SCIENTISTS ARE TRYING TO develop tests that can gauge a woman's future fertility, the San Jose Mercury News reported April 13. Years from now, it may be routine for a woman in her 20s to undergo tests, screenings and sonograms that tell her whether she will have difficulty conceiving in her 30s and beyond. Such research might have seemed irrelevant in the past but, as more women postpone pregnancy to pursue careers, scientists are racing to keep up. Researchers add that such tests may never provide the definitive verdict women might want. "There never will be a perfect test," said LYNN WESTPHAL, an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology who directs the university's human egg donation program. "Hopefully, whatever we do will have good predictive value, but there's always going to be a range. I'd worry about telling someone, 'Your ovaries look great, don't worry about getting pregnant,' and maybe other things would happen and someone would lose that window of opportunity." Another scientist added, however, that many women probably would welcome a peek into their future.

A STUDY PUBLISHED APRIL 13 iN the online journal PLoS Biology describes the drastic temperamental shift that occurred in a troop of 62 savanna baboons in Kenya when an outbreak of tuberculosis 20 years ago selectively killed off the nastiest males after they fought over spoiled meat at a tourist lodge garbage dump. Left behind were the subordinate males, as well as females and their young. ROBERT SAPOLSKY, a professor of biological sciences and neurology who co-authored the report, found that the change in demographics brought about a lasting cultural swing toward pacifism. The persistence of this communal behavior, even after the death of the subordinate male survivors and their replacement by males from the outside, suggests that the resident baboons were instructing the immigrants in the unusual customs of the tribe. "We don't yet understand the mechanism of transmittal," said Sapolsky, an expert on the physiology of stress. "But the jerky new guys are obviously learning, 'We don't do things like that around here.'" Sapolsky told the New York Times April 13 that he has no idea how long the good times will last. "I confess I'm rooting for the troop to stay like this forever, but I worry about how vulnerable they may be," he said. "All it would take is two or three jerky adolescent males entering at the same time to tilt the balance and destroy the culture."