Weird News/Sperm Bank Rejects Redheads

photo: iStockPhoto

Can sperm banks discriminate against potential donors based on their hair color?

In countries where donations are in high demand -- Spain, Italy and Greece, there's less interest in sperm that might differ from the current demographics of the area. That is, people in these areas usually have brown eyes and brown hair, not lighter eye colors and red hair.
Donated sperm is used to impregnate women through artificial insemination. Single women wanting a child, couples with fertility issues and lesbian partners may use sperm bank services and other third party reproduction methods. Some men may give to sperm banks for their own personal use in the future, too.
After screening and being accepted as a donor, most men agree to a several-month commitment for donating. This also reduces the number of donors a given company will take on.
Banks reserve the right to accept men based on their height and weight as well. But rejecting potential donors based on physical appearance isn't foolproof. For example, one man passed on a rare genetic disease to multiple children through his donation. Though most banks check for a list of common genetic conditions, they seem to value a person's appearance just as much in some cases.
The director of Cryos International sperm bank said the company has refused donors based on hair color and skin traits because women want donations that more closely resemble their partners and others in their community.
Because Cryos has reached its storage capacity (70 liters of sperm, if you're wondering), company representatives say they have the right to be more selective with the physical attributes of donors.
But before writing off redheads, rest assured that their sperm is still a best-seller in Ireland and for women and couples with a preference for the trait.

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Washing away luck

Do people believe good and bad luck can be washed away?

Yes, according to an advanced online publication in the Journal of Experimental Psychology that was co-authored by Rami Zwick, a University of California, Riverside marketing professor in the School of Business Administration.

Zwick, working with Alison Jing Xu of the University of Toronto, and Norbert Schwarz of the University of Michigan, designed two experiments that showed risk taking depends on whether participants recalled a past episode of good or bad luck and whether they washed their hands before engaging in a risky decision making task.

The experimental findings, in the paper “Washing Away Your (Good or Bad) Luck: Physical Cleansing Affects Risk-Taking Behavior,” converge with anecdotal reports of superstitious practices, such as an athlete wearing the same unwashed shirt during a winning streak, and show that magical beliefs about luck have behavioral consequences.

Magical beliefs are exhibited, for example, by having confidence in one’s ability to predict the outcome of a random event beyond the known probabilities if one can exert irrelevant control on the situation. For example, research has shown people are more confident they will have a winning scratch-off lottery ticket if they pick the ticket instead of being given one by a clerk.

Debriefing conversations with participants suggest that people remain unaware of these influences, as has also been observed in other studies. Although participants are familiar with the underlying metaphors and related superstitious practices, they do not realize that this knowledge is applicable to the experiment and, needless to say, insist that they would never be influenced by such a thing.

In the first experiment outlined in the paper, 59 business students at a North American university were brought in. Half were asked to recall an incident in which they had good luck financially and the other half were asked to recall an incident of bad financial luck.

Next, an ostensibly unrelated product evaluation study served as a cover story. All participants evaluated an antiseptic wipe. Half were told to use the wipe, the other half were told to form and impression of the product without using it. Product evaluation questions followed.

Finally, the participants were given a managerial decision task. Taking the role of a chief executive officer, they had to adopt or reject a product improvement recommendation based on two consequences of action.

Under the first option, if they stayed with the existing product profits would remain at the current level, about $20 million per year.

Under the second option, the product was modified, but profits would depend on acceptance by consumers. Marketing research indicated there was a 75 percent chance of strong acceptance, which would result in an increase in profits to $24 million, but there was a 25 percent chance of weak acceptance, resulting in a drop in profits to $12 million.

The researchers found those who recalled an unlucky incident and cleaned their hands and those that recalled a lucky incident and didn’t clean their hands were more likely to select the riskier option.

Of those who recalled an unlucky incident and cleaned their hands, 73 percent selected the riskier option, while only 36 percent who recalled an unlucky incident and didn’t clean their hands picked the riskier option.

Of those who recalled a lucky incident, 77 percent who didn’t clean their hands picked the riskier option, while only 35 percent who cleaned their hands selected the riskier option.

In the second experiment, students and staff from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, where Zwick formerly taught, were given HK $100 (US$1 = HK$7.8) to gamble with. They were told this was “for real” money that they would keep at the end. Indeed, they were paid based on their decisions and luck.

