Students in genetics and reproductive physiology, junior-/senior-level courses with enrollments averaging 76 and 41 students, respectively, were encouraged to read popular science books for extra credit. The objectives of the readings were to reinforce basic class concepts by forming ties to everyday life, and to expose students to a genre that can provide information to prepare them as citizen...

An enormous diversity of antigenically distinct proteins is found in seminal plasma. These include proteases, protease inhibitors, signal transduction molecules, protein kinases and phosphatases, transporter proteins, structural molecules, and immune response proteins. Sperm, too, carry a plethora of surface proteins; these mediate species-specific binding to the zona pellucida surrounding the ...

Extraordinary advances have been achieved in the field of male infertility in the last decades. There are new concepts in sperm physiology and several modern tools for the assessment of spermatogenesis kinetics in vivo. New tests using molecular biology and DNA damage assays allow the clinician to correctly diagnose men so far classified as having idiopathic male infertility. In the field of tr...

Female dominance and feeding priority are considered unique behavioral strategies in many Malagasy lemuriformes, particularly Lemur catta. Two hypotheses have been introduced to explain these behavior patterns: 1) females are agonistically dominant over males to mitigate female-male food competition so that females can compensate for high energy demands and inefficient reproductive physiology, ...

Male accessory gland proteins (Acps) act as key modulators of reproductive success in insects by influencing the female reproductive physiology and behavior. We used custom microarrays and identified 112 genes that were highly expressed in male accessory glands (MAG) in the red flour beetle, Tribolium castaneum. Out of these 112 identified genes, 59 of them contained sequences coding for signal...

BACKGROUND Overall reproductive performance of dairy herds is monitored by various indicators. Most of them do not consider all eligible animals and do not consider different management strategies at farm level. This problem can be alleviated by measuring the proportion of pregnant cows by specific intervals after their calving date or after a fixed time period, such as the voluntary waiting pe...

A brief review of the history of the subject is provided. An attempt is made to define the current status of the knowledge and the reasons why our knowledge in this area of science is poor. The information gained from studies employing lower species is contrasted with information on the human male. The most commonly utilized techniques for evaluating the effects of toxic agents on the male repr...

Hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) axis function fundamentally affects the physiology of eating. We review sex differences in the physiological and pathophysiological controls of amounts eaten in rats, mice, monkeys, and humans. These controls result from interactions among genetic effects, organizational effects of reproductive hormones (i.e., permanent early developmental effects), and acti...

Over the last century the reproduction of sturgeon has been intensively studied par Russian scientists who established a technology for the ranching of alevins which included artificial fertilization of gametes taken from wild broodfish and larvae rearing. More recently, since 1970, major contributions originated from teams in the USA, the EU, Japan and Iran. A rather good knowledge of the repr...