Are Your Family Jewels Getting older?

As men get older, the risk of producing children with a variety of defects rises e.g. Autism, Schizophrenia. Although this risk doubles, it is still very small (in the order of 1 percent rather that 0.5 percent). To balance this negative, men over 40 are likely to produce children with larger brains. Having older parents may also be beneficial as the maturity of older men may provide children with a more stable home environment. Also, the sperm of older men may have mutations and may possibly play a role in the evolution of our big brains. We have also recognized that children with autism have bigger brains, suggesting greater processing power.  But autism has significant defects in using this greater power with a significant decrease in social skills.

This article was taken from a feature article in New Scientist Magazine, written by its editor Michael LePage.