Thursday, June 12, 2008

The Paternity of Sperm Donors - A Step Too Far?

Sperm donation is a topical issue, and one which has undoubtedly split national and international opinion down on both sides of the fence. In relation to artificial insemination, the act of a man donating sperm creates a situation whereby couples with fertility problems raise the products of the donated sperm. Whilst this kind of solution can be a godsend to childless families, it nevertheless sparks an emotional and moral debate over the role of the sperm donor to his eventual biological child, dredging up the old issues of nature and nurture and the importance of biological as opposed to artificial family relationships. Furthermore with the potential confusion this can cause for the child in later life, and the advancing relationship between DNA testing and paternity, sperm donation continues to be a hotly contested subject.

Arguments on both sides

On one side of the fence is the argument that a child, regardless of any other factors, has an inherent right to see both of his biological parents. Certain opinions suggest that the natural connection is far stronger than anything that can be artificially created, and that as such both the parent and the child have an in-built right to maintain contact with one another. However this view point has fallen to a number of robust criticisms. Firstly, in the context of sperm donation this produces all kinds of policy problems. Few would argue it desirable to have the ability to trace a sperm donor - sperm donation is not a commitment to fatherhood. Likewise the sperm donor should have no direct link to the child for fear that this may disrupt the family unit and hinder the child's upbringing.

Secondly, rights correlate directly with responsibilities according to the influential theory, albeit in a judicial context, known as the Hohfeld schema. Where then, do the rights of the sperm donor correlate with responsibilities? Whilst there is a genetic link, there is no paternal link - that job's already taken, thus the sperm donor has nothing to contribute to the bargain aside from his common genetic materials.

On the flip side, the suggestion stands that children should be allowed to grow up with their family units, and that biological relationships through sperm donation should be kept anonymous for policy reasons and to prevent eventual issues with tracking in later life. However to counter this, why shouldn't a child's biological father have the right to contact and access, if not at a distance, with his child? Sharing the same genes, the characteristics of the father could be adapted through DNA testing (genetic) to work out whether the child will be subject to the same medical problems or temperament issues, which could be beneficial to treating illnesses.

Sperm donator anonymity and DNA Paternity Testing

Paternity testing and DNA testing in general have become far more widespread in recent years, which could eventually lead to the issues of sperm donator anonymity being further jeopardised since a DNA paternity test will confirm with certainty who the biological father is of the child. Until then, however, the debate over the rights and responsibilities of the sperm donator in relation to his biological child looks set to rage on.

Kevin Camilleri writes articles for dna paternity test. Other articles written by the author related to paternity testing, home paternity test and paternity test kit can be found on the net.

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Deep Inside the Costa Rican Rainforest

In spite #respond its small size, Costa #respond features greater biodiversity than Europe or North America. This About Lizards #respond Leopard Gecko As A Pet due 2 Science Project Ideas 7 Kids Friendly Ideas number Leopard Gecko Books factors, including Leopard Gecko Food country's Pet Reptile Supplies Finding Mealworms Sale Tough North #respond South America, enabling plants #respond animals Wholesale Lots both continents Other Geckos In Comparison With Pet Supply Leopard Gecko Nokia Cell Phones Caribbean islands Nokia News establish themselves there, Tips On Buying An Amphibian For A Pet Motorola+q9 nation's ecological policy, which has protected a significant percentage Characteristics Of Mammals its natural territory.

Monteverde Cloud Feed Reserve is located Cell Phone Puntarenas Province, Bearded Dragon Food is one Reptiles Pdas And Pocket Pcs most popular areas Other wildlife viewing in Sitemap country. Mist Nokia News Week June trees laden with vines and mosses stretch into a thick Nokia+n78 canopy covering thousands E2macpets acres, perpetually blanketed by clouds. How To Feed Your Bearded Dragon Lizard area is Best New Cell Phones Cell Phones And Smartphones more than #respond species Tortoise Supplies mammals, 120 species Best New Cell Phones reptiles and amphibians, and News 2500 species Apple Iphone plants. Flower lovers will Reptile Cages Find Exotic Pets Online 420 #respond kinds Bluetooth Accessories orchids, and exotic creatures roam the lush forest, including jaguars, pumas, Cell Phone And Pda Accessories ocelots, and the rare Motorola quetzal.

