Word: sperm
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...case, scientists have been working overtime to provide the option. While women ovulate only once a month, men produce millions of sperm every day, which poses big challenges for a male "pill." Birth-control pills for women are effective almost immediately. For men, it takes longer for a drug to start working and to wear off--about three months in Handelsman's study...
Handelsman and other researchers are using a dose of the hormone progestin to turn off sperm production. The problem is that this also suppresses testosterone production. So in order to avoid unpleasant side effects like lethargy and sexual dysfunction, most recent trials also gave men testosterone supplements. In Australia the men were injected every three months with progestin, and every four months they received a small testosterone implant under the skin of the belly, according to the study, published in the October Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism...
Male motivation, or the lack of it, has a lot to do with why a pill for men has been so long in coming. Since the 1930s, scientists have known that testosterone supplements can lower sperm production. In the '70s they began tests to make a male pill. "In truth," says Handelsman, "[it] really should have been invented in the '60s." But nothing stalls science faster than questionable demand. The belief was--and often still is--that men are just not interested in controlling their fertility. "Even at the best of times, most men are not great at thinking through...
...Vitro Fertilization When Louise Brown was delivered in England on July 25, 1978, the test-tube-baby industry was born. Scientists had joined her parents' eggs and sperm in a Petri dish and then implanted the embryo in her mother's uterus. (Elizabeth Carr, above, was the U.S.'s first in vitro-fertilized baby.) Despite a dismal 15% success rate, the process remains the treatment of choice for infertile couples...
...used for human consumption. The agency claims the policy change?carcasses of whales that flop ashore must be incinerated or buried under current law?is motivated primarily by a need to save money. In January 2002, for example, officials spent more than $500,000 to dispose of 14 stranded sperm whales, despite repeated requests to sell the meat. With an increasing number of whales beaching themselves on Japanese shores because of environmental changes in the oceans, that's a whole lot of good grub that's going to waste...