The Cleavage Countdown: 8 Facts About Breasts

The quintessential embodiment of female sexuality, breasts have fascinated and mystified since the beginning of time. From the biology that makes breasts, and breast-feeding, possible, and the odd boob changes that occur with motherhood to historical perceptions of the hourglass shape, LiveScience the art and science of breasts.

The First Bra

Women have strapped down their breasts with fabric bands or boosted their cleavage with body-shaping corsets for centuries, depending on current fashions. But the precursors to modern bras began to appear in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The magazine “Vogue” first used the term brassiere in 1907. In 1914, American Mary Phelps-Jacobs patented the first bra design, which consisted of two handkerchiefs sewn together with baby ribbon used as straps.

The first push-up bra came on the scene in 1948, introduced by Frederick Mellinger of Frederick's of Hollywood fame. According to Redbook magazine, the average woman today owns nine bras.

What's Inside?

The breasts contain between 15 and 20 lobules filled with hollow cavities called alveoli, where milk is produced. These lobules are connected by ducts that carry the milk to the nipple. Fat, ligaments and connective tissue hold all of this milk-producing machinery in place.

The Art of Breasts

We've all seen nude statues and old oil paintings of ladies hanging out without many clothes on. Turns out, this tradition goes way, way back. Paleolithic cave art dating back to as long as 35,000 years ago portrays naked women with enormous hips and breasts (is it any wonder that archaeologists suspect that the artists were teenagers?).

Size Matters

Whether you wear a double-A or double-D cup is likely partly due to your genes, with researchers pinpointing seven genetic markers (called SNPs) responsible for breast size. The study, detailed in the June 30, 2012, issue of the journal BMC Medical Genetics, also found that two of these markers are also linked with breast cancer; that suggests some of the same biological pathways may underlie normal breasth growth and breast cancer. However, that is not to say breast size is linked to breast cancer, the researchers cautioned.

Speaking of size, the average size for American women < ahref=”http://www.livescience.com/32397-what-is-the-average-american-womans-bust-size-.html”>is now a 36C.

Sagging Breasts

Bigger boobs are arguably one of the more appealing body changes of motherhood. But what happens when those hormone and milk-swelled breasts deflate once breast-feeding stops? Sagging breasts, or breast ptosis, for life? Turns out, pregnancy may weigh on a woman's boobs more than breast-feeding.

As a pregnant woman's breasts grow fuller and heavier, the ligaments and skin that support breasts stretch. When breasts shrink after delivery, these supports may not snap back to their former shape. Certain factors can make pregnancy's toll on breast firmness even worse. For instance, the older a woman is and the more pregnancies she's had, the more her breasts are likely to shrink. Smoking, too, can be a breast downer, as it breaks down a protein that gives skin (and breasts) its youthful elasticity. .

"Women may be reluctant to breastfeed because of this unfounded myth that doing so means the end of youthful breasts," University of Kentucky plastic surgeon and researcher Brian Rinker told LiveScience sister site Life's Little Mysteries in 2010. "Now, expectant mothers can relax knowing breastfeeding does not sacrifice the appearance of their breasts."

Breast Lumps

Feeling a lump in her breast can be the scariest moment in a woman's life. About one in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer at some point, most after age 50. There is no one type of breast cancer — many tumors are sensitive to the hormone estrogen, but some aren't; some express specific genes such as HER2 that respond to targeted drug treatment, while others do not. Certain genes increase a person's risk factor for cancer, the most common being mutated versions of two genes called BRCA1 and BRCA2. Alcohol use, delayed childbirth, obesity and exposure to radiation also increase the risk for cancer.

Although it's 100 times less frequent than in women, breast cancer can strike men, too. Just as men have vestigial nipples, they also have a little bit of breast tissue in the form of milk ducts that don't develop during puberty like a woman's do. These ducts can be susceptible to cancer.

