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Couples struggling to have a baby in the UK are turning to Danish sperm donors, after the removal of anonymity halved the number of British contributors. The world's largest sperm bank, Cryos Denmark, has targeted IVF clinics in Britain where top quality sperm can be sold for as much as £1,000. The company has 50 non-anonymous donors whose sperm has been frozen and will be ready for shipping over the next few months. A spokesman said Danish men would be ideal donors because they share genetic heritage due to three centuries of Viking raids and settlements along the east coast...

Females may be outwardly choosy when selecting sexual partners -- accepting or shunning mates in very public ways -- but males may get the last say in this battle of the sexes. New research found that males can adjust the speed and effectiveness of their sperm by allocating more or less seminal fluid to copulations. The determining factor is whether the male finds the female attractive. The study, conducted on red junglefowl, a director ancestor of chickens, adds to the growing body of evidence that males throughout many promiscuous species in the animal kingdom, including humans, can mate with many...

Women wanting to get pregnant should find themselves an ugly man, new research suggests. Scientists have found attractive males produce less sperm during sex. Researchers think good-looking males are biologically geared to hold back their sperm in each encounter to increase their chance of impregnating more females. But unattractive males know they are not going to bed so many females — so when they do get lucky they give it all they've got.

LONDON – British scientists claimed Wednesday to have created human sperm from embryonic stem cells for the first time, an accomplishment they say may someday help infertile men father children. The technique could in 10 years allow researchers to use the basic knowledge of how sperm develop to design treatments to enable infertile men the chance to have biological children, said lead researcher Karim Nayernia, of Newcastle University, whose team earlier produced baby mice from sperm derived in a similar way.

A U.S. appeals court says the Los Angeles 10-year-old is not entitled to Social Security survivor payments because of California inheritance law and lack of evidence the father gave consent. A 10-year-old Los Angeles girl conceived with her dead father's frozen sperm is not entitled to his Social Security benefits, a federal appeals court panel has ruled. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday upheld a lower-court ruling that the child, Brandalynn Vernoff, was ineligible for the federal survivor payments under California law, which considers factors in addition to biology in determining inheritance rights. Brandalynn's father, Bruce Vernoff,...

Size does matter, at least for the seed shrimp. The tiny creatures' giant sperm are an evolutionary strategy that stretches back at least a hundred million years, scientists discovered in a new study. The giant sperm can be up to ten times the animals' body lengths. By comparison an average sperm from a man is around 0.002 inch (0.05 millimeter) long, less than a thirty-thousandth of his height. To find out whether giant sperm is an ancient adaptation, researchers x-rayed the innards of five well-preserved seed shrimp, or ostracods, from hundred-million-year-old sediment from Brazil. Although the giant sperm had rotted...

Business is booming for the world's biggest sperm bank, Denmark's Cryos, which is struggling to meet demand despite a soaring number of donors and new offices opening around the world. At Cryos headquarters in Denmark's second-biggest city Aarhus, chief executive Ole Schou smiles broadly, sitting at his desk adorned with pictures of cheerful babies as he speaks of the company's unexpected success. Two years ago, he was ready to shut down the business, or at least move it abroad, because of a Danish tax authority proposal that would have required donors to declare income from their donations, thereby putting their...

Short on cash, some put a price on themselves Lean times spurs interest in payment for sperm, eggs, plasma — even hair By JoNel Aleccia Fri., Dec. 5, 2008 Before this fall, it might not have occurred to Michael Aylesworth to swap his sperm for money. But faced with rising bills, a dwindling budget and a fractured economy, the 30-year-old Seattle man took stock of some very personal assets — and decided to sell. “I did it because I’m a student and I’m always broke,” said Aylesworth, who spent several delicate minutes in a small room at the Seattle Sperm...

I wonder if Barry's Mom had concieved her child one week earlier. A blonde hair/blue eyed child. What would Barry thrive for now as a politician. Change? Peta? Or a great National Fotball team? Cricket? Perhaps and Tea at Noon. How would his absent Fathers genes come into play? Interesting thought. I asked my son. What if your father was a black man... You are with a Mom who cares and loves you/Dad absent (German/me Swede)and you are severely disabled a quad. Yet you have this Charisma and social ability that is overwhelming at times with your political insight and...

The widow of a soldier killed in Iraq this week wants to harvest her husband's sperm before he's embalmed. He was stationed at Fort Benning. Yesterday his wife filed a motion for a temporary restraining order and an injunction to stop her deceased husband's remains from being altered until his sperm can be reserved. A judge signed that order Friday. The soldier's wife claims they planned to start a family once he came home. His sperm will be extracted within 72 hours, but the medical representative will retain custody until it is determined who has legal rights to the sperm.

