Mammals Suck, My How You've Grown
1-Year Anniversary of Mammals Suck!
A year ago I was sitting in the lobby of a conference hotel thinking “There really needs to be a blog about milk. The evolutionary biologists, dairy scientists, nutritionists, lactation biologists, and clinicians are doing such AMAZING research that informs one another but we all go to different conferences. We should be talking to each other more, and ALL of us should be talking to the general public way more. Hmmmmm… who could do it? Someone who interacts with lots of different folks working with milk and whose natural tendency is to make jokes and use curse words so the sciency-science won't be too dry."
Aw crap...
Since then, in between teaching, grant-writing, conferencing, reviewing, editing, mentoring, monkey milking, manuscript-writing, analyzing, assaying, and a personal life, I've been able to occasionally post about milk!
In the last year "Mammals Suck... Milk!" has received >30,000 hits from dozens of countries. The substantive posts have gotten longer, and I've started to be able to write them faster (not more frequently, per se). I also figured out how to embed images in posts!
Year One: Top Ten Highlights
The big winner, in terms of hits (9500+), was Why do Breast-fed Babies Cry More? I can only surmise that parents are desperate to understand why their baby cries and if there is any fool-proof trick to getting them to stop. This is actually a fascinating topic and needs much more research, particularly from an evolutionary perspective.
The two-part series on Allo-Mother’s Milk and The Invisible Breasts of the Free Market discussed evolutionary hypotheses and economic perspectives of wet-nurses, cross-nursing, and milk-selling. Also I am pretty sure I will never surpass the pinnacle of presenting functional hypotheses of allo-maternal nursing in music video format. Its all downhill from there.
The Wetnurse Agency Painting - Jose Frappa
One post tackled the issue of the “Naturalness” of Breast-feeding, and how such approaches overlook the many challenges and difficulties of breast-feeding and may undermine a mother’s confidence.
Early posts on Mother’s Milk, Neurodevelopment, & Cognition can be found here and here.These posts discuss attributes in breast milk that contribute to brain development and consequently influence cognitive abilities.
"suck it, frog!"
I got to review an advance copy of the non-fiction book “Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History” by Florence Williams. The book was spectacular, I recommend it to everyone. Full disclosure, my research is discussed in the book, for almost two whole pages!
Personally, my favorite post of the year was on the Evolutionary Origins of Milk before the Age of Dinosaurs (and some other freaky shit).
Above dinosaurs way better than these dinosaurs.
Also, milk isn't just nutritive, other constituents in milk can have important influences on infant development. I explored the hormone adiponectin in milk, infant growth, and terrible puns. I know what you're thinking, and yes, together at last!
Oh and, did you know that milk is sexist?
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Thank you for reading and commenting this last year! If there are topics you want to see featured on Mammals Suck... Milk! please let me know. Also you can follow Mammals Suck on twitter.
Me, Yosemite Falls
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