NorthernSparrow

I am a biology teacher... and EVERY TIME I TEACH ABOUT MENDEL from now on, I am showing all the students the screenshot I just took of this comment. And I'll be all, "Bill Murray says Gregor Mendel is the person he would most want to meet if he could go back in time! Science, bitches!" Thank you so much.

PS this is officially now the best AMA I've ever seen.

edit: aaaaand all my students will see my username, go through my post history and discover I am writing Supernatural fanfiction. (dammit, why didn't I post this from my respectable AskScience-moderator account???) ... eh, fuck it, I'm showing it anyway.

Endocrinologst here, this is correct - to add some detail, all fat cells contain aromatase and thus fat tissue produces its own estrogen. So, the more fat you have, the more of the naturally circulating testosterone will be converted to estradiol (the most common estrogen) as your blood circulates through your body fat.

It's a mechanism that likely evolved because, in women, it's the means by which fat tissue notifies the reproductive system about whether or not there are enough fat stores to support a pregnancy. It's also the reason that very thin women stop menstruating. Presumably this system used to work well in hunter-gatherer times when it would have been exceedingly rare for a boy to be overweight while going through puberty. But nowadays, in boys who overweight or obese while going through puberty, there can be so much estrogen produced that it can cause development of permanent breast tissue.

edit: Sorry, I can't give medical advice. It's against reddit's user agreement, and also I'm a wildlife endocrinologist anyway (a PhD, not an MD).

Scientist here, we’re being hit from a bunch of different angles. All the federal funding agencies are shut down. NIH, NSF, NOAA, USGS, FWS, they are all dark. I have 1 grant pending that I know I will hear nothing about, one that was due today but the website has gone dark, 1 funded project that’s dependent on Fish & Wildlife approving a permit but that permit office is closed, another project that needs a NOAA permit but NOAA’s website is also dark. We can’t access the NOAA weather data. Some of our field sites are on National Forest land and nobody is in those offices either and we can’t get past the locked gates. Another major project on human health is NIH funded - it has some funds left from the last continuing resolution but is expecting to halt in another month. I just got back home from a major science conference where NSF always has a table & staffers, to talk to scientists planning grants, and always makes a presentation about what science priorities we should be planning for. They weren’t there, the table was empty. A grad student of mine can’t even schedule her defense because one of the committee member works for NSF. Some of these issues are big, some are little, but it’s just this growing stream of a million little logistical hurdles, frozen funding, uncertain delays.

These are the jobs that involve preparing for the future. Researching, planning, monitoring, making sure the public doesn’t destroy shared resources (that’s what the permits are for), making new discoveries, protecting the environment and human health and the food supply, and training new scientists. “Essential” jobs are the ones just about the present day, but the “nonessential” jobs are what keep the future bright. It’s like watching our future slowly go dark. (And, also, a generation of scientists is getting fed up & more are applying overseas, which I am already doing. This is how brain drain happens)

Buzz Aldrin is my hero because of that punch.

You may have a different condition that has a different set of symptoms. All memories fading past 1mo is not normal. Why not go see a neurologist to get checked out?