Why Are Some Women Training for Pregnancy Like It's a Marathon? A growing legion of "zero trimester" influencers are convincing followers that healthy pregnancies are a choice--and that raw milk, watching sunsets, and pricey specialized courses can help. Three years ago, Esther Rohr and her husband decided to start thinking about pregnancy. The 26-year-old Oregon-based wedding photographer made small but intentional lifestyle changes--going to bed earlier, drinking more water and less alcohol, dialing in her fitness, loading up on protein, and taking supplements like beef organ capsules and Vitamin D3. They started charging their phones in the kitchen for better sleep and unplugging their Wi-Fi at night, because her research suggested it might affect cellular health. Concerned about their exposure to reproductive toxins, Rohr began the slow, painstaking task of swapping out all their synthetic workout clothes, nonstick pans, and scented personal care products that might contain phthalates or other endocrine-disrupting chemicals. She bought an air purifier and hopes to eventually replace their LED bulbs with incandescents, because she worries they might be affecting her circadian rhythm.

It's a concept that currently only exists in sci–fi movies. But scientists in China are developing the world's first'pregnancy robot' capable of carrying a baby to term and giving birth. The humanoid will be equipped with an artificial womb that receives nutrients through a hose, experts said. A prototype is expected to be released next year, with a selling price of around 100,000 yuan ( 10,000). Dr Zhang Qifeng, who founded the company Kaiwa Technology, is developing the machine.

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Chemical pollution is "a threat to the thriving of humans and nature of a similar order as climate change" but decades behind global heating in terms of public awareness and action, a report has warned. The industrial economy has created more than 100 million "novel entities," or chemicals not found in nature, with somewhere between 40,000 and 350,000 in commercial use and production, the report says. But the environmental and human health effects of this widespread contamination of the biosphere are not widely appreciated, in spite of a growing body of evidence linking chemical toxicity with effects ranging from ADHD to infertility to cancer. "I suppose that's the biggest surprise for some people," Harry Macpherson, senior climate associate at Deep Science Ventures (DSV), which carried out the research, told the Guardian.

In vitro fertilization (IVF) is a widely utilized assisted reproductive technology, yet predicting its success remains challenging due to the multifaceted interplay of clinical, demographic, and procedural factors. This study develops a robust artificial intelligence (AI) pipeline aimed at predicting live birth outcomes in IVF treatments. The pipeline uses anonymized data from 2010 to 2018, obtained from the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority (HFEA). We evaluated the prediction performance of live birth success as a binary outcome (success/failure) by integrating different feature selection methods, such as principal component analysis (PCA) and particle swarm optimization (PSO), with different traditional machine learning-based classifiers including random forest (RF) and decision tree, as well as deep learning-based classifiers including custom transformer-based model and a tab transformer model with an attention mechanism. Our research demonstrated that the best performance was achieved by combining PSO for feature selection with the TabTransformer-based deep learning model, yielding an accuracy of 99.50% and an AUC of 99.96%, highlighting its significant performance to predict live births. This study establishes a highly accurate AI pipeline for predicting live birth outcomes in IVF, demonstrating its potential to enhance personalized fertility treatments.

The grinding trial-and-error process that precedes world-changing scientific discoveries doesn't really lend itself to dramatization. Instead of our heroes chasing bad guys down dark alleys, the exciting story action involves them standing in front of a blackboard or gazing into a microscope. So dramatic tension is injected by financial or political forces threatening to derail a project of urgent importance (Oppenheimer); the scientists fighting for credibility in the face of belonging to a marginalized group (Hidden Figures, The Imitation Game, any biopic of a female scientist); or the old reliable of the main scientist being a difficult, maverick genius (Oppenheimer again). Joy: The Birth of IVF, Ben Taylor's new film out now on Netflix, about the arduous path to develop a viable technique for fertilizing human eggs outside the body and implanting them in the womb, aka in vitro fertilization, hits many of these notes. There's the irascible pioneer, here played by Bill Nighy at his most crotchety but sympathetic as gynecologist Patrick Steptoe, who introduced laparoscopy to the U.K. He's teamed with the driven visionary--physiologist Robert Edwards, played by James Norton, who, like Jude Law, is always required to conceal his innate gorgeousness under an unbecoming wig or glasses to convince as an ordinary guy.

Although the terms are often confused or used interchangeably, sperm and semen are not the same thing. Semen is the fluid that comes out of the penis, while sperm are the microscopic cells within the semen. Sperm cells are specialized for the task of fertilizing an egg. Semen analysis is considered essential for diagnosis of male infertility, but is not readily available at medical institutions other than those specializing in infertility treatment. 'Fertility specialists take it for granted that the first step in diagnosing male infertility is to perform a semen analysis,' Professor Kobayashi added.

One in four couples in developing countries is impacted by infertility. About 48.5 million couples experience infertility worldwide. Today, infertility is rapidly becoming an epidemic. In vitro fertilization (IVF) is a technique that helps people facing fertility problems have a baby. Despite IVF's potential, the outcomes are unpredictable. To make matters worse, access to fertility care is abysmal.

A 3D filming technique has revealed that human sperm really swim with a corkscrew motion like otters, rather than wiggling like eels due to their'wonky tails'. Developed by scientists led from Bristol, the method has overturned a 350-year-old belief that sperm tails lash'with a snakelike movement, like eels in water.' In fact, the researchers said, this is merely an optical illusion -- one that is a product of seeing the motion under standard, two-dimensional microscopes. Seen in three dimensions, the reproductive cells instead clearly rotate like a corkscrew as they strive to journey towards an egg. The findings could help to better understand and address the causes of male infertility -- which is thought affect around one-in-seven British couples. A 3D filming technique has revealed that human sperm (pictured in this artist's impression) swim with a corkscrew motion, rather than wiggling like eels due to their'wonky tails' 'With over half of infertility caused by male factors, understanding the human sperm tail is fundamental to developing future diagnostic tools to identify unhealthy sperm,' said paper author Hermes Gadelha of the University of Bristol.

This is in order to give personalized probability of in vitro fertilisation (IVF) success. A secondary aim is to bring more transparency to the success and cost of IVF. Moreover, by using Univfy patients can learn about the costs of IVF treatment and their probability of success after one, two or three IVF cycles. The platform, therefore, also helps couples to make better financial decisions. To discover more about this combination of artificial intelligence and predictive technology, we spoke with the Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Mylene Yao.