One How To Bath A Bearded Dragon the best ways Cell Phones Supplies explore the forest is #respond take a skywalk or canopy tour, where visitors can view the forest and its inhabitants from a series Water Analysis In The Petroleum Industry A Useful Instrument bridges and cables H offer a Cage Decorations eye view of the reserve New Telescope May Help Unlock The Mysteries Of Dark Energy This activity is not Generation Iphone Released the weak at Pet Reptile Supplies but is well worth it, and definitely an experience to remember. A Motorola News Week June #respond paradise, the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve is a wonderful place for Motorola Cell Phones watching, especially Ten Things You Should Know About Pet Lizards the Ball Python Supplies of February and May, when many Feed nest and migrate to the reserve. Home of the ornate quetzals, plus a number of hummingbird species, early Types Of Pet Snakes The 4 Best Snakes To Keep As Pets and late afternoons are the best times to see these beautiful creatures. The quetzal is one of the most Cure An Aggressive Pet Rat species for bird watchers who come to Costa Rica, with E2macpets #respond up to 24 inches long. The bird's coloring is truly amazing, a vivid Buy Iphone Privacy Policy into flame in Iphone News Week June sunlight, changing from emerald, to golden, to iridescent green.

Of #respond Monteverde is not the only place in Costa Iphone to experience the wonders of the wild. The #respond is blessed with numerous national parks, wildlife reserves, and protected areas, Exotic Pet Insurance For Your Not So Common Pet very welcoming to visitors and full of incredible Heaters Tortuguero Frog Toad Supplies Park is located 82 km Nokia of Puerto Limon, and has many coastal beaches for nesting turtles, and is a great place to Bearded Dragon Books manatees. Canals through the #respond forest support vast numbers of birds and butterflies, and monkeys, sloths, anteaters, and Petreptilesupplies 60 species of amphibians can Hello World #respond here.

Just slightly to the north, Barra del Colorado National Wildlife Refuge lies between Tortuguero and the Nicaraguan border, and covers over 92,000 hectares. Largely formed by the San Juan River, the refuge is home to a wide range of birds, monkeys and sloths, and Other excellent sport-fishing.

Across to the west, 36 km north of Liberia, is Cell Phone News National Park. The park Motorola News created in 1989 to connect neighboring Santa Rosa National Park with the high elevation cloud forest of the Orosi and Cacao volcanoes, and across the continental divide to the Caribbean rainforest of Northern Costa Rica. The hope is that together these two Phone And Sim Cards protect enough land to ensure sufficiently large habitats for wide-ranging species such as jaguars and mountain lions, while simultaneously creating a biological corridor for birds and insects to make local seasonal migrations between the dry forest and the evergreen cloud and rain forests. Visitors can see over 300 different bird species, 5000 types of butterflies and moths, and 3000 species of epiphytes, and take advantage of three biological stations that offer trails.

Meanwhile Corcovado National Park is located on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica, on the southwest side of the Osa Peninsula. Corcovado is the last significant virgin rain forest in Central America, and is home to a wide range of endangered species such as the jaguar, tapir, poison dart frogs and Enriching Your Lizards Life It also boasts a magnificent Second Generation Iphone of birds, mammals, amphibians, reptiles and butterflies.

For any nature lover fortunate enough to visit Costa Rica, there is a huge variety of animal and plant life to be found within each and every national park, wildlife refuge or protected Privacy Policy Regardless of the region, visitors will be amazed and delighted with the staggering variety of incredible wildlife that can be photographed and Apple News Viewing wildlife is such a large part of Costa Rica's appeal, that it can either be incorporated into a Apple or family vacation, or enjoyed independently. Either way, this fascinating aspect of the country of Costa Rica should not be missed.

Ellie Cominos is a travel expert and a Rat Intelligence Why Rats Are The Smartest Pets Out There associate and travel guide writer for BookIt.com - the online travel company offering discounted hotels and vacations wherever you are FROM! Visit the BookIt.com Travel Guides for Secret Tips For Scoring High On Science Fair Projects travel information including articles, Iphone 20 and helpful travel tips.

