By Denise Sherrill, Henderson County 4-H

What is your favorite memory from elementary school? Was it playing on the playground, a favorite teacher, or a best friend?

Henderson County 4-H has provided eggs, supplies for hatching them and teacher training for schools for over 20 years, and teachers tell us that participating in 4-H Embryology is a highlight for many elementary school students.

Fifty-eight classes, mostly second grade, are participating in 4-H Embryology this spring, along with all of the students at Dana Elementary. The N.C. Essential Standards for Science require second grades to learn about life cycles.

4-H volunteers first hatch eggs at home, helping them to become incubation "experts." These volunteers then deliver eggs to the schools. On delivery day, they check each classroom to ensure the incubator is located in a good spot, has water in the bottom, and the temperature is 100 degrees.

They explain to the students that the incubator is the closest thing we have to a mother hen. It provides protection, warmth and humidity. Protection and warmth are obvious, but humidity is a surprise for most of us. The mother hen provides moisture by plucking out some of her feathers, and pressing her skin against the eggs. The volunteers also answer students' questions. The 4-H agent also visits each classroom to help ensure a successful hatch.

Learning life skills is a focus of 4-H. Teachers tell us that the main skill learned by participants in 4-H Embryology is responsibility. Students also develop an interest in wildlife and caring for wildlife, and an improvement in their basic knowledge of science.Teachers also report that the embryology project helps their students aspire to a career in science or a related field.

One teacher wrote, "Students took responsibility for the record-keeping, egg turning and mentored first-graders by teaching them about the embryonic development. This gave them great life experience and great material for writing, which is the heart of comprehension!"

Teachers incorporate math, vocabulary, journaling and many different concepts into the embryology unit. This year Candi Mains and Zach Knox, teachers from Dana Elementary, created a fun song about oviparous animals.

A private donor helped to fund 4-H Embryology the past few years. Grant funds will be sought for new equipment for future years. Donors will be needed for ongoing supplies. Volunteers would be welcome to help with any part of this program: equipment repairs, delivering eggs to schools, preparing equipment for teachers, and sorting and storing equipment as it is returned.

Henderson County 4-H uses bobwhite quail eggs for 4-H Embryology. A dad of several 4-H alumni raises and releases the quail into the wild.

4-H Award

Deborah Clark, agricultural engineering teacher and 4-H club leader at Dana Elementary, received the NC 4-H Volunteer Leaders Association School Enrichment Award in March.

Clark enthusiastically works to develop skills in leadership, citizenship and responsibility in her students and 4-H club members. She involves all 480-plus students at her school in gardening and learning about nature each week. She implements 4-H Embryology and nutrition programs, and assists other teachers with these programs.

Deborah Clark inspires her students, and everyone who knows her, to do their best in all aspects of life.

4-H Mini-Gardening Contest

For all Henderson County youth, ages 9-18, as of Jan. 1: Each participant plants and cares for a 10-foot-by-12-foot vegetable garden and maintains a garden journal. Training, seeds and tomato plants are provided. Extension Master Gardeners visit each garden twice during the summer. Space is limited, so register soon.

4-H Sewing Classes

Registration for 4-H sewing classes is now open to anyone ages 10-18. Classes will be on Friday afternoons, beginning monthly from June 9 to Nov. 17. and each class will run for four weeks. Choose either 1-3 p.m. or 3:30-5:30 p.m. Beginners are welcome. Sewing machines, patterns and basic sewing kits are provided, along with adult helpers. The fee is $25. Sewing volunteers are always needed.

4-H Paper Clover Days at Tractor Supply, now through May 7

Support your local 4-H program by purchasing paper clovers at Tractor Supply.

Denise Sherrill is the 4-H agent for Henderson County. 4-H is the Youth Development Program of NC Cooperative Extension, which is a division of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at NCSU. Visit henderson.ces.ncsu.edu/4-H, call 828-697-4891 or email Denise_Sherrill@ncsu.edu to learn more about 4-H clubs, activities or endowments. Donors are always needed to help provide scholarships for 4-H camp and other activities. Donations may be sent to: Henderson County 4-H, 100 Jackson Park Road, Hendersonville, NC 28792.

