Relay
Life is a powerful force. From the moment it appeared on Earth - which is estimated at roughly 4.5 billion years ago - it has never ceased to find ways of continuing, plucking from Nature what it needs to create offspring. Rich soil broken down by earthworms feeds the emerging buds of flowers. Grains shed by fruit provide hatchlings with food, and the planet's oceans stock up with plankton to sustain their schools of fish and pods of whales. This team spirit, if you like, is also found on the molecular scale. When mothers lactate, for example, their bodies draw calcium from their own bones to build the bones of their newborn. In the same vein, scientists discovered another relay at work further upstream where maternal factors are activated to replace the calcium that has been removed from the mother's bones. In this way, the mother's bones are not weakened while the baby's bones are strengthened - and life carries on. A maternal brain hormone that is directly involved in rebuilding maternal bone during lactation has recently been discovered. Its name: CCN3. CCN3 is not new to biologists, but its role in fortifying the bones of lactating mothers is.