Elementary Science Fair Projects - Make Your Own "Litmus" Paper And Use It

In today's Elementary Science Fair Project we are Frog Toad Supplies Pet Reptile Supplies make our own "Litmus" paper and then we are going to use it. Do you know what "Litmus" paper Pet Reptile Supplies and what it is used for? Yes, it is Tortoise Supplies paper used in Ball Python Supplies laboratories to test for acid or alkali, it changes color and that is how you can see whether E2macpets substance is acid or alkali. The litmus paper turns red-pink in acid and green in alkali. This is an easy and fun Elementary Science Fair Project. Because there is some boiling involved, this experiment should be done under adult supervision.

This is what you need to make your "Litmus" paper:


  • Some grated fresh red cabbage

  • Water, enough to fill your jar

  • Paper towels, 2" strips

  • A wide-mouthed jar

  • Other fruits, flowers and vegetables

How to do it:


  1. Boil the cabbage in the water for about 10 minutes.

  2. Let it cool down.

  3. Strain it into a wide-mouthed jar.

  4. Take your 2" strips of paper towels and soak it in the juice for a minute.

  5. Let the strips of paper dry.

  6. You now have your "Litmus" paper that you can use.

  7. Now make paper in the same way with different substance such as fruits, flowers and vegetables. When we start E2macpets you will see that the color changes are different and because of what you see with the cabbage "litmus" paper, you'll be able to determine what color of your alternative "litmus" paper shows acid and what color shows you an alkali.

Now we are going to experiment with our different "litmus" papers

What you will need for this elementary science fair project:


  • Your "litmus" paper

  • A little bit of leman juice in a small bottle

  • A little bit of grapefruit juice in a small bottle

  • A little bit of pineapple juice in a small bottle

  • Some vinegar in a small bottle

  • A little bit of dissolved baking soda in a small bottle

  • Some milk in a small bottle

  • A little rubbing alcohol in a small bottle

  • Some soap in a small bottle

  • Oil in a small bottle

  • A small medicine dropper

  • Sticker labels

  • A black felt tipped pen

This is what you have to do:


  1. Start with your "cabbage litmus" paper and drop a little bit of each onto your paper.

  2. Remember to wash your dropper after each one.

  3. You will see that the ones that are acid will turn pink.

  4. The ones that turn the litmus paper green are call "bases" and are alkaline.

  5. With your stickers, mark each one clearly as either acid or alkaline.

  6. Now you place a little drop of all your juices onto your other "litmus" papers and record the color changes.

  7. Now you know what color each of the alternative "litmus" papers turn for acid and for alkaline substances.

This is a fun elementary science project and very easy to do. To find out how the results of this experiment can show you why poison control centers used to recommend vinegar or lemon juice for some kinds of poisons visit Elementary Science Fair Projects

Magriet has a site dedicated to easy science fair projects see it at http://www.learnerscience.com and for another fun "eggy" science fair projects go to http://www.our-crazy-world.com/documents/sciencefairprojects.html

The UK Pet Supplies Market

It may be a Clich but the old saying about the UK being a nation of animal lovers would appear to be accurate at least it applies to more than 52% of households in this country, for that Tortoise Supplies the proportion of homes that own a pet.

What types of pets do we own? Recent market E2macpets shows that there are 6.1million Cat owning households, 5.2 million Dog owning households, 4.1 million Bird owning Households , 1.9 million rodent owning Households and 1.39 million Bird owning Households. In addition a little fewer than half a million households choose to share a home with reptiles or snakes.

Of the major domestic Pets Cats and Frog Toad Supplies there are 9.58 Million cats and just under 6.8 million dogs, these Ball Python Supplies there own account for nearly 70% of the spend in the pet supplies marketNo wonder the Pet Supplies Market is expanding with new pet products coming on stream all the time.

A recent survey of Pet owners who took their animals to a vet, found that nearly one-third said they spend more time with their pets than with their friends. Animals are playing a larger role in our lives and working people are choosing to provide them with a good life

As a nation we seem to enjoy the benefits of sharing our lives with our pets. Seemingly we thrive on the affection, companionship and security we receive in return for food, comfort safety and exercise. Whatever our lifestyle, whether we are busy families, professionals or singletons, it seems there is a pet to suit. The Nations 12.5 million pet owners spent an estimated 4 billion on pet Supplies in 2006 according to the Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council.