Back-Up Breasts

In the days before formula, a woman who struggled to nurse could see her child starve. Fortunately, there was often a solution: wet nurses, or lactating women who were paid to nurse other women’s babies. Upper-class women throughout history have often called in wet nurse to avoid the hassle of nursing themselves, or because it was simply the norm in their culture. In ancient Rome, for example, a structure called the Columna Lactaria may have been a site where wet-nurses for hire gathered, or perhaps it was a charity site where poor mothers could get extra milk for their babies.

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Wet-nursing was a common practice in western Europe up through the 18th century, but it's now seen as unusual. Nevertheless, "cross-feeding," as it's known, is still done. In one high-profile incident in 2009, for example, actress Salma Hayek breastfed another woman's newborn in Sierra Leone during a charity trip. And some women informally share nursing duties with friends who also have babies (though pediatricians recommend turning to a milk bank instead, to ensure that milk is free from disease).

Is Bigger Better?

Yes

Hello,

More of my philosophy about individual digital identity and individual identity and more..

I am a white arab, and i think i am smart since i have also
invented many scalable algorithms and algorithms..

I think i am smart and i think i am a wise type of person, and let me
tell you that i am of the ones that value a lot digital identity,
since i want my digital identity to be a honest person about my strenghts and about my being a gentleman, and you have to understand that i look like my thoughts of my philosophy or my poems of Love, and i am also thinking them and writing them really fast since i look like
my thoughts that i am writing fast, also i have to be frank since i am also still in the process of inventing more and more thoughts of my philosophy , and i will soon organize all my thoughts of my philosophy as a beautiful digital book, also i will also soon do much more "business" with my kind of digital identity etc.

More of my philosophy about the philosophy of Letting Go and more..

I have just looked at the following video:

Why Letting Go Is True Wealth | Minimalist Philosophy for Simple Living

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHcGmiZqKXo&t=78s

I think i am smart, and i think i am a wise type of person,
so i have just talked about stoicism and i am explaining why
my philosophy is better than stoicism, and read my below thoughts
about it, and now there remain the philosophy of Letting Go in the above video that i think comes also from China, but i think it has also a weakness as the below philosophy of the black guy below, so the weakness of the philosophy of Letting Go, is also like the same weakness of Buddhism, and it is that we are not "isolated" from people, so since we
are living inside a society and interacting with people so then
we are comparing our status etc. so we can be hurt, so we become less confident or more confident so then the Letting Go phillosophy
is not realistic or pragmatic, since its way of doing is not so efficient.

More of my philosophy about specialization and self-confidence and more..

I think i am smart, and i have just looked at some videos of the following black guy that is creating motivational videos:

TRUE DOG MENTALITY - The Most Motivational Video | David Goggins

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JMAgzKvlIY

And i think that he is not talking so smartly, but i think he
is wanting to become self-confidence by being "specialization",
like the specialization in economy that is the process wherein a company or individual decides to focus their labor on a specific type of production and that enhances much more productivity, but i think that his views on his videos of how to be self-confidence are not so efficient, since i say that specialization alone is not sufficient,
since i think that you have to know how to transcend this weakness by
for example knowing how to a kind intellectual superiority that is creative in a kind sophisticated manner that brings self-confidence, and it is what i am doing by inventing my thoughts of my philosophy and my poems of Love and by inventing many scalable algorithms and algorithms
and by inventing some powerful software tools etc. and here is my following two proverbs that show this kind of doing:

Here is my new proverb:

"Being strong can become being weak by containing a small weak part that
makes you weak, and being weak can become being strong by containing a
small strong part of great weight of importance that makes you strong"

Here is my other new proverb:

"When you want to construct a much better version of yourself so
that to become successful, there is the first way of the hard working
way, but the hard working way is not the efficient and smart way, this
is why you can construct a much better version of yourself
by being some creative thinking and by being exponential thinking and by
using the exponential progress and growth brought by digitalization to
sell on internet your product or service from this some creative
thinking so that to be successful, so as you notice that this shows that
we have to be positive about our world, and this shows that my following
proverb is truth that actually says the following: The being weak can
become being strong by containing a small strong part of great weight of
importance that makes you strong, since the some creative thinking is a
small part of great weight of importance that makes you strong, since it
is not only capital and talents that make you successful, but it is also
some creative ideas that makes the great Capital that makes you
successful and the great capital that attracts talents that makes you
much more successful than successful."

