sperm

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On Endangered Koalas, Scientists Hit on 'Way to Bring Them Back'

Freezing koala sperm would require fewer koalas in captivity, improve genetic diversity: report

(Newser) - Two months after Australia declared koalas as endangered across much of the country's east coast, researchers are hoping to stock up on frozen koala sperm. Scientists at the University of Newcastle in the southeastern state of New South Wales have proposed the creation of a lab to store that...

Woman Uncovers Unbelievable Story About Her OB-GYN

Morgan Hellquist alleges Dr. Morris Wortman is her biological father

(Newser) - When a police officer pulled Morgan Hellquist over for erratic driving, he immediately recognized she was upset and asked what was the matter. "Even if I tell you what's wrong, you're never going to believe me," she recalls saying. In a piece for the Rochester Democrat ...

In Sperm Donor 'Case Without Precedent,' a $10.7M Deal

Fertility doc accused of impregnating women with his own sperm agrees to settlement

(Newser) - A Canadian fertility doctor who lost his medical license in 2019 after being accused of impregnating multiple women with the wrong sperm—sometimes his own—has now agreed to fork over millions in a "groundbreaking" settlement. The Ottawa Citizen reports that the $10.7 million offer from Norman Barwin...

Parents Appalled by Homework Mentioning Rape, Sperm
Parents Outraged Over
'Absolutely Appalling'
Homework Question
in case you missed it
Jan 19, 2020 6:47 AM CST

Parents Outraged Over 'Absolutely Appalling' Homework Question

Assignment focusing on DNA mentioned rape and sperm samples

(Newser) - A Texas school district says it has taken "corrective action" after a question about rape appeared on a ninth-grade homework assignment. About 90 biology students at Klein Collins High School near Houston received the assignment focusing on DNA, which included what the Klein Independent School District calls an "...

He Thought He Was Fathering 5 Kids. So Far, It's 17
Sperm Donor's 'Overwhelming'
Find Leads to $5.25M Suit
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Oct 6, 2019 1:25 PM CDT

Sperm Donor's 'Overwhelming' Find Leads to $5.25M Suit

Bryce Cleary says he fathered 17 kids, not just 5 like Oregon fertility clinic promised

(Newser) - When Dr. Bryce Cleary was in medical school at Oregon Health and Science University three decades ago, he decided to help people who were having fertility issues by becoming a sperm donor. But he had conditions, including that no more than five children be produced using his sperm; that the...

The Sperm Donor Was Carefully Chosen. Decades Later, a Shock
The Sperm Donor
Was Carefully Chosen.
Decades Later, a Shock
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Jun 9, 2019 3:05 PM CDT

The Sperm Donor Was Carefully Chosen. Decades Later, a Shock

'NYT' looks at cases in which women learned they got the wrong sperm

(Newser) - There are no firm numbers on how often this is happening, just anecdotes—and they're "piling up," writes Jacqueline Mroz for the New York Times in a look at what some families are learning about donated sperm in the age of easy access to DNA testing. Namely,...

A Young Cadet Died Skiing. Now, a 'Bittersweet Result'

Parents get court's OK to retrieve Peter Zhu's sperm

(Newser) - The parents of a 21-year-old West Point cadet fatally injured in a skiing accident raced the clock to get a judge's permission to retrieve his sperm for "the possibility of preserving some piece of our child that might live on." US Military Academy Cadet Peter Zhu was...

We're Half as Fertile as Our Grandfathers. What Happens Next?
Is It Time to Sound
the Alarm on Sperm?
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Sep 9, 2018 3:15 PM CDT

Is It Time to Sound the Alarm on Sperm?

Daniel Noah Halpern looks at the state of our sperm for 'GQ'

(Newser) - Daniel Noah Halpern checks in on the state of the world's sperm in a lengthy piece for GQ , and the upshot at its worst is that there is "the possibility that we will become extinct." That line comes from Hagai Levine, who co-authored a 2017 Hebrew University/Mount...

Sperm Bank: Donors Must Love the 'Motherland'

No diseases either, thank you

(Newser) - Want to donate to a Chinese sperm bank? You may need to "love the socialist motherland." A social media post by the Peking University Third Hospital said sperm donors are welcome if they "support the leadership of the Communist Party" and are "loyal to the party'...

Woman 'Horrified' by Ancestry.com Connection

Fertility doctor used own sperm to impregnate patient: suit

(Newser) - Kelli Rowlette thought she knew who her biological father was. So when Ancestry.com showed her DNA matched a sample from a retired fertility doctor, she assumed the service was unreliable, per the Washington Post . That was until she learned the same doctor had artificially inseminated her mother with his...

