Discoblog » Contraceptives for Everyone/thing

150 Kids, Anyone? US Sperm Banks Overdoing It

Veronique Greenwood — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 18:53:27 +0000

Sperm banks are a pretty great idea: women who don’t have a male partner or whose partners aren’t fertile can choose a genetic father with characteristics they like, such as a certain height, eye color, hair color, hobbies, and so on. Thousands of children are born each year in the United States to mothers who like the sound of “tall, dark, enjoys astrophysics and Shostakovich” or “blond surfer, Ivy-League educated, great sense of humor.”

But something very strange has been going on over the last couple decades, and the New York Times covers it in a recent piece: some donors’ sperm has been used many, many times—so many times, in fact, that people are starting to get alarmed.

Up to 150 children each have been born from the sperm of popular donors, far more than donors and mothers had anticipated. American sperm banks don’t keep rigorous records of children born from donor sperm, nor do they limit the number of children born from a particular donor (a chance, some might say, for sexual selection to run out of control—those green-eyed geniuses can be mighty sought-after). Parents only find out that their child has dozens of half-siblings when they look up their ...

Kinky Skinks Show That Size Matters in Speciation

Veronique Greenwood — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 17:05:30 +0000

When a male’s bits don’t fit with a female’s bits, you wind up with reproductive malfunction. But shape isn’t everything, as a team of researchers recently discovered while watching hundreds of skink lizards court and spark.

Most studies looking at how genitalia mismatch contributes to new species take the concept literally: if the bits don’t fit together like lock and key, matings will be unsuccessful. And if the mismatch between the gear of two groups is bad enough, they will form separate reproductive populations, and, eventually, species. But the idea, which was first tossed around more than 150 years ago, has been discounted as a possible source of new species. Differently sized or shaped genitalia is such a big change that it’s likely to come after many other speciation triggers, like mutations or long separations between populations divided by mountain ranges.

But, as this research team points out—and as anyone in the dating pool can tell you—there are other aspects of physical incompatibility that can have an effect on sex, and thus could get speciation started. If the mating posture, chemical cues, or timing are off, even having matching genitalia doesn’t mean a mating will work ...

Bad News for Roosters: If You Aren’t King of the Henhouse, Your Ejaculate Will Be Ejected

Veronique Greenwood — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 16:23:05 +0000

WHAT? Noooooooo!

If you haven’t heard about the corkscrew kookiness that is duck genitalia by now, you need to check that stuff out ASAP.

Ducks’ twisting vaginas and telescoping penises are well-known part of an evolutionary arms race between the sexes that’s been going on for millennia, with each side trying to exert control over which males’ sperm fertilize the female’s eggs—a battle that, especially in birds, is fierce, occasionally violent, and weird as all-get-out. The most recently discovered example of what biologists deem “sexual conflict,” a little behavior hens have developed called sperm ejection, upholds that fine tradition.

Hens, like many female birds, don’t always have a lot of control over who mates with them. Roosters tend to resort to “sexual coercion,” aka rape, and so a female might have any number of sexual partners that she didn’t get to choose. What’s a hen to do? Well, according to a new study in The American Naturalist, evolve a method for getting rid of sperm from males she didn’t particularly like, thus making sure her offspring are of the best quality.

Scientists had already noticed that hens tended to squirt out semen after some acts ...

“Mommy Tummy” Suit Gives Men a Chance to Feel Pregnant

Veronique Greenwood — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 19:22:07 +0000

For every expectant father who’s ever wished they, too, could feel a fetus kicking their bladder, science now has an answer. Researchers in Japan have put together a suit packed with balloons, sensors, and warm water so you can feel what it’s like to be pregnant.

