
Features
Reading Frames

Opinion: How Biomedicine Could Transform Human Reproduction
CRISPR and other innovations are likely to open up a wealth of new options for how people have children.
Contributors

Contributors
Meet some of the people featured in the August 2021 issue of The Scientist.
Notebook

Study Looks for Effects of Fetal Exposure to Air Pollution
By measuring various pollutants in the immediate vicinity of pregnant women and tracking brain development of their children, researchers in Barcelona aim to untangle any influence the former has on the latter.

Researchers Head to the Hills to Study Pregnancy
High altitude is a natural laboratory for investigating pregnancy complications, such as preeclampsia and gestational hypertension, that restrict a fetus’s oxygen supply.
Critic at Large

Opinion: Treating Infertility as a Disease
For too long, a physiological inability to conceive or carry a child through to birth has been seen as a minor medical issue.
Careers

Push to Address Long-Standing Challenges for Parents in STEMM
The organizers behind a Mothers in Science conference say that it’s time academia provide more support to researchers who are pregnant or looking after children.
Foundations

Birth of Midwifery, Circa 100 CE
Soranus of Ephesus’s manual shaped the way midwifery was practiced for more than a millennium.
Infographics

Infographic: Research Questions to Be Tackled by Uterus Transplants
Scientists are banking various samples from recipients of donated uteruses to learn all they can about the biology of the organ, and about transplantation more generally.

Infographic: Maternal Microbiota Has Lasting Effects on Offspring
Work in rodents shows that the bacteria living in a mother’s gut can produce immunomodulatory metabolites and influence the production of maternal antibodies—both of which can affect her offspring’s development.

Infographic: How Pregnancy Changes Fat Tissue
Researchers propose a mechanism by which a protein produced in the placenta may trigger blood vessel growth and enlarge fat cells.
The Literature

Fat Tissue Reorganizes During Pregnancy
Researchers identify a protein that promotes changes in adipose tissue in vitro and in pregnant mice and may help protect against gestational diabetes in humans.

Exercising During Pregnancy Protects Mouse Offspring
Obese mice that exercised while pregnant gave birth to pups that grew up free of the metabolic issues present in the adult young of sedentary obese mothers—possibly by staving off epigenetic changes to a key metabolic gene.

Gene Offers Clue to How Human Labor Starts
Genes associated with preterm birth and protecting the fetus from the mother’s immune system appear to be regulated by HAND2.
Editorial

A New View of My Own Past
Hearing others’ perspectives on infertility and pregnancy has me reconsidering my own reproductive journey.
Speaking of Science

Ten Minute Sabbatical
Take a break from the bench to puzzle and peruse.
Scientist to Watch

Darby Saxbe Digs into Relationships’ Effects on Human Biology
In her current work, the University of Southern California psychologist is examining how the transition to fatherhood affects men’s brains.