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Henderson County 4-H: Hatching eggs is a highlight of elementary school - BlueRidgeNow.com

To prevent exploitation it is illegal to pay egg donors in the UK. Photograph: Chris Knapton/Alamy

The fertility regulator has launched an investigation into allegations that IVF clinics are inducing women to donate eggs in return for free or discounted treatment.

Women on low incomes who have healthy eggs but cannot get pregnant are being given complimentary treatment or offered a discount if they donate eggs at some clinics, which then resell them for a large profit, according to the Daily Mail.

The paper sent undercover reporters to IVF clinics posing as would-be parents who could not afford treatment. They were encouraged to donate eggs at clinics in London, Hertfordshire and County Durham.

To prevent exploitation it is illegal to pay donors, although compensation of up to 750 a cycle is permissible to cover any costs associated with the donation.

Sally Cheshire, the chair of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, said: We are very concerned by the allegations made in this investigation. At the HFEA our priority is the best possible treatment and care for patients and donors. If any patients at these clinics have worries about their care, they should contact us while we investigate further. We have already contacted the clinics involved and our inspectors will investigate each allegation. If we find poor practice in a clinic, we will take regulatory action.

The health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, described the allegations as serious and worrying and urged anyone with concerns to contact the HFEA.

The Mail said the clinics charged couples as much as 7,500 a time for donated eggs. One consultant was filmed on a hidden camera telling the undercover reporters that the clinic offered discounted treatment because it could get more than 6,000 for the donated eggs. But he advised the couple not to state in writing that their reasons for donating were financial, as it is not allowed.

Egg sharing, where women receive IVF as a benefit in kind in return for donating eggs, is legal but there are strict rules on the information that should be provided to potential donors and how consent is obtained.

Prof Adam Balen, the chair of the British Fertility Society, said: Egg sharing practice is legitimate and can work well for those concerned, provided that it is combined with appropriate counselling for both donor and recipient. However, if there was adequate NHS funding of fertility treatments, many couples would not have the need to donate their own eggs in order to enable the funding of the treatment that they so desperately seek.

Many patients are required to self-fund treatment and so it is essential that [it is] made clear exactly what they are being charged for.

Funding cuts have led to a reduction in fertility treatment on the NHS. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence recommends that women under 40 should be offered three cycles of IVF. Last year, only 16% of clinical commissioning groups in England most of them in the north of the country offered three cycles, down from 24% in 2013, according to Fertility Fairness.

In March, the Scottish government said it would fund three cycles for all eligible couples trying to start a family. In Wales, women under 40 are entitled to two cycles and in Northern Ireland women under 40 are offered one cycle.

More:
Fertility regulator launches inquiry into 'cash for eggs' claims ... - The Guardian

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Chick embryology at AMS - Blair Enterprise Publishing

By Denise Sherrill, Henderson County 4-H

What is your favorite memory from elementary school? Was it playing on the playground, a favorite teacher, or a best friend?

Henderson County 4-H has provided eggs, supplies for hatching them and teacher training for schools for over 20 years, and teachers tell us that participating in 4-H Embryology is a highlight for many elementary school students.

Fifty-eight classes, mostly second grade, are participating in 4-H Embryology this spring, along with all of the students at Dana Elementary. The N.C. Essential Standards for Science require second grades to learn about life cycles.

4-H volunteers first hatch eggs at home, helping them to become incubation "experts." These volunteers then deliver eggs to the schools. On delivery day, they check each classroom to ensure the incubator is located in a good spot, has water in the bottom, and the temperature is 100 degrees.

They explain to the students that the incubator is the closest thing we have to a mother hen. It provides protection, warmth and humidity. Protection and warmth are obvious, but humidity is a surprise for most of us. The mother hen provides moisture by plucking out some of her feathers, and pressing her skin against the eggs. The volunteers also answer students' questions. The 4-H agent also visits each classroom to help ensure a successful hatch.

Learning life skills is a focus of 4-H. Teachers tell us that the main skill learned by participants in 4-H Embryology is responsibility. Students also develop an interest in wildlife and caring for wildlife, and an improvement in their basic knowledge of science.Teachers also report that the embryology project helps their students aspire to a career in science or a related field.

One teacher wrote, "Students took responsibility for the record-keeping, egg turning and mentored first-graders by teaching them about the embryonic development. This gave them great life experience and great material for writing, which is the heart of comprehension!"