The suit, called Mommy Tummy, mimics kicking with a system of 45 balloons that inflate and deflate, and movement sensors and accelerometers pick up on the wearer’s activities, so the “fetus,” represented by a four-liter bag of warm water, can respond to exercise or sudden movements with redoubled kicking. Vibrating actuators produce the illusion of wiggling, as New Scientist describes:

When two vibrating sources placed a distance apart move at the same time, it triggers a sensation in between the two points. So by varying vibrating pairs over time, the simulated fetus seems to squirm.

And, in a cool but somewhat unrealistic move, the scientists have hooked the suit up to a screen, so you can watch a simulation of the fetus’ response while you stroke your stomach or walk around. For the thrill-seekers out there, a 9-month pregnancy can be recapitulated in two minutes, or it can be spread out over a longer period for a ...

If Drug-Slathered, Erection-Enhancing Condoms Won’t Lead Men to Safe Sex, Nothing Will

Valerie Ross — Wed, 11 May 2011 20:13:06 +0000

For men who find that condoms sometimes, um, lessen their enthusiasm, some good news: Durex may soon be selling erection-enhacing condoms with a pharmaceutical boost.

The condoms, developed by UK biotech company Futura Medical, are lined with a gel that increases blood flow. The gel’s active ingredient, glyceryl nitrate, has been used for as a vasodilator for over a century. The tricky part was getting the gel to stay in the condom without degrading the latex, but the company found a way (and quickly paten ted it).

Men who enrolled in the clinical trial took the condoms home and gave them a test run (the things we do for science!). Both they and their partners reported longer, larger, and harder erections, presumably while grinning.

The condoms are now being reviewed by European regulators, and if approved, they could be on shelves there later this year. The product is meant specifically for men who have trouble maintaining an erection while wearing a condom, but there’s no prescription required, so anyone will be able to pick up a box from the nearest drug store. No such luck for American consumers, who will be ...

Study Says: Laugh Your Way to a Pregnant Belly

Patrick Morgan — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 17:39:19 +0000

Whether you chortle, chuckle, or cackle, having a good laugh–as we’ve known for decades–reduces stress. And according to an Israeli study, it can also make you pregnant.

OK, that’s a slight exaggeration. But researchers who studied 219 women undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF) discovered that women were more likely to become pregnant if they were paid a visit by a professional “medical clown” after the procedure. The numbers speak for themselves: 36 percent of the clowned women became pregnant, whereas only 20 percent of the un-clowned women conceived.

According to the study, led by Shevach Friedler and published in Fertility and Sterility, a medical merrymaker visited the fertility clinic regularly for a year. Half of the women studied were visited by the jester soon after they had received a fertilized embryo. Each time, the funny-bone tickler stayed for 15 minutes and acted through a set routine. As the Guardian reports:

The researchers found that, compared to women who came to the clinic on a “non-clown” day, those who’d had a laugh were more than twice as likely to become pregnant, when other factors such as age, type of infertility ...

Weirdest of the Weird: Discoblog’s Favorite Stories of 2010

Jennifer Welsh — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 19:51:11 +0000

Click here to view gallery

Each Cell-Phone Tower Creates 18 Babies?! The Difference Between Causation & Correlation

Jennifer Welsh — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 21:27:15 +0000

Those people living in areas with higher numbers of mobile phone towers have more children, new research is showing (spreadsheet). Matt Parker at The Guardian’s Notes & Theories blog did the analysis of publicly available data and found the correlation:

Could it be possible that mobile phone radiation somehow aids fertilisation, or maybe there’s just something romantic about a mobile phone transmitter mast [aka tower] protruding from the landscape?

The data show that there is a very strong correlation between the number of cell phone towers and the birth rate in communities. For every additional phone tower, there are 17.6 more babies than the national average, Parker writes in his blog post:

When a regression line is calculated it has a “correlation coefficient” (a measure of how good the match is) of 98.1 out of 100. To be “statistically significant” a pattern in a dataset needs to be less than 5% likely to be found in random data (known as a “p-value”), and the masts-births correlation only has a 0.00003% probability of occurring by chance.

With all that ...