· Law change could help cancer victims · embryo bill fuels impassioned debate Mps are planning a change in the law to allow babies to be conceived from artificial sperm, a move described by opponents as playing God with human DNA. A furious debate is building over how far to leave the door open to its use in IVF treatment, ahead of a Commons vote due shortly on the government's Human Fertilisation and Embryology bill. The legislation currently allows ...#8239;so-called artificial gametes in research, but imposes a blanket ban on their use in creating a human pregnancy. The technique involves...

Sperm donor pays maintenance to lesbians By Graham Tibbetts Last Updated: 8:42pm GMT 03/12/2007 A sperm donor who helped a lesbian couple have two children is now being forced to pay thousands of pounds for their upbringing, he said. Andy Bathie, 37, agreed to assist Sharon and Terri Arnold - who were united in a religious blessing ceremony - after they assured him he would have no involvement in raising the boy and girl. Andy Bathie: Legal challenge But after the couple split up he was tracked down by the Child Support Agency and forced to make regular maintenance payments....

A man of 72 is to donate sperm to try to father his own 'grandchild'. He has been cleared to provide the sperm to his daughter-in-law to allow her to become a mother. Any baby born will be its grandfather's genetic child and a halfbrother or half-sister to the man it takes to be its father. What do you think about the case? Join the debate The case - believed to be the first of its kind in the UK - raises ethical questions about how well the child will cope with such unusual family circumstances. The Harley Street doctors...

Parents who conceal the fact that a child was conceived from donor sperm or eggs could face jail under rules proposed today. The information should be declared on birth certificates to ensure children learn the truth about their creation, says a powerful committee of MPs and peers. In a report which touches on a highly-sensitive ethical issue, they argue that it would give parents "the incentive to inform their child" at the time and in the manner of their own choosing. But because it is an offence to give false information on a birth certificate, anyone who refused could be...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Here's one more reason not to smoke -- smoking may damage sperm, passing along genetic damage to a man's children, Canadian researchers report. A study in mice shows that cigarette smoke caused changes in the DNA of sperm cells, the researchers said in this week's issue of the journal Cancer Research. Such mutations, know as germline mutations, are known to be permanent. "If inherited, these mutations persist as irreversible changes in the genetic composition of offspring," said Carole Yauk of Health Canada's Environmental and Occupational Toxicology Division, who led the study. "We have known that mothers who...

Women could one day grow their own sperm, says a scientist who today claims to have turned bone marrow into early-stage sperm cells. Click to enlarge His team is now studying how to grow fully fledged sperm from bone marrow as a means to restore fertility in young men who have undergone cancer treatments. It could be five years before trials start. Prof Karim Nayernia and his colleagues have completed similar experiments with female mice. Within a few months, they expect to see if the method can be extended so that early-stage sperm can in principle be made from women,...

Eating beef could threaten sons' fertility By Roger Highfield, Science Editor Last Updated: 1:37am BST 28/03/2007 The sons of women who regularly ate beef during pregnancy are more likely to have low sperm counts, a report claims today. The American researchers suggest the growth promoters used in cattle may be responsible. It has been known for more than 10 years that sperm counts had been falling in the western world, with scientists at Copenhagen University pointing to exposure to pesticides and industrial chemicals. The principle suspects included "gender-bender" chemicals that act like human sex hormones. The latest study - of...

NEW YORK - A couple can proceed with a lawsuit against a fertility clinic they filed after the wife gave birth to a daughter whose skin they thought was too dark to be their child, a judge has ruled. ADVERTISEMENT Thomas and Nancy Andrews, of Commack, N.Y., sued New York Medical Services for Reproductive Medicine, accusing the Manhattan clinic of medical malpractice and other offenses. They claim the Park Avenue clinic used another man's sperm to inseminate Nancy Andrews' eggs. Three DNA tests — a home kit and two professional laboratory tests — confirmed that Thomas Andrews was not the...

AUSTIN, Texas (CNN) -- Sometimes, when I sit down for an interview, there's a certain formality. I'm in one chair. The person I'm speaking to is in another. Not on this story. In a living room in Austin, Texas, I was on the floor. The subject of our story was grabbing my face, fascinated with my teeth and whatever else caught his attention. Yet it seemed appropriate. Benton Smith is an adorable, 8-month-old boy on the verge of walking. For one so young, he seemed typical when it came to exploring something new -- like my mouth. "Maybe he wants...