Teachers incorporate math, vocabulary, journaling and many different concepts into the embryology unit. This year Candi Mains and Zach Knox, teachers from Dana Elementary, created a fun song about oviparous animals.

A private donor helped to fund 4-H Embryology the past few years. Grant funds will be sought for new equipment for future years. Donors will be needed for ongoing supplies. Volunteers would be welcome to help with any part of this program: equipment repairs, delivering eggs to schools, preparing equipment for teachers, and sorting and storing equipment as it is returned.

Henderson County 4-H uses bobwhite quail eggs for 4-H Embryology. A dad of several 4-H alumni raises and releases the quail into the wild.

4-H Award

Deborah Clark, agricultural engineering teacher and 4-H club leader at Dana Elementary, received the NC 4-H Volunteer Leaders Association School Enrichment Award in March.

Clark enthusiastically works to develop skills in leadership, citizenship and responsibility in her students and 4-H club members. She involves all 480-plus students at her school in gardening and learning about nature each week. She implements 4-H Embryology and nutrition programs, and assists other teachers with these programs.

Deborah Clark inspires her students, and everyone who knows her, to do their best in all aspects of life.

4-H Mini-Gardening Contest

For all Henderson County youth, ages 9-18, as of Jan. 1: Each participant plants and cares for a 10-foot-by-12-foot vegetable garden and maintains a garden journal. Training, seeds and tomato plants are provided. Extension Master Gardeners visit each garden twice during the summer. Space is limited, so register soon.

4-H Sewing Classes

Registration for 4-H sewing classes is now open to anyone ages 10-18. Classes will be on Friday afternoons, beginning monthly from June 9 to Nov. 17. and each class will run for four weeks. Choose either 1-3 p.m. or 3:30-5:30 p.m. Beginners are welcome. Sewing machines, patterns and basic sewing kits are provided, along with adult helpers. The fee is $25. Sewing volunteers are always needed.

4-H Paper Clover Days at Tractor Supply, now through May 7

Support your local 4-H program by purchasing paper clovers at Tractor Supply.

Denise Sherrill is the 4-H agent for Henderson County. 4-H is the Youth Development Program of NC Cooperative Extension, which is a division of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at NCSU. Visit henderson.ces.ncsu.edu/4-H, call 828-697-4891 or email Denise_Sherrill@ncsu.edu to learn more about 4-H clubs, activities or endowments. Donors are always needed to help provide scholarships for 4-H camp and other activities. Donations may be sent to: Henderson County 4-H, 100 Jackson Park Road, Hendersonville, NC 28792.

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Hatching eggs is a highlight of elementary school - BlueRidgeNow.com

Two fifths of eggs in British clinics are from sharing schemes swapping free treatment for genetic material. Photograph: Chris Knapton/Alamy

I t isnt a baby, of course: just a tiny clump of cells invisible to the naked eye, a dot of potential life that may yet come to nothing. So some will be bemused by this weeks fuss over the practice of women donating human eggs to fertility clinics for other womens use in return for getting their own IVF treatment free. Unless you have religious objections, whats wrong with a deal that may represent poorercouples only chances of starting a family?

So-called egg-sharing schemes have been around for 20 years and are quite legal, so long as nobody is paid outright for donating. But the results of a newspapers undercover investigation into fertility clinics make uncomfortable reading nonetheless.

Journalists posing as would-be parents too broke to afford IVF were reportedly handed leaflets in some clinics promoting loans to cover the fees at up to four times bank rates. In others, egg donation seems to have been heavily pushed. One nurse allegedly suggested the couple think of it as like donating blood, even though its a hospital procedure performed under anaesthetic after weeks of taking ovary-stimulating drugs that carry a small risk of serious side-effects, and the process carries potentially serious emotional implications. What if you fail to get pregnant, only for the egg you gave away to grow up into someone elses child with a legal right to trace their biological mother when they reach 18?

So the Human Fertility and Embryology Authority is right to promise an investigation, and should follow the trail all the way to its logical conclusion. The fertility industry isnt some benign, kindly stork, but a multimillion-pound business rife with potential conflicts between profit and patient welfare that are overdue some scrutiny. The bigger question is how far responsibility for anything that may have gone wrong should be shared by successive governments, whose failure to fund free IVF treatment on the NHS has driven poorer patients into potentially vulnerable situations.

