Re: Sperm counts and industrial pollution

[John Clement <clement@HAL-PC.ORG>]

Well, I do think that they could have presented some of the Turing's math
ideas at a popular level rather than concentrating on his personal life.

The old cat is attracted to a compatible species who should not be emitting
at this time any attractive pheromones, and also to humans.  You have to
make him lie down and behave.  Essentially he has a habit which seems to be
driven by mental urges rather than chemical.  This is consistent with the
idea that eunuchs can perform but not conceive.

I also saw danger UXB, but did not catch the connection to Turing.  I don't
think he married, but he was pursued by a girl who eventually realized what
the situation was.  Apparently some people including his mother thought he
was intending to marry her.  In the movie she remained a good friend of his.
Eventually he told his mother about his orientation.  He was so open about
it that the government considered him a liability, but not until they had
thoroughly exploited his talents during the war.

The idea that low levels of various hormones can have an effect on the body
is certainly prevalent, but I have not seen any good evidence other than
anecdotal reports for this.  A female physicist from the former Yugoslav
republic complained that she was much better endowed in the US due to the
hormones in the food.  Similarly American children raised in Japan have been
reported to grow more slowly, but when brought back to the US shoot up to
match US norms.  Whether this due to diet, water, air, cultural influences
is not really known.  Eating habits are so different from the US norm that
diet is the most likely culprit.  Rising affluence brings less exercise, and
richer diets so even if there is a decrease in sperm count, the culprit is
difficult to locate.  US height could also be ascribed to "hybrid vigor",
and better endowment could be due to larger desserts.  Earlier physical
maturation also seems to be prevalent in the US, probably due to diet, but
possible due to contaminants in the food, air, and water.

The thought just struck me that earlier maturation may contribute to some of
the problems that secondary schools experience.  That combined with the fact
that in earlier times only teenagers willing to defer having families would
continue in school puts much more pressure on the teachers in school.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX
> most interesting!
>
> the math would have passed atmospherically over 99.9% of the
> viewers.   Mmmm
> selective memory -- I remember his calculating in his head the number of
> combinations of an enigma code, but not the injections (probably too
> unpleasant!)
>
> about the cat.  I thought they were driven by pheromones,
> elephants certainly
> are (they sniff the cow's urine).  OTOH maybe they just know it's
> a waste of
> time if the urine doesn't smell of the hormone or whatever --
> they're supposed
> to be very smart.
>
> bc
>
> P.s. A BBC series "Danger UXB" was based on a bomb disposal
> commander who's
> love was the wife (fiancée?) of Touring.
>
> His scientific advisor was her Father and also worked at Bletchley.   One
> interesting technique was to use liq. N2 to lower the batt.V to
> inactivate the
> fuse.