Established in 1990, the New Milford Farms (NMF) composting facility serves as a low-cost means of disposal for various industrial residues from Nestle USA, a large international food company. The NMF facility takes in organic feedstocks ranging from spent coffee grounds and industrial wastewater sludge to leaves and brush from nearby residents, and combines them to create fertilizing compost u...

BACKGROUND IZUMO1 is the only sperm protein which is proven to be essential for sperm-egg fusion. However, the IZUMO1 is a structurally simple protein with single Ig domain and seems not to include either a "fusogenic peptide" or a fusion machinery domain. This led us to assume the existence of an IZUMO1-interacting protein(s) which makes a functional fusion machine interacting with IZUMO1. M...

BACKGROUND The presence of anti-sperm antibodies (ASA) in males can reduce fecundity. However, it has been shown that there is a diversity of ASA bound to the sperm surface. This study was performed to investigate the inhibitory effects on fertilization by ASA in males. METHODS ASA were detected using the direct-immunobead test (D-IBT) in 509 semen samples. In some cases, the direct-sperm imm...

Background Varicocele (VCL) is characterized by a progressive disorder which is defined by tortuosity of the pampiniform plexus veins that exerts bilateral impacts. 50-60 percent of males with infertility problems are suffering from VCL. Considering VCL-induced massive problems in human fertilizing potential, investigating different aspects of VCL-induced derangements is gaining considerable at...

Female mate choice is often based on exaggerated sexual traits, signals of male qualities that females cannot assess directly. Two such key qualities are male immune and/or sexual competence, whereby honesty in signalling could be maintained by physiological trade-offs. Carotenoid-based ornaments likely constitute such honest signals, as there is direct competition for (limited) carotenoids bet...

The self-incompatibility (S) genes of flowering plants are, with the fungal incompatibility and mammalian major histocompatibility (MHC) loci, among the most highly polymorphic loci known. In Oenothera organensis, for example, 35 alleles have been detected [1] by laborious compatibility tests between plants of this endemic species, the total population size of which may not exceed 5000 [2]. Dif...

Epididymal maturation is associated with the activation of a cAMP-induced tyrosine phosphorylation cascade, which is ultimately associated with the expression of capacitation-dependent sperm functions, such as hyperactivated movement and acrosomal exocytosis. As spermatozoa progress through the epididymis they first acquire the capacity to phosphorylate tyrosine on targets on the principal piec...