45岁也能生娃

45岁也能生娃 human reproduction 人类繁衍 Life begins at 45 45岁也能生娃 Hope for older mothers 高龄母亲的福音 WHEN it comes to reproduction, men have it easy. Almost to the end of their lives most have an ample supply of sperm. Women are not so lucky. They are born with a supply of eggs that typically runs out when they reach middle age. That could be about to change, however. Researchers have confirmed that women harbour ovarian stem cells, and that these can give rise to new eggs. 讲到繁衍，男人示压力很小。 大多数人直到去世前都拥有充足的精子。 女人可就没这么幸运了。 人到中年，她们就会耗尽出生时携带的卵子。 不过，这一情形很快就能得到改变。 研究者们证实，女人拥有卵巢干细胞，而这种细胞能成为新的卵细胞的来源。 Stem cells have the ability to divide continuously and to change into different types of cells. Stem cells from adults can produce a variety of cell types, in addition to those that make up the tissue in which they are found. 干细胞具有不断分裂的潜力，可以分化成许多种类的细胞。 成人干细胞不仅可以分化成其来源组织的细胞，还能分化成其它细胞。 In 2004 Jonathan Tilly of Harvard Medical School and his colleagues discovered stem cells in mouse ovaries. Since then it has been shown that these ovarian stem cells can develop into eggs, be fertilised and produce perfectly healthy mouse pups. But researchers have been reluctant to believe that something similar might be possible in humans. 2004年，哈弗医学院的Jonathan Tilly及其同事在老鼠卵巢里发现了干细胞。 迄今已经证实，此类卵巢干细胞能够分化成为卵细胞，卵细胞在受精后还能发育成健康的鼠宝宝。 但是研究者尚不能确信人类也存在类似机能。 Proving that this was indeed the case was tricky. Human ovarian tissue-especially from young, healthy donors-is not easy to come by. Dr Tilly’s breakthrough came when he discovered that a former colleague, Yasushi Takai of Saitama Medical University in Japan, had in his freezer healthy ovarian tissue from 30 patients who had changed sex. 想要弄清真相有些困难。 人类卵巢组织很难找到，健康的年轻捐献者的组织更难寻觅。 幸而Tilly博士发现他的前同事--日本埼玉医科大学的Yasushi Takai在冰箱里存放了30个变性人不再需要的健康卵巢组织，取得了突破。 Using a sophisticated cell-sorting technique, the researchers developed a way to identify ovarian stem cells that works for both mice and humans. Then they took the human ovarian stem cells, labelled them with a green fluorescent protein and put them back into a slice of human ovary (grafted onto a living mouse, so that it was functioning much like a normal ovary). The glowing green cells soon produced a brand new crop of human eggs, according to their findings published this week in Nature Medicine. 研究人员运用尖端的细胞分选技术，找出，证实人类和老鼠身上都存在卵巢干细胞。 随后，他们分离出人类卵巢干细胞，用荧光蛋白做上标记再把它植入一片人类卵巢组织。这片组织被移植到了活鼠体内，使其保持正常卵巢的机能。 他们本周发表在《自然医学》上的结果称，这些绿芒闪烁的细胞很快制造出了一批人类卵细胞。 Fertilising these eggs for experimentation is forbidden in America. Britain’s Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, however, will allow it in certain cases. So next month Dr Tilly will take some of his stem cell booty to Edinburgh to collaborate with Evelyn Telfer, who has developed a technique for growing human eggs from an early stage. She holds a licence to fertilise them experimentally. 美国禁止为实验用的卵细胞受精， 不过英国的人类受精和胚胎学管理局将在某些研究中允许给卵细胞授精。 所以，下个月Tilly博士将带着卵细胞去爱丁堡与Evelyn Telfer合作。 Evelyn Telfer掌握了用卵母细胞培育卵细胞的技术，持有给试验用细胞授精的许可 The discovery could revolutionise infertility treatment for women in several ways. For one thing, research has shown that in mice, even aged ovaries contain ovarian stem cells. And when those stem cells are placed into a young ovary, they will develop healthy eggs. This raises the possibility that, one day, women of advanced age could have their own biologically related children. Currently, many women over 45 have to make do with in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) using the egg of a younger woman. 这项发现会是女性不育症治疗的一场革命。 一方面，老鼠体内衰老的卵巢里也有卵巢干细胞； 将这些细胞移植到年轻的卵巢中后，它们能制造健康的卵子。 这意味着将来的某天，年龄较大的妇女也能拥有生物学意义上的自己的孩子。 目前，许多45岁以上的妇女只能凑合着用年轻女人的卵细胞进行体外受精（IVF）。 Other treatments will become available sooner. OvaScience, a fertility company based in Boston which has exclusive rights to exploit Dr Tilly’s research on mammalian ovarian stem cells, will begin offering a novel treatment in July. This uses a woman’s own stem cells to provide her eggs with extra energy by creating fresh mitochondria-sub-units that exist within cells and supply them with energy. They too can become scarcer and less productive with age. Previous studies have shown that boosting mitochondria can dramatically increase the success rates of IVF. When it comes to reproduction, men will still have it easier for some time. But women are catching up. 另一种疗法也将很快得到应用。 波士顿的OvaScience公司独家开发Tilly博士的哺乳动物卵巢干细胞细胞研究。今年7月，该公司将开始提供一种全新的疗法： 使用卵巢干细胞制造线粒体（给细胞提供能量的细胞器），给妇女的卵细胞增添活力。 线粒体的数量和活力也会随着年龄增长而递减。 此前的研究表明，增加线粒体数量能极大提高体外受精的成功率。 谈起繁衍来，男人还能优哉游哉一阵子。 不过，女人即将迎头赶上。 