Why Brazilian Women Want Sperm From Guys Like This

They feel blond, blue-eyed males will produce 'pretty' kids who will have more advantages

(Newser) - What came into Brazil in great numbers in 2017: hundreds of tubes of imported US semen, often from donors primed to make "pretty" children—which for many Brazilians means white "biotypes" with light hair and eyes, per the Wall Street Journal . Such imports of overseas sperm have spiked...

Researchers Sound Alarm on Dropping Male Sperm Counts

There's been a 52% drop in sperm counts over the last 40 years

(Newser) - The Western man's sperm count just isn't what it used to be. In what the Washington Post calls the largest and most comprehensive look into the matter, an international team of researchers reports in the journal Human Reproductive Update that after analyzing 185 previous studies involving 42,000...

Scientists Unravel Secrets of How Sperm Swim
Scientists Unravel Secrets
of How Sperm Swim
new study
Mar 20, 2017 10:03 AM CDT

Scientists Unravel Secrets of How Sperm Swim

It's similar to the magnetic fields that form around magnets

(Newser) - So how does one sperm manage to best tens of millions of competitors to fertilize the egg? It may have the best rhythm, a new study suggests. Researchers analyzing how sperm cells move have come up with what they call a "simple mathematical formula" to explain what's happening,...

Woman Terrified Dead Husband's Sperm Used for Other Women

Sara Robertson is suing the doctor who was supposed to keep his sperm safe

(Newser) - Sara Robertson is certain a fertility doctor used her deceased husband's sperm to impregnate other women without her knowledge. And while Robertson says it feels "like I'm in a nightmare," she's not the only one who may suffer. Her husband, Aaron, had Marfan syndrome, a...

Clinic: Wrong Man's Sperm May Have Fertilized 26 Eggs

Dutch clinic blames 'procedural error'

(Newser) - A man who sent his sperm to a Dutch IVF lab may have ended up with many more offspring than he bargained for. In what the University Medical Center in Utrecht says was a "procedural error," sperm from a single client may have been accidentally used to fertilize...

China's Sperm Seems to Be Getting Worse
China's Sperm Seems
to Be Getting Worse
new study
Nov 28, 2016 11:00 AM CST

China's Sperm Seems to Be Getting Worse

56% of would-be donors were a-OK in 2001; in 2015, it was 18%

(Newser) - Researchers set out to evaluate semen quality among young Chinese men over the past 15 years, and the results are fairly staggering: In 2001, the rate of qualified donors to a clinic in Hunan Province stood at 55.8%; in 2015, that was slashed by more than two-thirds to 17....

Zika Virus Ravages Testicles of Male Mice
Zika Virus Ravages
Testicles of Male Mice
NEW STUDY
Nov 1, 2016 7:05 AM CDT

Zika Virus Ravages Testicles of Male Mice

Just 2 weeks post-infection, their testes shrank visibly

(Newser) - The Zika virus has been linked to microcephaly, or shrunken heads, in the infants of pregnant women who contract the virus, but it also decimates the testicles of males—at least in mice, report researchers in the journal Nature . Little is currently known about the impact of an infection on...

New Vision for Male Birth Control: Don't Let Sperm Swim

Control over sperm motility could help infertile men, too

(Newser) - Male fertility comes down to one thing in many cases: sperm motility. If they're not good swimmers, fertility can be an issue, reports the Independent . But researchers at the University of Wolverhampton in the UK are reporting (though not yet in a peer-reviewed scientific journal) that they may have...

Guys, Smoking May Damage Your Sperm
 Guys, Smoking 
 May Damage 
 Your Sperm 
NEW STUDY
Jun 29, 2016 9:44 AM CDT

Guys, Smoking May Damage Your Sperm

When fathers are smokers, odds of fertilization go down and genetic abnormalities go up

(Newser) - Need another reason to keep your distance from cigarettes? For men, smoking appears to damage their sperm and potentially their offspring, too. Reporting in the journal BJU International , researchers say that men who smoke have a higher percentage of damage to sperm DNA; they had partially and sometimes totally inactive...

Athletes, Coaches Freezing Sperm Before Olympics Over Zika Fears

But few plan on staying home

(Newser) - The Zika virus is adding a whole new wrinkle to the way athletes and coaches are preparing for the Olympics this year. For example, the New York Times reports John Speraw, coach of the US men's indoor volleyball team, is freezing his sperm before traveling to Rio. “My...

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