Science of the Obvious: Beauty Sleep Is Real & Tired People Look Tired

Jennifer Welsh — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 21:31:56 +0000

Lack of sleep doesn’t just make you sluggish. It also makes you ugly, researchers say.

Sleep-deprived people look 4 percent less attractive, 6 percent less healthy, and 19 percent more tired than they usually do. This doesn’t bode well for the sex lives of insomniacs, study author John Axelsson told MSNBC:

“A good night’s sleep does not only improve your physiological health, it will also make you look healthier and more attractive, which in turn improves the chance of better treatments in a wide range of social situations.”

Two pictures of the volunteers were taken: One after a restful eight hours of sleep, and the other after five hours of sleep followed by being kept awake for 31 hours. Other volunteers rated the pictures for attractiveness and how healthy and tired the participants looked. Derk-Jan Dijk, who wasn’t involved in the current study, told BBC News that the effect is probably worse than the pictures show:

“The photographs were taken during the daytime when the biological clock promotes wakefulness. Can you imagine how ...

Update: Is Discussing Bat Fellatio With Colleagues Sexual Harassment?

Eliza Strickland — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 18:21:24 +0000

Bringing up a fruit bat’s oral sex habits with a colleague you don’t know very well may not be the best idea–but according to an Irish court, it doesn’t quite merit the extreme sanctions associated with more flagrant sexual harassment.

Back in May, Discoblog brought you news that a biology professor in Ireland was being charged with harassment by a female colleague after he read from and discussed a racy new paper about fruit bat fellatio. The biologist, Dale Evans, was ordered to attend two years of counseling to correct his attitudes and behavior, and was told that he would be monitored for those two years. But Evans claimed that he’d simply thought the paper was hilarious, had shown it to numerous people that day, and had zero intention of causing offense to his colleague, Rossana Salerno Kennedy. Now ScienceInsider gives us the update:

Evans challenged the ruling, and a judge has now ruled in favor of him, which means that he won’t have to do the counseling. The university’s sanctions on him were “grossly disproportionate,” the judge said. “I won my battle,” Evans tells ScienceInsider.

The ...

Sexy Black Truffle Porn: Not as Exciting as You Hoped

Jennifer Welsh — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 20:00:52 +0000

Scientists are starting to unravel the sex secrets of the black truffle, that rare and expensive delicacy, in hopes of making its cultivation easier.

It turns out the fungus has two different sex-like states, and both must be present to reproduce. One truffle can only be one of the sexes, and while that may not sound odd to us humans, it’s very out of place in the fungus world. Fungi are usually able to reproduce asexually and self-fertilize, lead author of the paper Francesco Paolocci told The Telegraph:

“It was long assumed that the truffle was like other fungi, but we know now that it needs the help of a partner. It has members of two different sexualities, a bit like male and female.”

Still, that doesn’t sound too complicated, right? Well, what’s hard is getting close enough to your partner to “score” when you are stuck in single-sex colonies on oak trees that are yards away from each other (which bears a striking resemblance to my undergrad experience). The researchers were the first to find that ...

Ontario Parents Try to Protect School Kids From Dangerous WiFi Rays

Jennifer Welsh — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 17:55:14 +0000

A small town in Ontario has come down with a bad case of technophobia. The majority (88 percent) of an Ontario school’s parent group (which has 210 members) voted that they want the wireless Internet at their children’s school shut off, the group said in a press release:

“After learning the whole story about how risky WiFi is, parents voted to protect their children’s health and plug the computers back in with hardwires,” said Andrew Couper, a member of the elected School Council…. “This is something every school council across Canada should be questioning.”

After the wireless was installed, the parents of Meaford, Ontario say their children began complaining about symptoms ranging from headaches to nausea, which the children said struck while they were at school. In my day we called this illness “school-sucks-itis”. Well played, kids.

While the parent’s informal poll has made the news, the real decision lies with the Bluewater District school board. Couper said that the school trustee told him the decision process could take years, but the parents can present their views at the ...

