https://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. Male bonobos can decipher females' unreliable fertility signals, allowing them to focus their efforts on matings with the highest chance of conception, according to a study by Heungjin Ryu at Kyoto University, Japan, and colleagues published in PLOS Biology. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-male-bonobos-track-females-reproductive.html Plants & Animals Tue, 09 Dec 2025 14:00:01 EST news684410573 A team of international researchers has identified a new sex hormone that plays a crucial role in stimulating ovulation. Researchers have identified secretoneurin, a neuropeptide derived from the secretogranin-2 protein, as a critical hormone that stimulates ovulation in zebrafish. https://phys.org/news/2025-04-zebrafish-ovulation-hormone-discovery-impact.html Ecology Mon, 07 Apr 2025 15:44:06 EDT news663259438 Eggs pop out of ovaries. But what propels them has been unknown. Now, researchers from the University of Connecticut explain in an article published in the September 18 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that tiny, muscle-like fibers in the ovary's cells squeeze the egg out. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-mechanics-ovulation-muscle-fibers-eggs.html Cell & Microbiology Tue, 05 Nov 2024 10:02:33 EST news650023349 Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences have developed a live imaging method that reveals the process of ovulation in unprecedented detail. The team followed initial observations by performing inhibition testing to confirm causal effects. https://phys.org/news/2024-10-imaging-ovulation-action-reveals-distinct.html Cell & Microbiology Tue, 22 Oct 2024 07:40:02 EDT news648747179 Ultrasuperovulation is an advanced technique that significantly increases the number of oocytes produced by female mice. However, existing ultrasuperovulation techniques have a low fertilization rate, probably caused by the low incidence of sperm reaching the female's oocytes in vivo. Now, a group of researchers from Japan found that mating ultrasuperovulated mice with their breeding partner during or after ovulation can overcome this limitation and improve fertilization rates. https://phys.org/news/2023-03-synchronizing-ovulation-fertilization-ultrasuperovulated-mice.html Plants & Animals Mon, 13 Mar 2023 10:01:03 EDT news597920461 Human females rely on aids like charting, test strips or wearable tech to identify periods of fertility. Some animals, like baboons, undergo obvious physical changes during ovulation. How did fertility become so hard to detect in humans? https://phys.org/news/2021-01-competition-human-females-contributed-concealed.html Evolution Mon, 25 Jan 2021 11:00:01 EST news530781416 Investigators from Brigham and Women's Hospital are developing an automated, low-cost tool to predict a woman's ovulation and aid in family planning. Capitalizing on advancements in several areas, including microfluidics, artificial intelligence (AI) and the ubiquity of smartphones, the team has built an ovulation testing tool that can automatically detect fern patterns—a marker of ovulation—in a saliva sample. The team evaluated the performance of the device using artificial saliva in the lab and validated results in human saliva samples from six subjects, observing greater than 99 percent accuracy in effectively predicting ovulation. The team's results are published in Lab on a Chip. https://phys.org/news/2018-12-smartphone-based-ovulation.html Analytical Chemistry Tue, 11 Dec 2018 12:28:12 EST news463753685 Female orgasm seems to be a happy afterthought of our evolutionary past when it helped stimulate ovulation, a new study of mammals shows. https://phys.org/news/2016-08-evolutionary-mystery-female-orgasm.html Evolution Mon, 01 Aug 2016 04:10:42 EDT news389243420 The average American woman lives more than 80 years and ovulates for 35 of them, producing an egg approximately once a month. The typical fruit fly lives about 4 weeks as an adult and ovulates every 30 minutes. Now researchers at the University of Connecticut report in PLOS Genetics that during a key process, the same gene may govern both. If correct, the results could bring insight to cancer metastasis, human fertility and ovarian disease. https://phys.org/news/2015-02-ovulation-cellular-genetic-features-fruit.html Biotechnology Thu, 19 Feb 2015 17:00:01 EST news343583608 Mammalian females ovulate periodically over their reproductive lifetimes, placing significant demands on their ovaries for egg production. Whether mammals generate new eggs in adulthood using stem cells has been a source of scientific controversy. If true, these "germ-line stem cells" might allow novel treatments for infertility and other diseases. However, new research from Carnegie's Lei Lei and Allan Spradling demonstrates that adult mice do not use stem cells to produce new eggs. Their work is published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the week of April 29. https://phys.org/news/2013-04-adults-lack-stem-cells-eggs.html Cell & Microbiology Mon, 29 Apr 2013 15:00:12 EDT news286453854 (Phys.org) -- For years biologists have puzzled over how it is that elephants are able to maintain such long pregnancies, which typically run to nearly two years. While many theories have been tossed around, no one really knew. Now a team of researchers working out of research centers in Canada and Germany have finally solved the mystery. As they write in their paper published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, elephants are able to carry their young so long because they create more of the temporary glands that monitor hormone levels during ovulation and pregnancy. https://phys.org/news/2012-06-mystery-elephant-pregnancy.html Plants & Animals Thu, 21 Jun 2012 07:57:50 EDT news259484257 (PhysOrg.com) -- Evolutionary ecologists Michael Coslovsky and Heinz Richner of the University of Bern in Switzerland, have published a study in Functional Ecology where they show that when a female bird is exposed to more stress from predators, such as hawks, when ovulating, they tend to produce offspring that are smaller, which isn't a surprise as stressed offspring in many species wind up smaller than average; the surprise is that the smaller offspring also grew their wings both faster and longer than what would be considered normal for their species. https://phys.org/news/2011-03-predators-evoke-response-birds.html Plants & Animals Mon, 28 Mar 2011 08:52:06 EDT news220521109 There is no doubt that modern contraception has enabled women to have unprecedented control over their own fertility. However, is it possible that the use of oral contraceptives is interfering with a woman's ability to choose, compete for and retain her preferred mate? A new paper published by Cell Press in the October issue of the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution reviews emerging evidence suggesting that contraceptive methods which alter a woman's natural hormonal cycles may have an underappreciated impact on choice of partners for both women and men and, possibly, reproductive success. https://phys.org/news/2009-10-unnatural-birth-pills-choice-partners.html Evolution Wed, 07 Oct 2009 14:10:01 EDT news174140457