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April 23 Mother's diet can help determine sex of child: studyOysters may excite the libido, but there is nothing like a hearty breakfast laced with sugar to boost a woman's chances of conceiving a son, according to a study released Wednesday. Likewise, a low-energy diet that skimps on calories, minerals and nutrients is more likely to yield a female of the human species, says the study, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, Britain's de facto academy of sciences. Fiona Mathews of the University of Exeter in Britain and colleagues wanted to find out if a woman's diet has an impact on the sex of her offspring. So they asked 740 first-time mothers who did not know if their unborn foetuses were male or female to provide detailed records of eating habits before and after they became pregnant. The women were split into three groups according to the number calories they consumed per day around the time of conception. Fifty-six percent of the women in the group with the highest energy intake had sons, compared to 45 percent in the least-well fed cohort. Beside racking up a higher calorie count, the group who produced more males were also more likely to have eaten a wider range of nutrients, including potassium, calcium and vitamins C, E and B12. The odds of an XY, or male outcome to a pregnancy also went up sharply "for women who consumed at least one bowl of breakfast cereal daily compared with those who ate less than or equal to one bowl of week," the study reported. These surprising findings are consistent with a very gradual shift in favor of girls over the last four decades in the sex ratio of newborns, according to the researchers. Previous research has shown -- despite the rising epidemic in obesity -- a reduction in the average energy uptake in advanced economies. The number of adults who skip breakfast has also increased substantially. "This research may help to explain why in developed countries, where many young women choose low calorie diets, the proportion of boys is falling," Mathews said. The study's findings, she added, could point to a "natural mechanism" for gender selection. The link between a rich diet and male children may have an evolutionary explanation. For most species, the number of offspring a male can father exceeds the number a female can give birth to. But only if conditions are favorable -- poor quality male specimens may fail to breed at all, whereas females reproduce more consistently. "If a mother has plentiful resources, then it can make sense to invest in producing a son because he is likely to produce more grandchildren than would a daughter," thus contributing to the survival of the species, explains Mathews. "However, in leaner times having a daughter is a safer bet." While the mechanism is not yet understood, it is known from in vitro fertilisation research that higher levels of glucose, or sugar, encourage the growth and development of male embryos while inhibiting female embryos. April 04 Sex takes 3 to 13 minutes, study saysSex takes 3 to 13 minutes, study says
NEW YORK (AP) -- Maybe men had it right all along: It doesn't take long to satisfy a woman in bed. A survey of sex therapists concluded the optimal amount of time for sexual intercourse was 3 to 13 minutes. The findings, to be published in the May issue of the Journal of Sexual Medicine, strike at the notion that endurance is the key to a great sex life. If that sounds like good news to you, don't cheer too loudly. The time does not count foreplay, and the therapists did rate sexual intercourse that lasts from 1 to 2 minutes as "too short." Researcher Eric Corty said he hoped to ease the minds of those who believe "more of something good is better, and if you really want to satisfy your partner, you should last forever." The questions were not gender-specific, said Corty. But he said prior research has shown men and women want foreplay and sexual intercourse to last longer. Dr. Irwin Goldstein, editor of the Journal of Sexual Medicine, cited a four-week study of 1,500 couples in 2005 that found the median time for sexual intercourse was 7.3 minutes. (Women in the study were armed with stopwatches.) It's difficult for both older men and young men to make sexual intercourse last much longer, said Marianne Brandon, a clinical psychologist and director of Wellminds Wellbodies in Annapolis, Maryland. "There are so many myths in our culture of what other people are doing sexually," Brandon said. "Most people's sex lives are not as exciting as other people think they are." Fifty members of the Society for Sex Therapy and Research in the U.S. and Canada were surveyed by Corty, an associate professor of psychology at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, and student Jenay Guardiani. Thirty-four members, or 68 percent, responded, although some said the optimal time depended on the couple. Corty said he hoped to give an idea of what therapists find to be normal and satisfactory among the couples they see. "People who read this will say, 'I last five minutes or my partner lasts eight minutes,' and say, 'That's OK,' " he said. "They will relax a little bit."
January 16 New Bacteria Strain Is Striking Gay MenA new, highly drug-resistant strain of the “flesh-eating” MRSA bacteria is being spread among gay men in San Francisco and Boston, researchers reported on Monday.