Ig Nobel Awards Honor Pioneering Work on Bat Fellatio, Whale Snot, & More

Jennifer Welsh — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 17:15:26 +0000

The list of wacky science discoveries from the Ig Nobel awards announced last night includes teams who made strides in vital fields like bat fellatio and curing diseases via roller coaster rides.

The awards are given out every year for discoveries that made us both laugh and think. Here’s a full list of the winning teams and projects:

Physics: A group of researchers in New Zealand found that wearing your socks over shoes improves your ability to walk on ice. Team member Lianne Parkin explained to Fox News the reason for her work:

“We live in the south of New Zealand in a very hilly city (we have the steepest street in the world!), and intermittent icy conditions in winter can create major havoc,” she said.

Management: A mathematical study by researchers in Italy found that in some business situations, it is better to promote randomly than the choose the most qualified candidates.

Engineering: A team based in the UK and Mexico found the perfect way to collect whale snot–send a remote controlled helicopter in to do it for you. The ...

Scientist Dance Styles: Glee Episode, Spanish Whodunnit, Internet Love Orgy

Jennifer Welsh — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 19:56:19 +0000

In its third year, the Dance Your PhD contest is proving that maybe, just maybe, scientists can dance. From the contest’s website:

The dreaded question. “So, what’s your Ph.D. research about?” You take a deep breath and launch into the explanation. People’s eyes begin to glaze over…

At times like these, don’t you wish you could just turn to the nearest computer and show people an online video of your Ph.D. thesis interpreted in dance form?

Sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the competition has announced the judges-chosen finalists, chosen from the 45 entries in four science sections–and now the viewers get to choose their favorite from among them. Each finalist gets $500, and the crowd favorite gets an additional $500. The winner will be announced on October 19th, so go watch the finalists and get your vote in.

The chemistry category’s finalist, “Selection of a DNA aptamer for homocysteine using systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment,” is danced by Maureen McKeague and company with an accompanying pop ...

The Stupidest Things Celebrities Said About Science in 2009

Andrew Moseman — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 21:43:43 +0000

Here at DISCOVER, we do our best to keep you informed of all the crap scientific advice that celebrities dispense, be it Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy’s anti-vaxxer yarns, Oprah providing a platform for new-age nonsense, or soccer star Robin Van Persie’s praise of placenta massage to heal injuries. But with so many celebrities and so much bad advice, it can be hard to catch it all—TMZ might catalog the whereabouts and philandering of the rich and moderately famous, but not necessarily their quackery.

Never fear, though, because once again the British organization Sense About Science has pulled many of the year’s worst offenses together in a handy compendium. The charity’s annual review pairs celebrity claims with reality-based quotes from doctors and scientists.

Here’s one choice gem: Heather Mills, the animal rights activist and former wife to Paul McCartney, claimed that when you eat meat “[it] sits in your colon for 40 years and putrefies, and eventually gives you the illness you die of. And that is a fact.” Thanks for the info, Heather!

Weird Science Roundup: Toxic Sofas, Ghost Twitterers, and Death Balls from Space!

Rachel Cernansky — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 21:06:38 +0000

•Plants can twitter, but it seems celebrities can’t—not on their own, anyway.

• Toxic sofas, after being shipped from China with packets of a harmful mold-inhibitor, caused extreme skin rashes and burns on at least 1,600—and possibly tens of thousands not yet identified—people in England.

• Science education is under assault in Texas.

• In another move of, weirdly, putting animals on birth control, China is putting gerbils on the pill.

• Daddy long-legs are threatened by climate change, a gorilla suffered a seizure and was given an MRI, and a campaign helps endangered species by enlisting clothing brands to save their namesakes: Lacoste to the crocodiles’ rescue!

• Also, we’re doomed.