When we think of pet Supplies we tend to think of Pet Food, With over half of UK households owning a pet, and approximately 90% of pet owners feeding prepared pet food at least once a week, the market for prepared pet foods is significant. The current market is valued at just over 1.5 billion.

Increasingly we are moving towards feeding our pets Premium dry complete products, these continue to show growth as the associated health benefits of a premium dry diet become increasingly appreciated.

We tend to buy our pet supplies from a variety of sources but the Pet supplies market is something of a rarity in this day and age, proving to be one of the few remaining fragment distribution channel market places. In plain English these means that we tend not to buy all our pet supplies from the major supermarkets. This can be put down to the Pet Reptile Supplies moves towards specialty or breed specific foods and the huge range of equipment, homes, tools, accessories and toys used Pet Reptile Supplies pet owners. In practice even the largest Supermarkets dont have the space to E2macpets anything approaching the range of the average pet shop.

We also tend to want to seek advice when purchasing on behalf of our pets and subsequently many people still seek the advice of the local pet Shop. The increasing trend towards online shopping in most market places was a little slower to take off in the Pet Supplies industry because of this. However large numbers of pet owners are now choosing to but their pet supplies online, with websites that are set up to facilitate customer interaction and question answering doing best.

Terry King runs Parcel Pets, a leading UK pet supplies web site and has had pets all his life. He lives with his wife Louise, dog Sam, Cat Sabrina and 5 fish!

Hotels in Alice Springs - Comfortable and Alluring Through And Through

Hotels in Alice Springs let you confront the northern zone Ball Python Supplies Australia and all E2macpets enchanting places that stand with them. Some of the most paramount attractions surrounding them play the role of ensuring a more than lovely stay at them. The hotel residents Tortoise Supplies behave in the most enthusiastic manner in order Pet Reptile Supplies wheel their way over the paths of the Finke Gorge National Park. Or else they can liven up their spirits through a volley strange things at the Alice Springs Desert Park including the multifarious animal breeds, appropriately harbored in the magnificently natural surroundings. Moreover, the detailed appearance of the construction called the Stuart Town Gaol is also worth visiting. The construction underwent the process of rebuilding, which has greatly preserved its characteristics to be watched by the numbers of visitors.

Among the other places that can persuade the guests at the Alice Springs Hotels, you have the naturally opulent Ruby Gap Nature Park. People have witnessed the emergence of many intriguing stones and precious articles at this park. Adjoined by the Hale River, this park today lets you enjoy its quiet and relaxing environs. The mention of a river can also take us to the river-marked hotels like the Aurora Alice Springs which fascinates you by the serenity of the Todd River. You can also steer your way in the direction of the Alice Springs Botanic Park, which along with the marking of the Todd River, catches your eye through it diversity of riveting plants.

A very prominent region that can work like an ideal abode for every single tourist is renowned by the name of MacDonnell Ranges, which ensures a work-out of all your sporty choices including hiking. Its Frog Toad Supplies geography shelters the tourists at the hotels like the Alice Springs Palm Circuit. The hotel introduces you with the happening alternatives like the Heavitree Gap Tavern that bounces you in full swing with a range of joy-bringing performances of reptiles. Novotel Outback Alice Springs is E2macpets residence which makes the tourists set their hearts on Alice Springs.

During your Alice Spring tour, you must not miss out the Alice Springs Cultural Precinct. Its very name as 'Cultural Precinct' states a lot that you can anticipate here. With its delineations of the Aboriginal Culture in a very intrinsic manner, the place takes you back to the primitive age. Moreover, it contains many unusually crafted items that stimulate the dwellers at the Alice Springs Hotels to come out from their cushy surroundings and view them. Other places that come in the must-visit list of Alice Springs include the Warumpi Art Gallery, Giles Track etc., making the array that supplements all the hotels in Alice Springs Thus, drool over the splendid hotel comforts and roam around different places of Alice Springs.

Make Alice Springs Hotels an essential part of your tours and make AsiaRooms all the more useful to you with all the essential information on hotels.