The experimenters showed participants a pink ball and a green ball and placed them in a bag. Participants selected one of the colors as their “winning” color and blindly picked a ball from the bag. If they picked the winning color they won HK$50. If not, they lost HK$50. They repeated the task until they lost their HK$100, won an additional HK$100 or completed four rounds.

Next, an ostensibly unrelated product evaluation study served as a cover story for the hand-washing manipulation. Participants evaluated organic soap. Half were told to wash their hands with the soap. The other half were told not to use the soap.

Finally, participants did a second round of gambling. They received HK$50 and were told they could bet any amount from nothing to HK$50.It was the same game as last time, but with only one round.

Researchers found participants who had good luck in the initial round bet more money in the second round than participants who had bad luck.

However, participants who had bad luck in the first round bet more money in the second round if they washed their hands. The difference was an average of HK$31.15 versus HK$17.47.

In contrast, those who had good luck in the first round bet less money in the second round if they had washed their hands. The difference was an average of HK$28.08 versus HK$37.75.

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People from Polar Regions Have Bigger Brains

They're not more intelligent, but the bigger brain (and eyeball) size permits better vision in areas with less sunlight.

THE GIST

• The higher in latitude a person lives, the bigger his or her brain and eyeballs will be, according to new research.
• The larger brains and eyeballs lend better visual acuity in areas that receive less sunlight than equatorial regions.
• The additional brain matter is needed for the extra visual processing.

Inuit children in the Arctic. Research shows that people native to polar regions have larger brains to accommodate better vision in their low-light native regions.

People who live in high latitude regions have bigger eyeballs and brains than other individuals, according to new research.

The increase in brain and eye size allows people to see better in places that receive less light than areas closer to the equator, according to the new study, published in the latest issue of the journal Royal Society Biology Letters.

The effect is most extreme at the poles.

"Someone living on the Arctic Circle would have an eyeball that is 20 percent larger than someone living on the equator," co-author Robin Dunbar told Discovery News.

"People living at high latitudes have greater visual acuity than those who live at the equator," added Dunbar, who is head of the Institute of Cognitive & Evolutionary Anthropology at the University of Oxford.

"The whole point is that they need to have better vision to compensate for the lower light levels at high latitudes, as indicated by the evidence we provide that visual acuity under ambient/natural light conditions remains constant with latitude."

For the study, Dunbar and colleague Eiluned Pearce measured the skulls of 55 individuals from 12 different populations, focusing on the dimensions for orbital volume and cranial capacity. The people lived about 200 years ago. Their skulls are now part of collections housed at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History and the University of Cambridge's Duckworth Collection.

The researchers found significant positive relationships between absolute latitude, orbital volume and brain size. Eyeballs varied in size from around a quarter to a third of an ounce in volume.

The brains, in turn, ranged from about 40.6 ounces for Micronesians, on the low end of the size spectrum, and 50.2 ounces for Scandinavians on the high end.

Skulls from Arctic Circle residents were not included, but the researchers made the "20 percent larger" estimate based on their existing data.

The scientists are quick to point out that brain size isn’t necessarily correlated with intelligence.

"The point we’re trying to make is that the larger brains of high latitude humans doesn’t mean they're smarter, it just means they have increased the size of brain areas dedicated to vision, and this has increased brain size overall," Pearce explained.

As for the larger eyeballs, they permit smaller proportions of images to fall upon each photoreceptor field so that more details can be distinguished. The amount of light hitting Earth's surface as well as minimum day length decrease with increasing absolute latitude, so people living in such areas need the visual boost.

The effect has previously been demonstrated before in birds and other primates, but this new study is the first to show how it affects humans.

The findings could help to explain why Neanderthals and their ancestors may have had larger brains than us. Although possibly technically brainier, they were not necessarily any more intelligent.

Since higher latitudes come with colder temperatures, the researchers ruled out increases in eyeball and brain size due to more insulating fat. Only light exposure explained the size differences, even when climate was factored in.

The study demonstrates just how resilient and adaptable humans and other animals can be.

"As we see it," Dunbar said, "populations occupying higher latitudes have three options: keep eyes and the brain the same and accept poorer visual acuity, increase the size of the visual areas to keep visual acuity the same but keep brain size the same, or increase the visual areas, but conserve the size of the frontal parts of the brain, and do this by increasing total brain size."

"It seems we have done the third," he concluded, "since the frontal parts of the brain are the 'smart' areas in terms of IQ. What we seem to have done is to try to keep intelligence constant, rather than sacrificing it."

Courtes-

Jennifer Viegas /DISCOVERY NEWS

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