结婚吧,为了更富有、更聪明 United States-- The decline of marriage 美国-- 婚姻的衰落 For richer, for smarter 结婚吧，为了更富有、更聪明 The traditional family is now the preserve of a minority 传统家庭：少数人的坚持 MARRIAGE, and its many ups and downs, still exercises a powerful hold over newspapers, magazines and the airwaves. Nearly 23m Americans watched Prince William being joined in holy matrimony to Kate Middleton. Millions more have wallowed in the break-up of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s marriage after revelations that he fathered a son with a maid. And the tumescent tweets of congressman Anthony Weiner have stirred up endless speculation about the health of his own year-old marriage and the forbearance of his newly pregnant wife. 婚姻、婚姻里的悲欢离合仍然强有力地占据着报纸、杂志的版面和广播电视的节目。 近2300万美国人收看了威廉王子迎娶凯特?米德尔顿(Kate Middleton)的神圣婚礼。 更有数百万人因阿诺德?施瓦辛格与女管家育有一个私生子被曝光而离婚一事感慨不已。 而国会议员安东尼温纳(Anthony Weiner)在微博上上传自己勃起内裤照片后激起无数人猜测他刚刚才一年的婚姻是否良好、他最近怀孕的妻子是否容忍他的行为。 Less titillating are revelations about the sorry state of marriage across the United States. Data from the Census Bureau show that married couples, for the first time, now make up less than half (45%) of all households. 美国人自己婚姻的糟糕状况则不那么令人感到兴奋。 人口普查局的数据显示已婚夫妇现在占全部家庭的比例不到一半（45%），这是首次出现这种情况。 The iconic American family, with mom, dad and kids under one roof, is fading. 典型的美国式家庭是妈妈、爸爸和几个孩子生活在同一屋檐下，现在这种模式正在逐渐消失。 In every state the numbers of unmarried couples, childless households and single-person households are growing faster than those comprised of married people with children, finds the 2010 census. The latter accounted for 43% of households in 1950; they now account for just 20%. And the trend has a potent class dimension. Traditional marriage has evolved from a near-universal rite to a luxury for the educated and affluent. 在每一个州，未婚伴侣、没有子女的家庭和单人家庭的增长速度都比由有孩子的已婚夫妇组成家庭的增长速度快，2010年人口普查结果如是说。 1950年后者占全部家庭的43%；现在只占20%。 这种趋势阶级强极具说服力。 传统婚姻普遍被视为习俗，现在它已经进化为受教育人群和具有经济实力的人群所享有的奢侈品。 There barely was a marriage gap in 1960: only four percentage points separated the wedded ways of college and high- school graduates (76% versus 72%). The gap has since widened to 16 percentage points, according to the Pew Research Centre. A Census Bureau analysis released this spring found that brides are significantly more likely to have a college degree than they were in the mid-1990s. 1960年结婚率几乎没有差别：大学毕业和高中毕业生的结婚率只相差4个百分点（分别为76%和72%）。 佩尤研究中心（Pew Research Center）称这个差别已经到16%。 今年春天，人口调查局发表的分析称新娘拥有一个大学学位的可能性比九十年代中期时大了很多。 “Marriage has become much more selective, and that’s why the divorce rate has come down,” said Bradford Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. The project found that divorce rates for couples with college degrees are only a third as high as for those with a high-school degree. Americans with a high-school degree or less (who account for 58% of the population) tell researchers they would like to marry, but do not believe they can afford it. Instead, they raise children out of wedlock. Only 6% of children born to college-educated mothers were born outside marriage, according to the National Marriage Project. That compares with 44% of babies born to mothers whose education ended with high school. 位于夏洛茨维尔（Charlottesville）的弗吉尼亚大学的国家婚姻研究项目主任W. 布拉德福德?维尔科斯（W. Bradford Wilcox）称：“ 选择结婚对象时更加地精挑细选，这就是为什么离婚率降低了”。 该研究项目发现双方都拥有大学学位的夫妇的离婚率是那些只有一方有高中学位夫妇的三分之一。 学历为高中或更低水平的美国人（占总人口的58%）告诉研究者他们想结婚，但是认为自己不能承担婚姻的责任。 于是，他们抚养非婚生子女。 国家婚姻研究项目称接受过大学教育的母亲的子女中只有6%是非婚生。 这个数字在母亲是高中毕业的子女中为44%。 “Less marriage means less income and more poverty,” reckons Isabel Sawhill, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. She and other researchers have linked as much as half of the income inequality in America to changes in family composition: single-parent families (mostly those with a high-school degree or less) are getting poorer while married couples (with educations and dual incomes) are increasingly well-off. “This is a striking gap that is not well understood by the public,” she says. Do not expect the Democratic Party, however, to make an issue of the marriage gap in next year’s elections. Unmarried women voted overwhelmingly for Barack Obama. “You don’t want to suggest to someone who isn’t married and has children that they should be married,” says Ms Sawhill. “That is a denigration of their lifestyle.” “婚姻减少意味着收入减少、贫困增加”， 布鲁金斯学会（Brookings Institution）的资深研究员伊莎贝尔?索希尔（Isabel Sawhill） 这样认为。 她和其他研究者把美国收入不均的一半因素与家庭构成的变化联系在一起：单亲家庭（他们中的大多数只有高中或以下学历） 越来越贫困而已婚夫妇（双方均受过高等教育且都有收入）越来越富有。 她说：“这个差别非常明显但是却不为大众很好地理解”。 不过，别指望民主党在明年的选举中将婚姻差别做文章。 未婚女性一边倒地支持奥巴马。 “你别想建议某个没结婚又有小孩的人去结婚”，索希尔女士说，“那样子是对她们生活方式的诋毁。”