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On the left is a normal testicle. On the right is one that has been blasted with ultrasound. The latter has a reduced sperm count, which is why researchers at the University of North Carolina think that they may have discovered an effective male contraceptive:
They found that two, 15-minute doses “significantly reduced” the number of sperm-producing cells and sperm levels. [...]
Lead researcher Dr James Tsuruta said: “Further studies are required to determine how long the contraceptive effect lasts and if it is safe to use multiple times.”
The team needs to ensure that the ultrasound produces a reversible effect, contraception not sterilisation, as well as investigate whether there would be cumulative damage from repeated doses.
Link -via Popular Science | Photo: James Tsuruta and Paul Dayton
The birth rate in Brazil has dropped to historically low levels. The average number of births per woman is now just 1.9, and the drop has been quite steep for the past 50 years. What happened? In this predominantly Catholic nation, families of ten or more children were once common, but now Brazilian women say “A fábrica está fechada,” meaning the factory is closed.
“What took 120 years in England took 40 years here,” [Brazilian demographer José Alberto] Carvalho told me one day. “Something happened.” At that moment he was talking about what happened in São Vicente de Minas, the town of his childhood, where nobody under 45 has a soccer-team-size roster of siblings anymore. But he might as well have been describing the entire female population of Brazil. For although there are many reasons Brazil’s fertility rate has dropped so far and so fast, central to them all are tough, resilient women who set out a few decades back, without encouragement from the government and over the pronouncements of their bishops, to start shutting down the factories any way they could.
National Geographic lays out six reasons for the relatively sudden empowerment of Brazilian women, some that are also affecting other nations. One of those reasons is television. Link
(Image credit: John Stanmeyer)
Both the ASPCA and Humane Society strongly encourage pet owners to spay and neuter their furry friends to prevent overpopulation (and a dearth of homeless puppies, sad face). It shouldn’t really be a surprise, then, that there is a less invasive option in the works. But let’s face it, it’s kind of a crazy idea, right? Not so, according to a group of scientists in Arizona.
There’s birth control for dogs?
It’s in the works. Along with SenesTech, a biotech company that specializes in “humane animal population management,”Arizona scientist Dr. Loretta Mayer has developed Chemspay, a doggy contraceptive that is administered once orally or via injection, and induces menopause in an animal. In trials conducted between 2004 and 2008, the drug significantly reduced the number of eggs in test dogs, thus rendering them unable to have puppies.What’s next for this canine pill?
Mayer is taking her research to India, where she’s working on a project to curb the country’s feral dog population. “This technology, if successful, will really have a huge impact on unwanted dog populations,” she says. “The biggest impact will be where dogs are reservoirs for human diseases, like in India.” Stateside, it could dramatically decrease the number of unwanted dogs that are euthanized, says Maria Parece at Gather.So when can American dogs get in on this?
In three years or so, Mayer plans to begin FDA trials at an animal rescue center in Flagstaff, Ariz. It will take a total of six to nine years for Chemspay to gain FDA approval. “There is a very long timeline in this project,” Mayer says. “Each and every one of our products takes years to develop.”
The rest of the article focuses on the history of pet-designed birth control and the potential of Chemspay, as well as other alternative birth control options. Check it out on The Week. Link
Image: minstrel_blue
Well, I thought that the DIY vasectomy kit that we sell in the NeatoShop would have been sufficient, but apparently some men are looking for alternate solutions in the field of contraception. Namely, one that isn’t so permanent. An Indian researcher named Sujoy Guha thinks that he’s found the solution. Here’s how the procedure works:
Once the drug had taken effect, Das gathered a fold of skin, made a puncture, and reached into the scrotum with a fine pair of forceps. He extracted a white tube: the vas deferens, which sperm travel through from the testes to the penis. In a normal vasectomy, Das would have severed the vas, cauterized and tied up the ends, and tucked it all back inside. But rather than snipping, Das took another syringe, delicately slid the needle lengthwise into the vas, and slowly depressed the plunger, injecting a clear, viscous liquid. He then repeated the steps on the other side of the scrotum.
This liquid doesn’t block the path of sperm cells exiting the testicles, but renders them inert as they move past. This substance should be removable, thus returning fertility to the patient. You can watch a video of the procedure at the link. Content warning: scrotum.
Link via DVICE | Photo by Flickr user aesop used under Creative Commons license
Haim Breitbart, a medical researcher at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, has developed a drug that will temporarily incapacitate sperm cells in mice.
So far, the new pill dubbed the Bright Pill (a play on Brietbart’s name) has been tested on animal models in a pre-clinical setting, and has been found to work wonderfully on mice. “What we found is that by treating the mice with our molecule we can get sterility for a long period of time; in the lower dose, about one month, and in the higher dose we found three months of sterility.
“Later on the male mouse can become fertile. It’s reversible,” he promises.
Provided in pill form, but also tested as an injection, the male birth control solution was administered in two treatments over three days: One day on, one day off, one day on. In the larger dose group, it took about a week until the effects manifested themselves, but most importantly, the treatment does not appear to in any way affect the sex drive or the sexual behavior of the mice who received it.
Link via Popular Science | Image: NIH
Today is not only Mother’s Day – it is also the 50th anniversary of "The Pill," the oral contraceptive birth control.
Like it or not, the arrival of the birth control pill was a momentous occasion in human civilization and has an enormous social impact:
The thought of out-of-wedlock pregnancy struck terror in women in midcentury America, said Claudia Goldin, a professor of economics at Harvard University who has studied the pill’s effect on professional women. The proper course of courtship was to go steady, become lavaliered, pinned, then engaged.
"They were a set of steps that led almost irrevocably to marriage, and they were set down at an early age," she said. "The pill allowed us to get rid of all of those steps." [...]
The pill also has been credited — or blamed — for overturning sexual mores, but there is less evidence that it caused or evenly greatly contributed to the sexual revolution, May said. The nation, she noted, experienced sharp changes in sexual behavior in the 1920s, during World War II, and during the 1960s and ’70s.
Other predictions swirling around at the time of its debut did not come true, May said. The pill did not curb worldwide population growth, create happier sex lives for married couples or reduce rates of divorce.
Newsweek presents a pictorial history of birth control methods. We’ve come a long way since the Greek philosopher Aristotle recommended olive oil as a spermicide! Link -Thanks, Steadyburn!
Photo: wackystuff
How did people practice birth control back in the days? Here’s a tongue-in-cheek postcard c. 1907 that illustrates one such method.
More retro-goodness at Jeffrey Errick’s 100 most interesting images at Flickr: Link
There’s something delightfully fun about these semi-retro and slightly-sexist female merit badges created by Artist Mary Yeager.
My female merit badges illustrate female “rites of passage” as well as the myriad physical manipulations women undergo to achieve cultural ideals of beauty, such as weight watching, whether or not to shave or wear makeup, etc. I’ve created tiny replicas of female products, such as a birth control pill pack and a pregnancy test. The miniature scale and meticulous, hand-embroidered surfaces convey my impressions of growing up female in our culture.
