D.B. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Stressed pregnant mothers are twice as likely to have girls because male fetuses are more fragile and die off while females survive the harsh conditions. Physically stressed women had only 31% boys vs 56% in healthy mothers. A solid 2019 study in PNAS tracked 187 women starting early in pregnancy and looked at a ton of stress signals: anxiety, depression, PTSD stuff, blood pressure, cortisol levels, inflammation, calorie intake, sleep- you name it, they measured 27 different markers. They split the women into three groups: - The "healthy" ones (about 65% of the group, basically low stress across the board) had the usual U.S. birth ratio: around 56% boys. - The psychologically stressed group (17%, really high anxiety/depression scores) dropped to about 40% boys. - The physically stressed group (another 17%, things like high blood pressure plus eating a lot more calories 500–600 extra a day but normal mental health) ended up with only 31% boys. That's roughly a 2:1 girl-to-boy ratio. Out of all 88 boys born in the study, 69 came from the healthy moms, while just 8 came from the physically stressed ones. The researchers put it pretty straightforward: really intense maternal stress early on seriously lowers the chances of a male fetus making it to term. Male embryos already start out a bit more fragile than females, and spikes in cortisol, inflammation, or other physical stressors seem to tip them over the edge.

why is wearing a hat as someone who doesn't usually wear hats so difficult and humiliating. it feels like everyone can tell i don't know what i'm doing

🚨 BREAKING: Anthropic just opened a new role. they’re hiring chemical weapons experts now

Pentagon to adopt Palantir AI as core US military system, per Reuters.