Blogs / Discoblog

Remember how all the Prozac we’ve been flushing through our systems (and our sewers) was entering the water supply and messing with the fish? Well, a new argument claims that this is precisely what’s going on with men who’re having a little trouble in the fertility department. And just who is making this rather dubious claim? None other than the Pope himself.

According to His Eminence, the demon birth control is finding its way from the urine of loose women into the otherwise-pure systems of unsuspecting males, robbing them of their baby-making mojo.

Pedro Jose Maria Simon Castellvi, president of the International Federation of Catholic Medical Associations, stated that the pill “has for some years had devastating effects on the environment by releasing tonnes of hormones into nature,” and as a result “[w]e have sufficient evidence to state that a non-negligible cause of male infertility in the West is the environmental pollution caused by the pill.”

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The olor looks like an apron but works like a condom— for goats. Kenyan herdsmen are bringing back this traditional method of livestock contraception— a rectangular piece of cowhide or plastic tied around the belly of the male animal—to control breeding. The olor prevents the animals from mating and doesn’t require constant vigilance on the part of the herdsmen. They would otherwise have to keep the bucks and does in separate herds, which requires twice the number of supervisors to watch over them all.

In recent years, droughts in the region have thinned out pastures. If the goats were allowed to breed unfettered, the females would not be able to adequately care for their young. So this year, local villagers volunteered to follow a “family planning” initiative (which seems like an idea worth spreading, considering the prevalence of animal STDs.)

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You might remember the story that broke in early August saying that the Centers for Disease Control had greatly underestimated the number of Americans who become infected with HIV each year. The CDC had said the total was about 40,000; after correcting a mistake in their method of counting, the new estimate was 56,300, a 40 percent increase.

In response to this alarming new number, condom company One made a special delivery to both John McCain’s and Barack Obama’s campaign headquarters: 56,300 condoms. One says the shipments are campaigns’ to do with as they wish, but the company encourages them to donate the condoms to community centers or non-profit organizations.

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While the latest trend is apparently rubbing your muscles with Preparation H to achieve a ripply Schwarzenegger effect, one topical substance that might be far more useful for men is estrogen. Researchers at the University of Melbourne are saying that men could considerably reduce their risk of contracting HIV by applying estrogen cream to their penises at least once a week.

The reason it works, according to U. Melbourne professor Roger Short, is that the estrogen can dramatically thicken the layer of keratin, the protein that’s a key ingredient in hair and nails, covering the skin of the penis. Because of its toughness and insolubility, the keratin layer would presumably provide a natural defense against the virus.

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Pathogens—those selfish beasts—will do anything to stay alive and procreate. They force us to sneeze and contaminate the water supply with our own diarrhea, they turn ants into berries and make rodents lose their fear of cats, and—in the case of some sexually transmitted diseases like herpes and syphilis—they ooze out of open sores into the ripe bodies of the next host.

But an essay in the New York Times explains that STDs are careful to keep the grossness to a sustainable level. After all, pathogens have to make sure potential hosts still want to have sex with the current host—a lesson which syphilis learned after Columbus brought the disease to Europe. In those days, its sores dwarfed those caused by another fearsome disease—called “small pox” to distinguish it from syphilis, the “great pox.” The Times cites a description of syphilis from Ulrich von Hutten, written in 1519:

“Boils that stood out like Acorns, from whence issued such filthy stinking Matter, that whosoever came within the Scent, believed himself infected. The Colour of these was of a dark Green and the very Aspect as shocking as the pain itself, which yet was as if the Sick had laid upon a fire.”

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First there were Google book scanners wearing finger condoms. Now there’s a company selling finger condoms to prevent you from smudging your iPhone screen. Their site says the Phone Finger is “probably the funniest accessory for touch screen enabled devices available,” but I’m not sure that fully encompasses the ridiculousness of this item.

This reminds me of how some iPhone users have complained recently about the feature-not-a-bug that bars you from operating the device while wearing conventional gloves, which could become pretty annoying as the northern hemisphere (where, presumably, most iPhone users spend most of their time) slips into winter, even one blunted by global warming. The Phone Finger people would be better off following the lead of the people who make those Tavo iPod running gloves. Then again, that would probably lose them their funniest-accessory award. The Phone Finger people are geniuses.

Did you ever wonder how Google is scanning all of those books that are going in their massive Google Book Search project? Well, you can get a pretty good clue by looking at the second and third pages of The Gentleman’s Magazine: the scanning is being done by taking ordinary pictures of the pages, and the pages (at least some of them) are arranged by a lady wearing red fingernail polish, a couple of gold rings, and latex covers on her first and second fingers—covers that look notably like condoms. To this DiscoBlogger, anyway.