As family reunions go, it is sure to rank among the less conventional. Six teenagers across America conceived from the same sperm donor have finally met their biological father after he decided to reveal his identity. Jeffrey Harrison, whose offerings once ranked among California Cryobank’s most sought-after specimens, made himself known after reading a newspaper article about two teenage girls who had found out they had both been conceived with sperm from “Donor 150� – and wanted to get in touch with the man in question. With a profile billing him as a blue-eyed, 6-feet-tall lover of philosophy, music and...

In a remarkable op-ed appearing in the Washington Post, a young woman named Katrina Clark explains what it's like to know that you are the child of an anonymous sperm donor. It's not fun. The essay could be Exhibit A in any argument about the morality of artificially assisted human reproduction. The child of a loveless, sterile union between gametes speaks with authority when she reminds us that nobody asked for her opinion on the circumstances of her birth. Her mother (whom she still admires) got the baby she wanted. But the baby didn't get a father she could know....

Mobile phones are a serious hazard for sperm, according to a new US study which shows fertility plummets in men who use their mobiles a lot. The study, released at a medical conference in New Orleans this week, demonstrated a clear connection between hours spent chatting on a mobile and sparse and lazy sperm. Men who used mobile phones for more than four hours a day were found to have 25 percent lower sperm count than men who never used a mobile. The sperm quality was also poorer in those who frequently used mobiles, with the sperm swimming ability —...

Each of you has undoubtedly seen the clips of Bill Clinton bushwhacking Chris Wallace in a Fox News interview last Sunday. Claiming that his interlocutor was doing “the bidding of the right wing,” Clinton lectured Wallace with the same finger-wagging intensity he unleashed on the American people back in 1998. Clinton’s now-famous Lewinsky lie makes for an instructive comparison because it reminds us that this man, this former U.S. president, is a peerless prevaricator. “Clinton’s an unusually good liar,” said former Democrat Senator and Medal of Honor recipient Bob Kerrey. “Unusually good.” Indeed. Even the New York Times once lamented...

Children with older fathers have a significantly increased risk of having autism, a study has concluded. The UK and US researchers examined data on 132,271 children and said those born to men over 40 were six times more at risk than those born to men under 30. They said the study in Archives of General Psychiatry was further proof men also had "biological clocks". One UK expert said the study could be important in understanding the genetic mechanisms underlying autism. Autism and related conditions, known as autism spectrum disorders, have become increasingly common, affecting 50 in every 10,000 children as...

GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- Thousands of sperm samples, some stored by men who feared they could become impotent, were destroyed when the temperature rose undetected in a refrigeration tank at the University of Florida. The problem at the university's Women's Health Center at Magnolia Parke began last October, when a faulty sensor on the liquid-nitrogen-filled tank apparently failed to alert anyone that the temperature had risen, said center spokesman Tom Fortner. The vast majority of the samples were from anonymous donors intended for use by couples with fertility problems. "Our anonymous donor sperm bank is essentially wiped out," Williams said.

Men may cringe at the idea, but sperm-producing stem cells found in testicles could be extracted, grown in the lab, and frozen for future use Men may cringe at the idea, but sperm-producing stem cells found in testicles could be extracted, grown in the lab, and frozen for future use. A team in the Netherlands has successfully harvested spermatogonial stem cells from cows and cultured them inside mouse testes. The hope is that the same thing could be done for men. "This is a very promising route to help young cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy," Dirk de Rooij of Utrecht University,...

See for example this thread first. Again, adult topics. These seem to make the best puns. Please scroll down for this. (Yes, this is stalling.) A blatant attempt to take up room. This regulation makes me squirm-- The Brits ban the sale of fresh sperm! To keep it the best It's subject to test It's the end of the Wanker-based firm!

BODIES of extinct Ice Age mammals, such as woolly mammoths, that have been frozen in permafrost for thousands of years may contain viable sperm that could be used to bring them back from the dead, scientists said yesterday. Research has indicated that mammalian sperm can survive being frozen for much longer than was previously thought, suggesting that it could potentially be recovered from species that have died out...

...Between 1990 and 2000 the U.S. teen pregnancy rate plummeted by 28 percent... [Many assume] sex education and conservative abstinence initiatives are both to thank for [this] fact ... What, though, if there's a third explanation, one that has nothing to do with just-say-no campaigns or safe-sex educational posters? What if teenagers are less fertile than they used to be? In a well-respected study published in Environmental Health Perspectives, [epidemiologist Shanna] Swan, now at the University of Rochester Medical Center, found that sperm counts are dropping by about 1.5 percent a year in the United States and 3 percent in...