An estimated 40% of eggs in British clinics now come from sharing schemes swapping free treatment for genetic material. Its arguably prettier than alternatives seeking treatment overseas in countries with more lax regimes, or the seedy trade in women illegally offering eggs for sale over the internet and has led to an estimated 2,000 births.

Yet sharing remains a moral grey area. Its not quite cash for babies, but its not a million miles away either. And with payment, even in kind, comes the risk of exploitation. Is a woman who effectively has no choice but to donate eggs if she wants children of her own really giving them freely, as the law demands? For, inevitably, its poorer women who will be disproportionately attracted to donating, and richer women those who can afford treatment outright who benefit. Fertility specialists insist many women undergoing IVF would be happy to donate spares for nothing. One Belgian study found a 70% drop in donation after the Belgian government promised free IVF, suggesting many donors were motivated by financial considerations. (Ironically, if the Department of Health had actually funded the three free cycles of IVF that the health watchdog NICE recommended 13 years ago, waiting lists for donor eggs might well be longer now.)

There is a web of conflicting interests to unpick here, and an obvious tension between the HFEAs guidelines which state that a donation must be altruistic and in the spirit of contributing to a wider social good to comply with British law and the reality that sharing is clearly sometimes a euphemism for something darker.

Ive spent just enough time in fertility clinics long story, but while getting pregnant naturally was easy the first time, the second time never happened to know theyre places of vulnerability. Grief, desperation and hormones cloud everyones judgment until nothing seems to matter but the baby you dont have. When I told my NHS consultant I was in two minds about IVF, given that I was lucky enough to have one child already, he blurted out, so it doesnt actually matter that much.

At the time, it felt brutally insensitive given many women find secondary infertility (failing to get pregnant when youve done it before) as distressing as childlessness. But with hindsight Im grateful not to have been pushed into endless rounds of treatment that were statistically unlikely to work. I wonder if a less scrupulous private consultant might just have banked the cheque.

There are many private clinics providing outstandingly ethical service, of course. But the lesson of too many scandals involving womens health including the disturbing case of Ian Paterson, the breast cancer surgeon convicted last week of repeatedly performing mastectomies on private patients who didnt need them is that its naive to assume there will never be rogues. Kneejerk judgments aroused by any mention of female fertility have in the past perhaps tended to shield this industry from scrutiny. Public sympathy is with the doctors, those twinkly-eyed miracle babymakers, while their customers are caricatured as silly women paying the price for leaving it too late even though women young enough to make good egg donors have, by definition, not left it too late. If they had, their eggs would be useless.

But lets be honest. Its not just patients who benefit from stretching the age or income limits for IVF treatment, as egg donation does. Almost every breakthrough expands the potential pool of paying customers. Its not enough to grunt caveat emptor when taxpayers and politicians alike have saved a fortune by tacitly shunting emotionally vulnerable people off the NHSs books and into private sector hands. Doctors are not the only ones who owe these patients a duty of care.

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Cash for babies? Not quite, but egg donors deserve protection - The Guardian

By CRISTINA JANNEY Hays Post

Thomas More Prep-Marian will be the first private school in the state to have an FFA chapter beginning this fall.

FFA, formerly Future Farmers of America, focuses on agriculture education.

Jay Harris was brought to TMP this school year to teach agriculture classes. Those classes included introduction to agriculture for junior high students and introduction to animal and crop production for high school students.

Mid-level courses will be offered next year.

The junior high classes are geared to where food comes from. A lot of students in this generation think that food comes from a grocery store, Harris said.

The students level of experience with agriculture have been mixed. Some students have grown up on farms, some students have grandparents or relatives who have farms, and some students have little experience with agriculture.

The majority of the students have a least one parent that do something that has to do with agriculture, and the students didnt realize it, he said. They work at HaysMed. Who are a number of their clients? Farmers. They work at Carrico Implement or they work at one of the coops. There are a lot of ag-related careers and jobs in this area.

Harris and Principal Chad Meitner said agriculture is so prevalent in this area of the state, most careers are affected by agriculture.

If you are a lawyer, Meitner said. you are probably going to have clients who are farmers.