In a study published online by the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, the bacteria seemed to be spread most easily through anal intercourse but also through casual skin-to-skin contact and touching contaminated surfaces. The authors warned that unless microbiology laboratories were able to identify the strain and doctors prescribed the proper antibiotic therapy, the infection could soon spread among other groups and become a wider threat. The new strain seems to have “spread rapidly” in gay populations in San Francisco and Boston, the researchers wrote, and “has the potential for rapid, nationwide dissemination” among gay men. The study was based on a review of medical records from outpatient clinics in San Francisco and Boston and nine medical centers in San Francisco. The Castro district in San Francisco has the highest number of gay residents in the country, according to the University of California, San Francisco. One in 588 residents is infected with the new multidrug-resistant MRSA strain, the study found. That compares with 1 in 3,800 people in San Francisco, according to statistical analyses based on ZIP codes. A separate part of the study found that gay men in San Francisco were about 13 times more likely to be infected than other people in the city. The San Francisco researchers suggested that scrubbing with soap and water might be the most effective way to stop skin-to-skin transmission, particularly after sexual activities. MRSA, for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, was once spread chiefly in hospitals. But in recent years, a number of healthy people have acquired it outside hospitals. Nearly 19,000 people died in the United States from MRSA infections in 2005, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported. The infection can cause unusually severe problems, including abscesses and skin ulcers. The bacteria can invade through the skin to produce necrotizing fasciitis, giving them the popular name of flesh-eating bacteria. They can also cause pneumonia, damage the heart and produce widespread infection through the blood. Among gay men in the study, MRSA was spread by skin contact, causing abscesses and infection in the buttocks and genital area. The new strain is closely related to earlier ones. Both are known as MRSA USA300. The strain is much more difficult to treat because it is resistant not just to methicillin, but also many more of the antibiotics used to treat the earlier strains, said Dr. Henry F. Chambers, an author of the new study. The new strain contains a plasmid called pUSA03. “This particular clone is resistant to at least three other drugs, clindamycin, tetracycline and mupirocin,” Dr. Chambers said in a telephone interview. Of the alternatives recommended by the C.D.C. and the Infectious Diseases Society of America, trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (Bactrim), clindamycin and a tetracycline, “this strain is resistant to two of those three,” he added. “In addition, the new strain is resistant to mupirocin, which has been advocated for eradicating the strain from carriers.”
August 12 Class War: MySpace vs. FacebookA flurry of recent articles have observed that young people are leaving MySpace for Facebook in droves, setting off speculation that MySpace is becoming the latest victim of fickle teens following the hot new thing.
Not so, says University of California, Berkeley, researcher Danah Boyd. Not all teens are leaving MySpace, she wrote in a recent essay--instead, they're splitting up along class lines. Boyd confirms what teens in any high school across the country already know: Affluent kids from educated, well-to-do families have been fleeing MySpace for Facebook since it opened registration to the general public in September, while working-class kids still flock to MySpace. That could have big implications for advertisers targeting the coveted teenaged population online, three-quarters of whom have a profile on a social network. Both sites have been powerhouses for advertisers because of their huge, wide-reaching audiences, says Robin Neifield, chief executive of interactive marketing agency NetPlus Marketing. That strategy could change if the sites become more like the niche social networks popping up across the Web for groups of like-minded people from similar backgrounds. Boyd's essay came amid speculation about the future of the social network giants. Despite the fact that MySpace still gets more than twice as many unique visitors as Facebook, it's littered with postings announcing that users, often teens, are switching to its rival. Estimated ad revenue for 2007 calendar year for Facebook is $125 million, $525 million for MySpace, according to research firm eMarketer. Together, the two account for 72% of all online advertising on social networks. There's a reason why the "goody-two-shoes, jocks, athletes or other 'good' kids" are going to Facebook, says Boyd, who studies social networks and youth culture and made her observations based on formal interviews with 90 teens, informal interviews with hundreds more, and the perusal of tens of thousands of teens' online profiles. Facebook launched in 2004 as a site for Harvard students. Gradually, it opened up to other college students, then to high school kids if a college student invited them. "Facebook is what the college kids did. Not surprisingly, college-bound high schoolers desperately wanted in," Boyd writes. MySpace, meanwhile, is the "cool working-class thing" for high school students getting a job after graduation rather than heading to the Ivy League, Boyd writes. Constant local news stories on predators targeting kids on MySpace further alienated the "good kids," she says. Both companies declined to comment on Boyd's essay.
"As an advertiser, in my opinion, Facebook users are more qualified to convert and more apt to buy a shirt, so I would go there before MySpace," says Josh Mohrer, director of retail for BustedTees, an online purveyor of hipster clothes and sometime Facebook advertiser.