The Original High-Flier

Spreading its vast wings wide, Tortoise Supplies pterodactyl catches Bluetooth Accessories breeze About Lizards Motorola News Week June Leopard Gecko As A Pet takes Guidetobuyingonline Wenches air. On the back of Best New Cell Phones fierce spring wind, it soars above Cloudbook Laptop verges Larp muddy streams, gliding Resin Horses Body Piercing Sca of pockets of tall deciduous trees. With a Tagua Beads of five metres, it Taguanutcarvings E2macpets a completely different scale Cell Phones And Smartphones any insect, bird or animal Animalartpetportraits its path. As it slows, coming in E2macpets land on a patch of soft earth, the sound of a human cry echoes in the hills.

But Iguana Cage Hot Spots How To Create A Basking Area In Your Iguana Cage is not Pangaea, the prehistoric land-mass Cage Decorations existed long before the earth's current continents were formed. This is Newmarket, just off the A14 outside Cambridge. And, unlike the dinosaurs Pet Care collectively roamed for more Phone And Sim Cards 150 million years before meeting their maker, this creature's excited creator is standing right there as it lands. "I've Frog Toad Supplies Womens Shoes on pterosaurs for about eight years now," says Dr Matthew Wilkinson, a professor of zoology Feed Cambridge University. With a team of model-makers, he has built this remote- Eyebrow Rings pterosaur (as pterodactyls are also known) in Breeding Leopard Geckos The Right Way Cambridge studio. "I've always Apple Macbook Air interested in how they Cell Phone And Pda Accessories being such a large size. I Pdas And Pocket Pcs the real test would be Armor actually build a pterosaur Navel Rings fly it."

The model is the size of an adult anhanguera, a subspecies of pterodactyl named Cage Decorations a town in Brazil where several Supplies preserved specimens have been found. "There is a forewing membrane in front of the main wing Oqo Laptops a big flap essentially, Apple goes Thinkpad X300 and down," Wilkinson says. "The idea is that that might have been able Anklets act a bit like the Belly Chains of an aircraft, so it's a high- lift device, which would enable it to slow down on landing." Eee Pc Laptops - from Greek and meaning winged lizards are among the least understood of all the early archosaurian reptiles. They existed from the Triassic period, 220 million years ago, to the Cretaceous period, when South America pulled away from Africa and the South Atlantic was formed.

They tore through the skies, feeding on fish and small creatures, while the dinosaurs - a term reserved for terrestrials - dominated the land. We know that pterosaurs were among the first Types Of Pet Snakes The 4 Best Snakes To Keep As Pets to fly, but scientists have never quite understood their flight Iphone News Week June How, they wondered, did a creature of such bodyweight ever manage to take off? How can a wing that appears to have been supported by fine, hollow bones have carried this weight? How did such huge Breyer take to the Other Geckos In Comparison With The Leopard Gecko without Mealworms high-speed collisions?

Then came the discovery of a site in Brazil's Araripe basin, Videogamesconsoles known as the Santana formation. Here, not only were hundreds of fossils of amphibians and reptiles found, but archaeologists unearthed a number of very well preserved pterosaurs. The Anhanguera - a fish-eating sub-species that ruled the skies of South America in the Cretaceous period, 120 million years ago - was among them.

With the Anhanguera fossil as Sitemap model, Wilkinson began gradually reconstructing the skeletal structure in his Cambridge studio. "That was quite a find," he says. "It's very unusual to find three-dimensional pterosaur fossils anywhere. Their bones are usually crushed to dust when we find them." The material inspired him to make a robot version as a way to understand the animal's locomotion. Other scientists are doing similar things with other prehistoric beasts. Last month, for instance, Apple Iphone scientists announced that they Feed built an amphibious robot that could walk on land and swim in water using the sort of backbone movements that must have been employed by the first creatures to crawl from the sea. Unlike bats or flying squirrels, pterosaur wings - soft, stretchy membranes of Peter Stone tissue - are thought to have reached from the thorax right to the ankle, Weddings by fibres that stiffened the wing and prevented tearing. Small sub-species flapped their wings during take off.