Harris said the formation of the chapter was student driven with a couple of dozen students expressing serious interest.

Jacob Schmeidler, sophomore, was one of those students.

Schmeidlers father raises cattle and row crops in the Hays area. Jacob has been involved in 4-H throughout his childhood, including public speaking and livestock judging.

He has considered a career in large-animal veterinary, but is now leaning toward cattle embryology and breeding.

In the ag classes this year, I have learned so much, he said, and it taps into the field that I want to go into.

The networking opportunities that FFA will provide also will be valuable, Schmeidler said, adding he hopes the program will help him find a good college where he can pursue his career aspirations.

This summer students will attend the state FFA conference. The students will be charged with writing a constitution for the chapter.

FFA supports three arms of academic study. Those include classroom instruction, labs and supervised agriculural experiences or SAEs.

The SAEs have the students working on practical ag projects, such as raising livestock or having an experience in ag journalism.

Read more here:
TMP to add FFA chapter this fall - hays Post

Magdalena Abakanowicz, who has died at the age of 86, was a sculptor whose work spoke of freedom and repression. Her looming, headless figures and haunting, monumental textile configurations explored the human condition and the relationship between man and nature.

In Chicagos Grant Park is Agora, 106 headless standing bodies, each nearly nine feet high. Its genesis, she said, lay in her experiences of the Second World War and the decades of communist rule she endured in her native Poland: I lived in times which were extraordinary by their various forms of collective hate and collective adulation, she said. Marches and parades worshipped leaders, great and good, who soon turned out to be mass murderers. I was obsessed by the image of the crowd.

Another series, Backs, was just that: pieces of sackcloth sewn together in representations of the human torso seen from behind, bent over in prayer, supplication or submission. The face can lie, she said. The back cannot. I was asked by the public, Is it about the concentration camps in Poland? Is it a ceremony in old Peru? Is it a ritual in Bali? To all these questions, I could answer yes because my work is about the general problems of mankind.

She was born Marta Abakanowicz in 1930 into an aristocratic family in Poland her father, the son of a Czarist general, claimed to be descended from Genghis Khan, while her mother came from Polish nobility and she was raised on her grandfathers estate 125 miles from Warsaw.

Her privileged upbringing came to an abrupt end when the Second World War broke out: drunken German soldiers broke into their house and shot her mother, Helena, in the arm, severing it. The family survived, but fled to Warsaw when Soviet troops began their westward advance on Berlin, and Marta worked as a nurses assistant treating the wounded during the failed Warsaw Uprising.

At wars end, as the Communists took over, the family, fearing class war, fled from the capital and established themselves near Gdansk, where Marta who changed her name to Magdalena to break with her past studied art. Pretending to be a clerks daughter, she then enrolled at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts, but by then the state-enforced socialist realism was in full swing, and she was turned down for the sculpture course, and concentrated instead on watercolours and gouache works daubed on bedsheets: It was almost forbidden to talk about mystery, she recalled. I did.

In 1965 she married an engineer, Jan Kosmowski (who survives her). Unsurprisingly, she encountered much resistance to her work from the Polish authorities. In 1960 one of her shows was banned from opening after an official, displaying spectacular and presumably wilful wrong-headedness, condemned it as formalist concerned purely with form. But she established an international reputation and began working increasingly abroad. In 1972 she wrapped Edinburgh Cathedral in coils of rope to resemble, she said, a petrified organism.

In Britain her work can currently be seen at the Tate Modern in London. Embryology is an example of what she called her Abakans, woven pieces made from sisal taken from ships ropes, hemp and cotton gauze, pieces she described as monumental, soft and erotic. In Embryology, the pieces are like boulders strewn across the gallery in mounds. I turn sculpture from an object to look at into a space to experience, she said. Every sculpture can be turned into decoration. But if you have 100, you are confronted by them and must think and imagine and question yourself. This is what I want.

Continue reading here:
Magdalena Abakanowicz, obituary: The Polish sculptor's work - The Independent

New research shows how mitochondriathe energy generators within cellscan withstand attacks on their DNA from rogue molecules.

The findings could pave the way for new treatments to tackle neurodegenerative diseases and cancer. The research could also have important implications for clinical advances in mitochondrial donationsometimes called a three-parent babyused to correct defects in faulty mitochondria.

