Comments on: Breast milk is weirder than you think

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 21:34:00 +0000

Actually, you beat me to it.

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 21:25:00 +0000

I wonder how he feels about that song now, all things considered.

By: Brainspore

Brainspore — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 18:36:00 +0000

…the chemical composition of breast milk can change, depending on factors like your baby’s sex and whether your baby is showing signs of illness.

I bet my wife’s boobs got mightily confused when they were producing milk for our boy/girl twins.

By: Jorpho

Jorpho — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 17:28:00 +0000

In monkeys, the chemical composition of breast milk can change, depending on factors like your baby’s sex and whether your baby is showing signs of illness.

C’mon, the real story here is the diagnostic powers of these prescient monkeys.

By: Brainspore

Brainspore — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 16:41:00 +0000

It’s the Windex of bodily fluids.

(Yes, I just made a reference to a romantic comedy. So shoot me.)

By: Madeline Ashby

Madeline Ashby — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 15:08:00 +0000

Also, you can dab it on cuts to help them heal faster.

By: DreamboatSkanky

DreamboatSkanky — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 14:52:00 +0000

It’s sweeter than the ripple wine. Yes it’s sweeter than the wine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46EbjMkeghE

By: James Churchill

James Churchill — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 14:21:00 +0000

There’s all sorts of food that our microbiome helps us digest, so I’m not sure breast milk is particularly unusual in that respect – and since we don’t function at all well without that bacteria present, it seems increasingly obvious that those colonies *are* as much “me” or “you” as (say) a red blood cell is.

By: Joshua Bardwell

Joshua Bardwell — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 03:06:00 +0000

Think of this the next time some formula company touts the latest and greatest micronutrient that they have added to their recipe in order to make it closer to breast milk. Nothing can compete with breast milk for infant nutrition–nothing. And even if you could simulate breast milk to a tee, you couldn’t emulate the way that it changes dynamically in response to the infant’s needs.

There is a time and place for formula, but no one should dispute that it is nutritionally inferior to breast milk.

By: anankesf

anankesf — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 02:59:00 +0000

That’s right, TITTY milk evolved and makes SONS stronger rawr…or not…perhaps it’s the JUG spraying?

By: pt68

pt68 — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 02:12:00 +0000

So, just thinking out loud here . . . there are sugars (oligosaccharides, simple sugars) in human milk that humans don’t digest. Many vegans argue that we shouldn’t drink cow’s milk because there are sugars (disaccharides, simple sugars) that we can’t digest in it.
Is it possible that the cow’s milk elements that we can’t digest have some other functions as well, even in the cow? Or that these sugars are similar?
Interesting stuff!

By: MurasakiMadness

MurasakiMadness — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 23:38:00 +0000

Also awesome: if the baby has an eye infection, you can squirt some milk into their eye straight from the jugs.

By: peregrinus

peregrinus — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 23:35:00 +0000

Cool. This should throw a bone to the creationistas, I love the complexity of biology.

By: timquinn

timquinn — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 21:40:00 +0000

Evolution does not care.

By: Brainspore

Brainspore — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 21:35:00 +0000

Probably depends on how different the species is from modern-day relatives. I suspect a baby mammoth could probably survive with the milk and bacteria from a surrogate mother elephant.

By: JoeBuck

JoeBuck — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 21:15:00 +0000

This may be relevant to some proposals to try to re-create extinct animals from their DNA. A living thing is an ecosystem; from insects to humans, we rely on a huge number of symbiotic creatures with completely different DNA. If termites somehow went extinct, and we cloned new ones from their DNA, they would starve: they eat wood but rely on organisms in their guts to digest the wood. Babies need their gut bacteria. Maybe neanderthals had different gut bacteria.

By: Cicada Mania

Cicada Mania — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 20:46:00 +0000

You say weird, I say amazing.

By: Boundegar

Boundegar — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 20:46:00 +0000

I don’t see what’s freaky and weird here. Biology. Evolution. Titty milk made my son strong and healthy.

By: Brainspore

Brainspore — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 20:39:00 +0000

*Thoughtfully sips latté.*