Hilary A. Diefenbach, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus
Concussions can teach researchers a great deal about how the brain recovers after injury and offer insights into how people can promote brain health throughout their lives.
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Jessica L. Adler, Florida International University
Higher jail mortality is related to jail turnover rates and demographics.
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The music room of the Ospedaletto is known for its remarkable acoustics.
Marica S. Tacconi
Marica S. Tacconi, Penn State
On the wall of an orphanage in Venice, a musicologist encountered a fresco featuring an aria written for an opera. She’s since embarked on a project to bring this forgotten music back.
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Peter A. Coclanis, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Louis M. Kyriakoudes, Middle Tennessee State University
After a 20th-century manufacturing boom, the region has been in a decadeslong decline. Rural factory towns can blame technology and globalization for their woes.
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Sarah Lacy, University of Delaware; Cara Ocobock, University of Notre Dame
Female bodies have an advantage in endurance ability that means Paleolithic women likely hunted game, not just gathered plants. The story is written in living and ancient human bodies.
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Leah Chan Grinvald, University of Nevada, Las Vegas; Ofer Tur-Sinai, Ono Academic College
Today’s cars include hundreds of computer chips, and carmakers say the data produced by those chips is proprietary – and a security risk. This means you don’t own the data your car generates.
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Jason W. Osborne, Miami University
The rise of sports betting has made gambling addiction a bigger issue on college campuses, but there are steps universities can take to address it.
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