Facebook can lure advertisers with its affluence, says Bill Tancer, general manager of global research at Hitwise, an online marketing analysis firm. His data backs up Boyd's conclusions that Facebook users are richer than those on MySpace. Still, MySpace attracts so many more viewers that "there's no way marketers are going to leave," he says.
NetPlus chief Neifield says she's not paying too much attention to Boyd's observations. Advertisers should look beyond demographics when placing ads and instead analyze online behavior like who visited other sites with similar content, who downloaded what or who clicked on which ads, she says. "It's not very often these days that we buy based on demographics alone."
By Claire Cain Miller, Forbes.com August 08 Fogeys Flock to FacebookProfessionals pushing 40 and older are joining the college crowd on the social hub. Can CEO Zuckerberg's team give them reason to stick around?Facebook, the online hangout for college kids and recent graduates, is growing up. The site has amassed an audience of 33 million Web users, initially by catering to well-scrubbed kids who use the social network to nudge their friends, share photos, and swap music tips—all while consuming ads from Gen Y brands like Apple (AAPL), Jeep (DCX), and Red Bull. Lately, an influx of older users—professionals their 30s and 40s, many in high-tech—is changing the face of Facebook. Among Silicon Valley executives, journalists, and publicists, Facebook has become the place to see and be seen. And it's not just tech. Consulting company Ernst & Young's Facebook network boasts 16,000 members, Citigroup's (C) claims nearly 8,500. Factor in plans by Microsoft (MSFT), Facebook's biggest business partner, to help turn the site into a tool for making professional connections, and the Palo Alto (Calif.) Internet company could be on the cusp of expanding its already impressive advertising roster, increasing its value as a buyout target or initial public offering candidate, and challenging professional-networking site LinkedIn as the go-to nexus for recruiters and investors. Changing Traffic Patterns"People in the Valley definitely search professionally on Facebook first," says Keith Rabois, vice-president of strategy and business development at Slide.com, which makes photo-sharing applications that can be used on other sites, including Facebook. Rabois was an executive at LinkedIn until May. But older users are behind the recent traffic surge at Facebook, which says it signs up 150,000 new users a day. In June, 11.5 million of the individual visitors to the site were 35 or older, more than double the number a year before, according to market researcher ComScore Media Metrix. The 35-and-up crowd now accounts for more than 41% of all Facebook visitors. Among the fogeys with profiles: Internet pioneer and Google executive Vinton Cerf, venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, and Salesforce.com (CRM) CEO Marc Benioff. Jeff Pulver, a telecom entrepreneur and blogger, famously said in a recent post that he was forsaking LinkedIn for Facebook as his main professional hub (see BusinessWeek.com, 8/6/07, "Confessions of a LinkedIn Dropout"). Even Facebook's competitors acknowledge change is afoot. "Clearly, Facebook has lots of traffic and a lot of that traffic is from the same group of users as on LinkedIn," says David Cowan, a managing partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, a LinkedIn investor (see BusinessWeek.com, 1/29/07, "LinkedIn Reaches Out"). Yet during Facebook's most recent growth spurt—it has added 1.3 million visitors since May, according to ComScore—LinkedIn's audience hasn't declined, Cowan says. "A Lot More Buzz"So the question now for Facebook, marketers looking to advertise there, companies that want to own it, and investors who eventually may buy its shares is whether 23-year-old CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his deputies can keep attracting the long-in-the-tooth crowd while preserving the site's spring-break atmosphere of beer-drinking photos and innuendo. Since its start in 2004, Facebook has attracted a more upscale young audience than News Corp.'s (NWS) MySpace, while avoiding the button-down feel of LinkedIn (see BusinessWeek.com, 7/2/07, "MySpace, Facebook: A Tale of Two Cultures"). "In some ways, LinkedIn feels more like a Chamber of Commerce mixer," says Barry Parr, a media analyst at JupiterResearch. "Facebook clearly has a lot more buzz." More than 48% of Facebook visitors in June came from households with incomes over $75,000, rivaling 55% for LinkedIn, and well above MySpace's 39% figure, according to ComScore. Advertisers have taken notice. Coca-Cola (KO) has been running promotions on MySpace the past two years for brands including Cherry Coke and Fanta, and has promoted Diet Coke and other drinks on Google's (GOOG) YouTube. The company has yet to advertise with more than simple banners on Facebook but is weighing its first large-scale promotion there. "We see a lot of opportunity there," says Coke spokeswoman Susan Stribling. Procter & Gamble (PG) has advertised Crest toothpaste, Secret deodorant, and Noxema skin-care products on Facebook, and more campaigns are coming in the fall, a spokeswoman says without elaborating. Most of Facebook's revenue comes from banner ads placed by Microsoft as part of a 2006 deal between the companies. Facebook also directly sells more interactive campaigns, including sponsored profiles and "stories" that appear in users' constantly updated news feed on the site, advertising such things as Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) computers and PNC Bank (PNC) financial services. As the site lures more professionals, it could attract more brand advertisers that want to aim word-of-mouth campaigns at an upscale audience, says Parr. "Facebook is obviously a wonderful environment to reach people in a way that's personal, but not too invasive," he says.
