Reports and Proceedings

6 July 2022: People conceived by sperm and egg donation, as well as their parents and donors, are making use of commercial genetic DNA testing in a variety of ways little considered in earlier reports, according to the interim results of a qualitative study presented here at ESHRE’s 38th annual meeting in Milan. The widespread availability of commercial DNA databanks ‘is transforming how people involved in donor conception seek information about genetic relatives’, said the study’s first author Dr Lucy Frith, Reader in Bioethics at the University of Manchester, UK.

6 July 2022: Concerns have been raised over the past few years that pregnancies derived from frozen embryo transfers in IVF might increase the maternal risk of hypertensive disorders, particularly pre-eclampsia, complications which may have severe consequences for the mother and fetus. These concerns have been raised in recent observational studies comparing the outcomes of fresh and frozen transfers, which, by definition, are subject to statistically confounding variables. Sibling comparisons can remove much of this confounding.

5 July 2022: Having a baby after breast cancer does not negatively impact a woman’s chance of surviving the disease. A new study shows that survival is no worse in younger women, those who had not been pregnant before, and those with hormone-receptor positive breast cancer.

5 July 2022: Women diagnosed with the eating disorder anorexia nervosa are five (500%) times more likely on average to have underweight babies, according to a comprehensive new study.

5 July 2022: Women who time intercourse may be able to increase their chance of conceiving, according to an updated* Cochrane analysis. The review found that couples who pinpoint their ‘fertile window’ using urine-testing monitors specifically may improve their pregnancy odds.

Minja Koskela from the University of the Arts Helsinki questions the claims that popular music is students’ ‘own’ music and, therefore, a particularly democratic medium through which to teach music.

During the pandemic, digitalisation provided opportunities for Capitals of Culture to focus on issues of ecological sustainability and accessibility, to seek new audiences, to strengthen regional cooperation and to experiment.

When in 2002 the first cow suffering from the animal disease BSE was born in Germany, consumer protection was plunged into a crisis. The German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) was founded in its wake. This year, the Institute turns 20. To mark the occasion, the tenth issue of the "BfR2GO" science magazine focuses on how the institute came into being and its working methods, as well as on future challenges. The practice of health risk assessment at the BfR has changed profoundly in the past decades. "Knowledge is growing. While an assessment used to fit on one sheet of paper, today it can cover 1,000 pages", says BfR President Professor Dr Dr Andreas Hensel. "Our current edition of BfR2GO shows that the quest to identify risks is always, and above all, a quest for scientific knowledge."