And read all my other new proverbs in the following web link:

https://groups.google.com/g/alt.culture.morocco/c/ZyUvFt_nix8

Here is also one important proverb of mine about Resourcefulness that permits you to understand it:

"Resourcefulness is one of the most important things, and it is a skill,
and the good news is: this skill can be learned and mastered, and
resourcefulness is attained only when we combine the resourceful mindset
and skills, so we have to filter out some of the most useful resources
that help us, and resourcefulness is also to know who/what to look for
and what to ask, and when ressourcefulness is attained this becomes an
engine that permits you to have hope and to be energetic and to be
positive in doing what you are doing, since resourcefulness also permits
to easy the jobs for you."

And now more of my philosophy about capitalism and about Marxism and communism and more..

I invite you to look at the following video:

Communist Professor Defends Stalin & Mao’s Legacy - Heated Debate

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iov6jyfKtRc

So i have just looked at the above video and i will talk more about capitalism:

I think the mistake is to call our system capitalism, since i think our
system is not capitalism, since it requires also a kind of of Social Assistance and Social Solidarity and we have to have social programs that help the weakest members of the society or the poors of the society in a kind of way, and read below my philosophy about Class Struggle
so that to notice it, so i think that saying that USA is capitalism
is not correct thinking, since capitalism only as a system is a stupid
system, so this is why we can not compare as in the above video between
capitalism and communism, so we need to take into account all the
variables such as the kind of of Social Assistance and Social Solidarity
that we have inside for example the USA system so that to compare with communism, other than that i have also discussed more about the
advantages of capitalism, you can read them in the following
web link:

And if you want to know more about my views on capitalism,
read them here:

https://groups.google.com/g/alt.culture.morocco/c/cf3Wa4z8Xmc

Also you have to read carefully my philosophy about Class Struggle so
that to notice from where i am logically inferring that we require
a kind of of Social Assistance and Social Solidarity and that we have to have social programs that help the weakest members of the society or the poors of the society in a kind of way, here it is:

And today i will talk about Class struggle of Communism and Marxism,
so i will first ask a philosophical question of:

Is Class struggle "valid" and a good thing to have ?

I will say that there is not one type of Class struggle, because
we can have "levels" of Class Struggle, such as the Class Struggle of Communism and Marxism under Mao Zedong in China, and i think it is logically inferred in Marxism from the fact that there is antagonistic contradictions that are contradiction between the Chinese communists and Chinese bourgeoisie and between the imperialist camp and the socialist camp, so we can also consider that this antagonistic contradictions also comes from the fact that we can be genetically predisposed to being smart or having a good memory efficiency and such genetical characteristics, so this gives much more "chance" to those that have this kind of genetical predispositions to become rich and successful, so this is why Communism and Marxism says that we have to equalize much more between people, so this is why i think it is also a kind of competition that gives this kind of Class Struggle, but i will say that the fact that we equalize much more between people in a society is not good for "diversity" inside the society and it is not good for efficiency, since we have to have a level of diversity that brings "resilience" to the organization of a society, and even in economy we have to have a level of diversification of economy that brings resilience, so this is why i think that the level of Class struggle that we have to have doesn't look like archaism of Communism or Marxism, since i think we have to have some kind of Social Assistance and Social Solidarity and we have to have social programs that help the weakest members of the society or the poors of the society in a kind of way, so we have also to have a level of Class Struggle that is like a competition that ensure that those kind of rights of providing some kind of social programs that helps the weakest members and the poors of the society are fought for in a civilized way inside such places as the congress and in Democracy. Now there is also other antagonist contradictions between the government and the people under Democracy or the communist regime, and inside two groups or more inside a political party or within a communist Party, and i think that we have to have civilized ways and manners like by vigorous criticism and self-criticism so that to resolve those kind of antagonist contradictions.