Greasing the WheelsToday, Facebook's main professional value is "building social capital" among business contacts, says co-founder and vice-president of product engineering, Dustin Moskovitz. He's referring to the informal banter, such as through status updates and games with industry friends on the site, that can grease the wheels for interaction when work needs to get done. Is anyone using Facebook to add new contacts to their Rolodex? "They're certainly doing it with us," says Moskovitz, who says his Facebook inbox is starting to function a lot like traditional e-mail. Informal interaction could be just step one in Facebook's plans to burnish its professional credentials. Microsoft is helping the company with technology that could turn Facebook's trove of data on members' names, ages, connections, and tastes into directories of users accessible by business software programs. "They may very well be building one of the next interesting collaborative platforms, and it may have business applications as well," says Dan'l Lewin, a corporate vice-president at Microsoft. "They're learning in real time, and the audience is speaking." In May, Facebook announced that it would let third-party software developers tap into its user data to build miniature software programs that could make the site more useful. So far, the results have been mostly programs such as iLike, which lets users share music preferences, or SuperPoke, whereby users can virtually slap, spank, or pinch pals (see BusinessWeek.com, 5/24/07, "Facebook Aims to Socialize All Online Services"). Microsoft envisions more sober applications: It recently released design software that can let nontechnical users combine Facebook data with elements of other Web sites and blogs like Microsoft's Virtual Earth and Yahoo's Flickr to create new programs. In the Driver's SeatFacebook's expanding scope could also increase its market value. Bear Stearns (BSC) analyst Robert Peck estimated in an Aug. 1 report that Facebook could fetch $4.9 billion in an acquisition; he argued that Yahoo! (YHOO) should buy it or another social site to capture Internet ad revenue flowing to such networks. Facebook's revenue could more than double, to $358 million, in 2008 from $140 million in 2007, Peck said. Facebook has turned down an acquisition offer from Yahoo, and according to reports it also rebuffed Google, Microsoft, and Viacom (VIA). Now, those snubs could look shrewd. In other signs the company is girding for expansion, if not an IPO, in July it hired a new chief financial officer, Gideon Yu, who was CFO at YouTube before the company sold itself to Google. The same month, Facebook hired Chamath Palihapitiya, an investor at venture capital firm Mayfield Fund as vice-president of product marketing and operations. On July 19, Facebook made its first-ever acquisition, snaring two creators of the open-source Firefox Web browser. Facebook director and early investor Peter Theil said in a recent interview with The Deal that an IPO wouldn't come until 2009 at the earliest. Facebook "is focused on being an independent company," says a spokeswoman, who declined to comment on the prospect of an IPO or make Zuckerberg available for an interview. Speed Bumps Along the WayTo be sure, Facebook has experienced growing pains. High-profile users say they're starting to get unwanted requests from strangers who try to horn in on their network to ask for favors. Some college-age kids see the influx of users old enough to be their parents as an affront. And a couple of Zuckerberg's old Harvard University classmates sued the company in July for allegedly stealing their ideas. In 2006 the company had to quell complaints from users who said Facebook's broadcast of their every move on the site violated their privacy (see BusinessWeek.com, 9/8/06, "Facebook Learns from Its Fumble"). What's more, Facebook's world of pokes, spanks, and party photos can't hold a candle to LinkedIn's more professional milieu for executives who want to make connections, says Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn's co-founder, chairman, and president. "Many of the bloggers don't really understand the use case for LinkedIn," he says. Still, Hoffman admits that people are "piling on and taking a look around" Facebook. "If you're going to recruit college students, heck, I'd go to Facebook," he says. Given the flock of older professionals joining the Facebook crowd, before long it won't just be headhunters who have business to do there. Ricadela is a writer for BusinessWeek.com in Silicon Valley. |
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