Word: sperms
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Meanwhile, fewer boys than girls take the SAT. Fewer boys than girls apply to college. Fewer boys than girls, in annual surveys of college freshmen, express a passion for learning. And fewer boys than girls are earning college degrees. Even sperm counts are falling. "It's true at every level of society" that boys are stumbling behind, Sommers continued...
...many things can go wrong when a couple is trying to conceive, it seems a miracle that babies are ever born at all. There could be a shortage of sperm, an egg may not be in the right place and fibrous growths located along the reproductive tract can prevent the two key players from ever meeting. But now it may be possible to spot at least one of these problems easily and early: a new study suggests that a simple home test may be all it takes to help men detect a protein that could be weakening their sperm...
...chemical that is the cause of so much woe is known as macrophage migration inhibitory factor or MIF, a protein found in the immune system that seems to help sperm cells grow into strong swimmers-and that's critical. Weak sperm do not survive long in the wild environment of the reproductive tract. There may be millions of the tiny cells released, but to reach the egg they must withstand the acidic environment of the vagina, fight through a thick layer of cervical mucus and then race the other sperm to penetrate the egg's protective layer. Men are responsible...
...fertile males who had abstained from sex for a period of three to five days. All of the participants, the research revealed, exhibited what Al-Abed calls the Goldilocks effect: those who had abnormally high or low levels of MIF were infertile. In the ones whose levels were high, sperm were produced but quickly died; in the ones whose levels were low, sperm survived but were often malformed. Only the men whose MIF concentrations were just right produced healthy and viable sperm. The paper does not specify just how MIF has the effect it does and indeed Al-Abed concedes...
...Scientists isolated the protein more than 40 years ago and found that it played a role in causing the swelling and inflammation found in diseases like arthritis. Al-Abed and his team are hard at work trying to figure out if this or some other mechanism is what damages sperm, but they're already trying to make use of what they know so far. Within the two years, they hope to develop a home-testing kit that can help men measure their MIF levels if they even suspect a problem. Further down the line, it may be possible for doctors...