The five-year study, published in Science Advances, reveals how the enzyme TDP1already known to have a role in repairing damaged DNA in the cells nucleusis also responsible for repairing damage to mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA).

During the process of energy production and making proteins, a large amount of rogue reactive oxygen species are produced which constantly attack the DNA in the mitochondria. These attacks break their DNA, however the new findings show mitochondria have their very own repair toolkits that are constantly active to maintain their own DNA integrity.

Each mitochondria repair toolkit has unique componentsenzymeswhich can cut, hammer, and seal the breaks. The presence of these enzymes is important for energy production, says lead author Sherif El-Khamisy, professor and chair of molecular medicine at the University of Sheffield.

Defects in repairing DNA breaks in the mitochondria affect vital organs that rely heavily on energy such as the brain. It also has implications on mitochondria replacement therapies recently approved in the UK and known as three parent babies.'

Although much research has focused on how free radicals damage the DNA in the cells nucleus, their effect on mitochondrial DNA is less well understood despite this damage to mtDNA being responsible for many different types of disease such as neurological disorders.

Having healthy mitochondria is also essential for tissue regeneration, making it particularly important for successful organ transplants.

The team further identified a mechanism through which mtDNA can be damaged and then fixed, via a protein called TOP1, which is responsible for untangling coils of mtDNA. When the long strands become tangled, TOP1 breaks and quickly repairs the strands to unravel the knots. If free radicals are also attacking the mitochondrial DNA, then TOP1 proteins can become trapped on the mitochondrial DNA strands, making repair even more difficult.

El-Khamisy believes the findings could pave the way for the development of new therapies for mitochondrial disease that boost their DNA repair capacity, or for cancer treatments which could use TDP1 inhibitors to prevent mtDNA repair selectively in cancer cells.

Cancer relies on cells dividing very quickly. That means they need a lot of energy, so will have really healthy mitochondria, says El-Khamisy.

If we can find a way to selectively damage the mitochondria in the cancer cells, by preventing or slowing its repair mechanism, this could be really promising.

The findings could also be important for new clinical advances such as the decision by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) to allow mitochondrial donation, in which mtDNA from a female donor is introduced to an embryo to correct mitochondrial defects.

This research suggests that clinicians should assess the function of TDP1 and mitochondrial TOP1 before mitochondrial donation takes place, to ensure the success of this procedure, adds El-Khamisy.

Even if the new embryo has healthy mitochondrial DNA from the donor, it could still have defective TDP1 or mitochondrial TOP1 from the recipient, since they are both produced by the DNA in the cells nucleus, so mitochondrial DNA damage could still take place over time, and cause disease.

A Wellcome Trust Investigator Award and a Lister Institute of Preventative Medicine Fellowship supported the work. The University of Sheffield led the study in collaboration with the University of Newcastle, the University of Sussex, RAFT, Zewail City of Science and Technology in Egypt, and St Jude Childrens Research Hospital in the US.

Source: University of Sheffield

Excerpt from:
Mitochondria use 'toolkit' when free radicals attack - Futurity: Research News

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A fertility clinic in Cheshunt is under investigation after it found itself at the centre of a sting by a national tabloid newspaper.

The Daily Mail alleged that the Herts and Essex Fertility Centre was one of three to offer financial incentives to poor women to donate their eggs - a practice which can be illegal.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), which regulates clinics, has contacted the facility and will be conducting an investigation.

Undercover reporters from the paper posed as couples seeking IVF treatment at the Cheshunt clinic, which lies a stone's throw from the Broxbourne Borough Council offices in Churchgate.

They claim they were offered cheap, or free, treatment in exchange for the donation of half the eggs the female partner would produce. Those eggs would then be used to provide IVF for other couples.

READ MORE: Brave Cheshunt boy comes through life-changing 75k operation

Clinics are restricted by law from offering financial incentives for donations, and one doctor at a clinic in Darlington told the reporter she should refrain from putting money on the consent form.

The chairwoman of the HFEA Sally Cheshire said: "We are very concerned by the allegations made in this investigation. At the HFEA our priority is the best possible treatment and care for patients and donors.

