Letters to the Editor
Rachael F.
Published Letters: 157 Editor's Choice: 17
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boy, are we off-topic
[Read the article: Single women eat babies!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]But it's fun.
You're not wrong; I totally get how you'd see it as a waste of time. So do I. I gave up dating strangers for exactly that reason - when you think you'd rather be home reading a book, then it's a waste of time.
Women like me should just focus on cultivating friendships with men, and women who are more able to tell early should do the "dating", is all.
But I say again - you'd do well to not group all women into one category. There are women who feel instant (or at least fast) chemistry. I honestly don't know if there are men who need more time to develop a relationship before they're willing to have sex, though my experiences to date would seem to indicate they're very rare. At any rate, a responsible woman will let you know which kind she is early on.
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Geneticist chiming in
[Read the article: My sister! My daughter!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]In the interest of actually getting the story straight, re: Turner Syndrome (almost no one has, yet):
Turner Syndrome is, as accurately pointed out, the absence of all or part of one of a woman's X chromosomes. It's caused by nondisjunction of the mother's two X's (all of us have 23 pairs of chromosomes - two of each, one from Dad and one from Mom...except men, who have one mismatched pair, XY). Normally, a woman passes on one of her two X's to her child. In TS cases, the mother (almost always the mother, with this sort of abnormality) fails to pass on an X in the egg leading to that child.
So she gets one from Dad, and none from mom.
It's not a mutation. It's a chromosomal aberration. Sometimes it's spoken of as a "chromosomal mutation", but that's inaccurate and misleading. Nothing was mutated - it's just that a huge chunk of the genome is missing entirely. It's very much similar, in cause, to Down Syndrome - a mistake has been made in segregating chromosomes in the parent. And, as with Down Syndrome, the older the mother, the higher the incidence of this sort of abnormality. We don't know why. Last one ovulated is a rotten egg? But it can happen to anyone, at any age, and has no underlying cause that we know about. It's just...a mistake. Biology is messy.
Mutations ARE, typically, permanent, inherited, and can be passed on to one's children (if they don't make you sterile).
TS would actually be heritable, too, if the women were fertile. Half of their eggs would get no X from them, leading to a high incidence of TS in the daughters.
At any rate...TS women are, as accurately stated, completely sterile. Two X's are required for successful production of eggs.
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Hmm....
[Read the article: Harry Potter and the prediction pool]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]My money's been on Hermione dying, if only because it'll hurt more. I sort of feel that one of the Big Three doesn't make it out alive, and I agree that Harry has to live. But then, maybe the amount that it hurt is why she spared one of the Three, eh? If she did....
As for Harry - anyone but me considered the idea that he pulls a Darth Vader and turns to the Dark Side over the trauma? There have been abundant foreshadowings of his potential to do real evil - maybe Harry kills Voldemort only to take his place as the most evil wizard in history.
Or not. That seems a bit harsh. But a temporary change to evil might happen. More like Luke in the way-back-when Star Wars comics....
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Also
[Read the article: Harry Potter and the prediction pool]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The homoeroticism struck me as humorous references to the abundant Harry Potter fanfic on the internet, where the Snape/Harry or Voldemort/Harry pairings are not uncommon. Which, eww.
Lighten up, people. It's an article about predicting the end of a children's series. Since the contributors don't know the ending, and if they did and they told us, we'd howl about being spoiled like it was the end of the world, a little humor and silliness is to be expected.
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@LibTex
[Read the article: Female genital mutilation a growing problem in Britain]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Hoodectomy is VERY different from what we describe as female genital mutliation. The major difference, for me, is that it's generally performed on willing adult patients, and secondarily its function is to enhance sexual pleasure (and the data seem to say it works). So I'm all for a voluntary proceedure that makes women able to achieve orgasm.
FGM, though, is typically done on young girls who have no choice (nor the required life experiences to make a valid choice if it was offered to them), and I think it's impossible to argue that it isn't intended to severely reduce, if not completely eliminate, sexual pleasure.
Personally, I'd never let anyone near my clitoris with a scalpel, but then I've no need. If women want that procedure, I say go for it.