The infertility crisis
Science & Cocktails is proud to present an episode on "The infertility crisis: How our modern world is threatening our ability to reproduce and what we can do about it" with Shanna Swan, one of the world’s leading environmental and reproductive epidemiologists and author of "Count Down". Shanna will explain why there is an ongoing fertility crisis. Just before, Lennart Ginman Trio takes you through the world of Jazz and afterwards DJ Tjiquita spins some records.
What is the current reproductive crisis we are facing? Is it only a problem in the male? Only in humans? What is causing this crisis? What are the impacts on society besides declining fertility? What can individuals and societies do to reverse this?
Human beings are now forced to contend with some dismaying biological realities. Sperm counts and men’s testosterone levels have declined dramatically over the last four decades; increasing numbers of girls are experiencing early puberty, and grown women are losing good quality eggs at younger and younger ages.
And it’s not just humans whose fertility is challenged.
Reversing the reproduction-sabotaging effects that are occurring will require sweeping modifications to the kinds and volumes of chemicals that are manufactured and pumped into the environment. Most scientists agree on the threat; now, we need the public to take these problems seriously.
Shanna Swan will discuss these substantial threats, their causes, and action that is called for in the face of these alarming realities.
Event held in English, with the generous support of the Novo Nordisk Foundation.
Talk by
Shanna Swan
Shanna Swan is one of the world’s leading environmental and reproductive epidemiologists and a professor of environmental medicine and public health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City where she is also a member of the Transdisciplinary Center on Early Environmental Exposures and the Mindich Child Health and Development Institute. An award-winning scientist, her work examines the impact of environmental exposures, including chemicals such as phthalates and Bisphenol A, on men’s and women’s reproductive health and the neurodevelopment of children.
For over twenty years, Dr. Swan and her colleagues have been studying the dramatic decline in sperm count around the world and the impact of environmental chemicals and pharmaceuticals on reproductive track development and neurodevelopment. Her July 2017 paper “Temporal Trends in Sperm Count: a systematic review and meta-regression analysis” ranked #26 among all referenced scientific papers published in 2017 worldwide.
Dr. Swan has published more than 200 scientific papers and myriad book chapter chapters and has been featured in extensive media coverage around the world. Her appearances include ABC News, NBC Nightly News, 60 Minutes, CBS News, PBS, the BBC, PRI Radio, and NPR, as well as in leading magazines newspapers, ranging from The Washington Post to Bloomberg News to New Scientist.
Music by
Lennart Ginman Trio
Lennart Ginman presents his new trio, which plays a fascinating mix of presentable electronic music and jazz. An imaginative experimental techno that balances between touching minimal romance and smashed brutal soundscapes. Between sublimity and down-to-earth minimalism. Between electronic sequencers and the 200-year-old double bass.
The trio's cinematic music sounds like the big emotions feel: an unconventional musical cocktail of inner dream noise, bittersweet pop, dark music and escapism. An impromptu musical exploration beyond any hint of genre. But as always in Lennart Ginman's own music, the melancholy, depraved and romantic 'sound' is the ever-present DNA. A DNA that reflects both Ginman's strong Finnish roots and his Danish upbringing. The tone draws threads to Jan Johansson, Dubstep, Jean Sibelius and Björk.
In addition to Lennart Ginman on double bass and electronics, the trio consists of Maggie Björklund on pedal Steel Guitar and Steen Rock on div. DJ & drum / beat samplers. Björklund and Rock are both distinctly eminent musicians, and both have time and time again enriched and surprised discerning listeners around the world, each with their own unique creative talent and their courage to push the boundaries of music.
The music is newly written for the trio in 2021/22 by Ginman. The compositions give rise to musical ideas, which develop collectively and grow in the music between the 3 musicians - perhaps as a small repetitive and minimalist rhythmic pattern which over time develops into a strongly disturbed, manipulated and abstract soundscape. Subject to the composition's own logic, the music emerges, can be turned and turned into new sounds and new forms and naturally adds to the series of unknown obviousness. Everywhere a piece of melody can break out of the haze, capture the listener's attention and carry on the listener's own inner lyrics and fantasies.