A group of people dressed as sperm cross a main avenue during a campaign promoting use of condoms in Bogota, Colombia, in this May 18, 2005 file photo. Roman Catholic priests in a Colombian town are furious over a councilman's proposal that people 14 and older must carry a condom at all times to reduce unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases, Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2006. (AP Photo/ Javier Galeano, file)

MEN are often accused by women of, to put it bluntly, having their brains in their balls. A joke, of course. But perhaps not as much of one as people might like to think. For a study of bats carried out by Scott Pitnick, of Syracuse University in New York State, and his colleagues, suggests that there really is a trade-off between the two organs. With about 1,000 species, bats are the second-largest group of mammals (rodents are top), so there is plenty of material for interspecies studies. Dr Pitnick's project, published in this week's Proceedings of the Royal Society,...

Teenager finds sperm donor dad on internet Ian Sample, science correspondent Thursday November 3, 2005 The Guardian (UK) Using nothing more than a swab of saliva and the internet, a 15-year-old boy has tracked down his anonymous sperm donor father, according to details released today. By sending a swab taken from the inside of his cheek for genetic testing, the teenager was able to use genealogy websites to trace his father by looking for men with a matching Y-chromosome, which is passed down the male line. The genetic detective work has major implications for men who have donated sperm under...

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Problem drinking may dampen both a man's sex life and his chances of having children, according to a new study. Researchers in India found that men being treated for alcoholism had lower testosterone levels and more sperm abnormalities than non-drinkers did. They also had a far higher rate of erectile dysfunction (ED) - 71 percent, versus 7 percent of abstainers. Some past studies have suggested that heavy drinking can take a toll on men's reproductive health. One recent study found that couples had a higher miscarriage risk if the man had consumed 10 or more...

It seems like a simple question — the kid’s mom and dad, right? The people who made the baby. But for decades, legal and technological changes have been reshaping families, as reproductive techniques like sperm donation, egg donation, and surrogate motherhood become far more embedded in our culture than most of us realize. Now we have kids with two moms, four moms, or none at all. These technologies, and the legal tangles they create, have shifted us to an understanding of family that pretends bodies don’t matter, and denies children’s need for their own mother and father. Here are only...

Websites offer donor eggs and sperm to women who want children. Proposals to crack down on internet sites that trade in human sperm and eggs are set to be unveiled this week by the government. The plans are part of a consultation on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990. ...The Department of Health has said there are a number of concerns regarding how internet sites currently operate, including the fact that internet sperm donors do not benefit from the same legal protection as that given to donors at regulated clinics. This means website donors are regarded as the legal...

COPENHAGEN, Denmark, JUNE 25, 2005 (Zenit.org).- A flurry of news stories on in vitro fertilization techniques emanated from the 21st Annual Meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology. The conference, held from Sunday to Wednesday in Copenhagen, heard from speakers about the latest research developments. A press release posted Monday on the conference Web site explained that scientists in the United Kingdom have proved that human embryonic stem cells can develop in the laboratory into the early forms of cells that eventually become eggs or sperm. This opens up the possibility that eggs and sperm could be...

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - For men with low sperm counts, sexual abstinence -- but only for a day -- increases semen quality. More prolonged sexual abstinence may actually reduce sperm numbers, a new study indicates. "After only two days of abstinence, sperm from patients with male factor infertility initiate a process of quality degradation," Dr. Eliahu Levitas of Soroka University Medical Center in Beer-Sheva, Israel, and colleagues report. The findings are important for men trying to father children through in vitro fertilization, or even through the natural method. Levitas and his team note in the medical journal Fertility and...

At 5-foot-11, Arnt has straight blond hair and blue eyes. He swims, runs, skis on water and snow, and works out. A law student, the 28-year-old describes himself as easygoing, a creative perfectionist with a good wit, an extrovert. He's not advertising for a girlfriend. His sperm is for sale. Arnt is one of 50 men from Denmark whose sperm sits in one of three metal vats in Manhattan - waiting for a couple or a single mother desperate for a baby. In this case, a Viking baby. The company, Scandinavian Cryobank, has been in business in Denmark for almost...

The evolutionary path that separated humans from chimps 5 million years ago may have made human sperm survive better but paradoxically may have made humans prone to cancer. A comparison of chimpanzee genes to human genes shows a concentration of genes unique to people in areas associated with sperm production and cancer, and suggests the changes that make humans unique also make us uniquely prone to cancer. "If we are right about this, it may help explain the high prevalence of cancer," said Rasmus Nielsen of the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, who led the study while at Cornell University...

