Biology 10H                                                                                       Taylor Sears

Current Event #1                                                                              March 27, 2014

Recently, after studies done on humans, monkeys, and other mammals, scientists have discovered that the milk a woman produces for her child is different based on the gender of the child. According to Katie Hinde, an evolutionary biologist at Harvard, Mom’s produce different types of breast milk for their sons and their daughters. The difference in the milk is found in the quantity and content of the milk. The milk produced for baby boys is generally richer in fat and/ or protein, which gives them more energy. The milk produced for baby girls is just a greater amount than for boys. So, girls are getting MORE milk, while boys are getting milk that is RICHER in fats or proteins. One reason Hinde thinks mothers produce more milk for girls is because it will allow them to develop faster, which allows them to reproduce at early ages. Men wouldn’t be getting more milk because males don’t need to get to sexual maturity quickly like females do because for them, there isn’t a limit on how often they reproduce. She came to this conclusion after studying what Rhesus monkeys do.

I really liked the topic of this article and found it very interesting. After reading this article it made me come up with a few questions. Is it better for babies to be breast-fed or to drink milk formulas out of a bottle? Also, if mothers produce different milk based on the sex of the baby, do they sell different types of baby milk formulas, one for boys and one for girls? I thought this article did a good job of describing the topic easily. Also, the writers made it interesting while adding good, key facts in to prove they did their research. The article could have given a little background information on what they thought was in breast milk before they made this discovery. This way the reader would be able to tell how much scientists know now compared to what they used to know about breast milk. Overall, I thought this article was very interesting and I would love to further research the topic and learn more about it.

"Mother's Milk Made to Order for Boys, Girls › News in Science (ABC      Science)."Mother's Milk Made to Order for Boys, Girls › News in Science (ABC Science). N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Mar. 2014.

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2014/02/17/3946253.htm