The Male Fertility Home Test
(Image: David Becker/Stone/Getty)
Every man likes to assume that he’s so virile he could impregnate a woman just by looking at her. Well, those assumptions may soon be a thing of the past. Scientists at the MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology at the University of Twente in the Netherlands have developed a tiny male fertility kit that can produce a sperm count in seconds. I’m not going to explain how it’s used. I’m pretty sure you can figure that out.
The device, which is a small “microfluidic” chip, can apparently produce an automated sperm count with the same margin of error as a manual count at a clinic. However, unlike the traditional clinic method, the chip produces its count in around 12 seconds. While this would make home fertility tests easy and fast, some don’t think that’s a good thing. Michael Dunn, a health care ethics researcher at Oxford, thinks that knowledge of sperm count without the guidance of a trained medical professional could create panic amongst the kit’s users. “There would be the potential for harm to be caused to patients if they were not provided with the relevant information about the impact of a positive result for infertility,” he says.
I’d just like to point out that I made it through this entire story without making any sperm jokes. It was a tough road, requiring many breaks and some calming tea, but I did it. Maybe I’m finally becoming an adult. Maybe it’s time to start having kids. I hope my boys can swim!
Crap. Almost made it.
Source: New Scientist