Empty Nesters: Pigeons on the Pill See Their Egg-Laying Thwarted

Rachel Cernansky — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 23:17:47 +0000

After almost hunting them to extinction back in the 1970s, not to mention the effects wrought by DDT, now we humans are putting geese on birth control. And pigeons. And white-tailed deer, if the EPA approves the application currently in its hands.

OvoControl is an oral contraceptive now available for geese and pigeons that was developed by a former pharmaceutical employee and the National Wildlife Research Center in Colorado. The formula for the pill sprouted from a drug that was developed years ago to prevent a fatal illness in chickens, but had the unintended side effect of preventing eggs from hatching. It has now been developed by Innolytics, a California-based company, into a chewy, wheat-based pill for Canadian geese and pigeons. It is currently available for purchase by licensed pest control operators and government agencies.

Meanwhile, GonaCon, a one-time injectable immunocontraceptive, is currently awaiting approval for commercial use on white-tailed deer. Essentially, it is a hormone that keeps the deer’s reproductive cycle from, well, starting. Researchers like it because, unlike most vaccines, it doesn’t require a booster shot, and could prevent pregnancy for up to five years. It has already been injected in ...

When Technology Gets Creepy: Giving Birth in Second Life

Melissa Lafsky — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 19:44:14 +0000

There’s plenty of real-life drama to go around in the land of virtual worlds. And given what a major part sex plays in Second Life, it’s not altogether shocking that one activity gaining traction is the chance to give virtual birth [link not in any way safe for work].

Avatars are able to get pregnant the (virtual) old-fashioned way, and can choose the location in which they deliver. The whole process is mighty up close and personal, and results in a somewhat surreal-looking newborn avatar. The details often depart substantially from reality—babies are typically born in a matter of minutes, and sometimes emerge from the womb wearing cute onesies or resembling teddy bears—but the general experience is nonetheless captured. The births have even made waves in the (real) midwife community, with a midwives’ group setting up meetings and performing deliveries within the virtual world as an opportunity for professional education.

Here’s a pretty typical example [Warning: Not really suitable for children, or most adults, for that matter]:

Vatican Science: Pope Blames Male Infertility on…the Pill

Melissa Lafsky — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 21:13:49 +0000

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.”

Never mind that experts say the hormones in the Pill lose all their “feminine” effects after being metabolized by the (presumably female) Pill taker—this is Pope Science! The Holy See isn’t about to let small things like ...

No Kidding: Goat Condom Keeps Herds Chaste

Nina Bai — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 13:48:39 +0000

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.)

They decided on the olor because medical alternatives were unavailable. The devices are worn for several months during the breeding season and taken off only after the rains arrive in October or November. Since the villages depend on the goats for survival, the ...

Please Sign For This Package—It’s 56,300 condoms

Andrew Moseman — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 17:24:52 +0000

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.

Is this a publicity stunt for One to garner name recognition for their product? Absolutely. But given the necessity of using condoms to bring down the number of sexually transmitted infections in the U.S. and the world—and the political opposition to doing so—a condom company may as well be pushing the issue.

Somebody has to.

Image: flickr/victoriapeckham

The Latest in HIV Prevention Techniques: Slather Your Penis With Estrogen

Melissa Lafsky — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 15:49:53 +0000

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.

Calling the cream a “natural condom,” Short told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that he believed the cream would create “a biological membrane which the virus can’t get through.”

Of course, he and his team have yet to test this keratin theory in actual trials, and there’s always the small matter of a cream doing nothing to prevent pregnancy or other sexually transmitted infections. Still, given that mere calls for abstinence and condom distribution have done little to ...

First Rule of Being a Successful STD: Make Sure the Host Still Has Sex

Lizzie Buchen — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 17:59:38 +0000

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 ...

Return of the Hi-Tech Condomed Finger!

Amos Zeeberg (Discover Web Editor) — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 22:45:00 +0000

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.

Pay No Attention To the Condom-Fingered Googler Behind the Curtain

Amos Zeeberg (Discover Web Editor) — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 16:46:22 +0000

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.