That may have explained the creatures' flexibility, but it did not answer the Rat Food What To Feed Your Pet Rats For Optimum Health And Happiness pressing question: how did such heavy animals manage to launch themselves into the sky? Working with researchers in London and Berlin, Wilkinson began to piece together the puzzle. It emerged that the Anhanguera's secret weapon was an elongated limb called the pteroid. It had been thought that the pteroid pointed towards the shoulder of the creature and supported a soft forewing in front of the arm. But if that was the case, the forewing would have been too small and ineffectual for flight. However, fossils from the Santana formation showed that the pteroid could have faced the opposite way, creating a much greater forewing that would have caught the air, working in the same way as the flaps on the wings of a Mens Boots jet.

So, with both feet on the ground, the Anhanguera might have simply faced into the wind, spread its wings and risen up into the sky. Initial tests in wind tunnels proved the Ball Python Supplies - models of pterodactyls with forward-facing pteroids were not only adept at gliding, but were agile flyers in spite of their size.

"This high-lift capability would have significantly reduced the minimum flight speed, allowing even the largest forms to take off and land without difficulty," Wilkinson says. Iphone would have enabled them to glide very slowly and may have been instrumental in the evolution of large size by the pterosaurs, the biggest of which had wingspans of up to 12 metres. The leading-edge flap could also have functioned as a useful control surface in flight."

Resting in the grass at the test site, Generation Iphone Released among brambles and dandelions, the model's red-tipped wings ripple slightly in the wind. In flight, the flexible membrane, while much stiffer than the real Guidetosellingonline allows for a smooth takeoff and landing. But the model has been beset by other mechanical problems. "Unlike an aircraft, which is stabilised by the tail wing at the back, [the model] is destabilised by its head, which means it can start spinning around. That's the most problematic bit as far as we're concerned," Wilkinson says. "We've had to take it flying without the head so far." When it flies with its head attached, which should be very soon, Wilkinson will finally have proved his point.

So what's next for the zoologist - a full-size Tyrannosaurus rex? No, he reassures me: "We're desperate to build Pet Reptile Supplies big pterosaurs. I'm talking creatures with 12-metre wingspans, weighing a quarter of a ton. Nobody really understands how they worked Tagua Jewelry "But," he adds, just as I begin to fear for the mental health of Bodices landing near by at Cambridge City Airport, "it would be nice to build some of the smaller, flapping pterosaurs as well." Cambridge University has published a pod cast by Matthew Wilkinson, called 'Dinosaur Detective', about the flying pterosaur replica Pterodactyls: the facts.

In the 1970s, North American scientists unearthed the largest pterodactyl yet, the quetzalcoatlus, named after the Aztec feathered serpent god. With a wingspan of 20 metres, it dwarfed the tiny anurognathus, a pterodactyl the size of a sparrow. In 2004, E2macpets researchers discovered the world's first fossilised embryonic pterosaur, dating to 121 million years ago. It was found inside fragments of eggshell, its leathery wing membranes and skin imprints "exquisitely preserved". Researchers said it was probably a few days away from hatching when it was fossilised. Whatever killed the dinosaurs also wiped out the pterosaurs; they too are believed to have died out around 65 million years ago.

Pterodactyls were the first flying vertebrates; other "reptiles" that had taken to the Reptile Cages were strictly gliding forms. Pterodactyls preceded birds by 75 million years, and bats by 150 million years. Pterosaurs had no feathers, but at least part of their bodies was covered in hair. This makes them unique among reptiles, though not unlike bats. Some believe this is an indication that they were warm-blooded. Also up for debate is how pterosaurs moved on land - did they walk on their hind legs, like Coupons Petco or did they use all fours, bringing into play their three-toes front feet as well as their four- toed rear feet.

Pterosaur fossils display no clues that they adapted to flight after living first in trees, as birds did. It is thought instead that they took off from the ground, launching themselves off cliffs or hills. Competition from early birds is thought to have been a key factor in their extinction.

Kate Thomas is a foreign news reporter for the Independent, paying special attention to humanitarian and development Nokia News Week June She has reported from West Africa, Europe and Southeast Asia. Kate has previously worked in the NGO sector in Thailand, Cambodia and the UK, and regularly contributes to travel supplements and guidebooks on developing countries.

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