CHICAGO An appeals court said a man can press a claim for emotional distress after learning a former lover had used his sperm to have a baby. But he can't claim theft, the ruling said, because the sperm were hers to keep. Dr. Richard O. Phillips' accuses Dr. Sharon Irons of a “calculated, profound personal betrayal'' after their affair six years ago, saying she secretly kept semen after they had oral sex, then used it to get pregnant. He said he didn't find out about the child for nearly two years, when Irons filed a paternity lawsuit. DNA tests confirmed...

A Chicago doctor has won the right to sue his former lover because, he claims, she caused him distress by making him a father against his will. Doctor Richard Phillips claims Sharon Irons stole his sperm and used it to impregnate herself six years ago. Phillips' lawsuit contends that he and Irons never had intercourse but did have oral sex three times. He says Irons, without his knowledge, kept some of his semen and used it to impregnate herself.

CHICAGO (AP) A woman accused of using her lover's sperm to impregnate herself without his knowledge can be held liable for the unwitting father's emotional pain, the Illinois Appellate Court has ruled. In the ruling released Wednesday, a three-judge panel reinstated part of a lawsuit against Sharon Irons, a doctor from Olympia Fields. The ruling sends the case back to Cook County Circuit Court. Irons was sued by her former lover, Chicago family physician Richard O. Phillips, who accused her of a "calculated, profound personal betrayal" of him after a brief affair they had six years ago. Phillips alleges that...

A Pole caught carrying five kilos (11 lbs) of amphetamines at the Norwegian border failed to convince a court that he had been summoned to Norway to donate sperm. The man was stopped at Svinesund on the Swedish-Norwegian border during a spot customs check of a passenger bus last May, NRK (Norwegian Broadcasting) reports. Customs officials found five kilos of amphetamines in his luggage and his fingerprints on the packaging the drugs were in. The man's story was that he had come to Norway to donate sperm to a Norwegian couple that he had met via the Internet. They had...

A LEADING IVF expert is hoping Victorian state MPs can do for sperm donation what some high profile Australians have done for organ donation. Monash IVF national medical director Gab Kovacs has sent a letter to Victorian state male MPs aged 45 and under, encouraging them to donate sperm. "Have you ever thought of becoming a sperm donor?" he asks in the letter. "We hope that if some of the leading role models within our community become donors, others may follow suit. "It is for this reason that we are approaching you, as a Victorian parliamentarian, to ask if you...

Sperm Donor TV Show Seems Inconceivable LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - America could not have cared less about the low-rated Fox special "Who's Your Daddy?" But there might be more reality TV high jinks in store for Mommy. Just when it seemed that having an adopted woman guess the identity of her biological father marked a new low for reality programs, another show in the works could make "Daddy" seem as tame as "Father Knows Best." True Entertainment and Brighter Pictures, production companies owned by international reality giant Endemol ("Big Brother") in New York and London, respectively, are co-developing a...

BIG Brother bosses Endemol want to make a brand new reality TV show where fellas battle it out to be a sperm donor to a wannabe mother. The programme - dubbed Make Me A Mum - will see men compete against each other to impregnate a willing woman. Hopefuls will be whittled down to two finalists - one picked for his biological compatibility and the other on personality and looks. The woman will then choose who she wants to win, according to Yahoo News. The show has yet to be snapped up by any channels worldwide and has been slammed...

Danish sperm a fertile exportNovember 29, 2004COPENHAGEN: Twelve hundred years ago, the Danes spread their genes in Britain by rape and occupation. Now they are taking a less confrontational approach: a Danish sperm bank is stocking up on large amounts of semen ready to flood the British market when sperm donation rules are changed next year. Cryos International, the world's largest sperm bank, based in the university town of Aarhus, has recruited 40 donors – mostly blond, blue-eyed students over 182cm tall – who meet British regulatory requirements. Cryos, whose motto is "We keep the stork busy", hopes to...

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The more a man ejaculates each week, the lower his sperm levels fall, new research shows. However, this ejaculatory frequency only partly explains why a man's sperm count varies widely each time it's checked. The findings, which appear in the medical journal Fertility and Sterility, are based on a study of 27 healthy men who provided monthly semen samples and responded to questionnaires regarding ejaculatory frequency, duration of abstinence, and episodes of fever. The subjects were followed for 16 months. No seasonal variations in sperm levels, movement, or shape were seen, lead author Dr. Elisabeth...

Comments on speech, movie was soft soaping him, and the anti-war activities glossed over.

UPDATE: NASA to Make (Kerry) Photos Available Again After a legal review by NASA lawyers, the photos of Sen. John Kerry in the famous ,"bunny suit" will be posted sometimes this evening on http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov.Check back for more details as they become available. Freeper comment: (This is from a certain Floridian newspaper this afternoon....developing.....) The full story is at: http://www.floridatoday.com/topstories/072904bunny.htm