"If any patients at these clinics have worries about their care, they should contact us while we investigate further. We have already contacted the clinics involved and our inspectors will investigate each allegation. If we find poor practice in a clinic, we will take regulatory action."

READ MORE: Watch Stavros Flatley lose seven inches from his waist with new treatment

Despite the HFEA confirming to the Mercury it has contacted the Herts and Essex Fertility Centre, the clinic's marketing manager Sally Day denied this is the case.

Consultant gynaecologist David Ogutu said the facility complies with all regulations and the scheme it offers is legal.

He added: "It is important to stress that egg share cycles involve treatment of only one recipient and one egg donor. Half the eggs received from an egg share donor are used to treat only one other patient, the recipient.

"The payment received from the recipient covers the donor's costs. At Herts & Essex Fertility Centre we are immensely proud to help hundreds of couples to have babies, who cannot afford fertility treatment and who through no fault of theirs, are not eligible for NHS funded treatment.

"Only through egg sharing can some couples hope to have a loving family and we have nothing to be ashamed of."

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said he would be watching the HFEA investigation very closely. He added: "I will be paying close attention to the findings and in the meantime urge anyone with concerns to contact the HFEA without delay.

"The Mail's findings are both serious and worrying and they are right to have brought them to public attention."

According to the Daily Mail report, a poster in the waiting room at the Herts and Essex clinic advertises the scheme to prospective parents who cannot get NHS funding.

IVF can cost couples tens of thousands of pounds so the scheme is likely to be a significant draw for the less well-off.

A nurse in Cheshunt allegedly told the reporters egg donation was "just like giving blood" and reassured them that "an egg isn't a baby".

Potential donors at the clinic are reportedly given one hour of counselling about the experience of another couple raising their genetic children.

Mr Ogutu said: "Research has clearly shown that egg sharing women have similar success rates to that of comparable non-egg sharing women undergoing IVF treatment.

"So those women are not compromising their chances of success and on top of that, are getting their treatment free.

"As far as the mandatory independent free counselling is concerned, we do not dictate how many sessions egg sharing couples have.

"It is purely between the counsellors and the couples to decide if they require more sessions as we have no limit as to the number of sessions."

Link:
Cheshunt fertility clinic under investigation for 'paying poor women ... - Hertfordshire Mercury

A new study is suggesting unborn babies in the first trimester may experience pain.

The scientific journal Cell, in a study etitled Tridimensional Visualization and Analysis of Early Human Development, published in March, sheds light on the advanced neurological development of the unborn.

Although the study comes to no definitive conclusion, embryologists now have a clearer picture of the extent of nerve development at early stages of gestation a greater level of development than previously thought. (Emphasis added, the Dispatch)

Human Fetus at 8 weeks photo Henry Gray

The study saysthat adult-like pattern of skin innervation is established before the end of the first trimester, showing important intra- and inter-individual variations in nerve branches.

Later they added that Sensory nerves and their branches in the hands of 14 embryos and fetuses were reconstructed in 3D using Prph detailing the process of examining the nerves in each hand.

The medical field has had much to say on the science of fetal pain, including as the unborn child moves in response to external stimuli such as touch as early as eight weeks.

The fetus starts to make movements in response to being touched from eight weeks, and more complex movements build up as detected by real time ultrasound over the next few weeks, said Vivette Glover of the Imperial College London in 2004.

After noting the incredible advancements in 3D and 4D imaging, the study the main limitations of our method are the availability of human embryos, the number of antibody combinations (a maximum of four at this time), the compatibility of the antibodies with our protocol (Table S1) and the storage of large size light-sheet image datasets. Nevertheless, the spectrum of future investigations and applications of this method in the field of embryology and fetology are countless.

Our work shows that it should be possiblein the near future to build a reference 3D atlas of the developing human. As a first step in this direction, all our 3D datasets aremade available on a dedicated website (https://transparent-human-embryo.com/) that will also serve as a repository for additional embryology 3D data generated from our laboratory and others. This reference 3D atlas of the developing human and specific organs and systems not only represents a powerful educational online tool for researchers, educators, and students worldwide, but will allow 3D printing of anatomical models for didactic purposes in health sciences education programs.

READ MORE HERE

photo Ivon19 via wikimedia commons

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New study: unborn baby experience pain during first trimester - The Global Dispatch