Tag Archives: sperm

COVID-19 infection causes changes to sperm in mice that may increase anxiety in their offspring, a study released Saturday said, suggesting the pandemic‘s possibly long-lasting effects on future generations. Researchers at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health in Melbourne, Australia, infected male mice with the virus that causes COVID, mated them with females, and assessed the impacts on …

A recent study by the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health has found that COVID-19 can cause changes in sperm that may impact offspring behaviour. Using a mouse model, researchers observed that male mice infected with SARS-CoV-2 before mating produced offspring who exhibited higher levels of anxiety-like behaviours. These changes were linked to alterations in non-coding RNA in sperm, …

Florey researchers have shown that a father’s SARS-CoV-2 viral infection before conception can alter their offspring’s brain development and behaviour, through changes in sperm. Lead researcher Professor Anthony Hannan said the study in mice suggested that the COVID-19 could have long-lasting effects on future generations. “We already knew that when male mice were exposed to specific environmental and lifestyle factors, …

Ethics This study was carried out under TwinsUK BioBank ethics, approved by the North West–Liverpool Central Research Ethics Committee (REC reference 19/NW/0187), IRAS ID 258513 and earlier approvals granted to TwinsUK by the St Thomas’ Hospital Research Ethics Committee, later the London–Westminster Research Ethics Committee (REC reference EC04/015). Sample collection Semen samples were collected or obtained from archival samples with …

The widely used acne medicine Accutane could be used to treat male infertility, a small study hints. For men with infertility caused by extremely low sperm counts or a complete lack of sperm, the only medical option is to undergo surgery to collect sperm directly from the testicles to then use for in vitro fertilization (IVF). But this is a …

Human sperm are famously good swimmers, yet the physics of their motion has puzzled scientists for decades. Thick cervical mucus or lab-made gels should throttle any cell only fifty microns long, but sperm shoot through with surprising ease. That puzzle finally cracked when a Kyoto University team revealed that the sperm tail’s internal mechanics side step Newton’s third law, the …

Dear Prudence is Slate’s advice column. Submit questions here. Dear Prudence, A week ago, I learned that my 35-year-old son donated sperm to a lesbian couple he’s friends with, and they just had a girl. He’s not married and has expressed no interest in having children, so this came as a complete shock. My son is an only child, and I have …

Scientists have uncovered the oldest known fossilized animal sperm, found preserved in a 50-million-year-old cocoon from Antarctica. This unprecedented finding pushes back the timeline of such discoveries by a full 10 million years. A Remarkable Discovery in Antarctica The discovery was made by Dr. Benjamin Bomfleur from the Swedish Museum of Natural History and his research team. The sperm, which …

Tiny organisms live in a world where the usual rules of motion feel upside-down. Water that slips through our fingers turns syrupy at their scale, dragging against every twitch. Yet a sperm cell or a green alga skims along as if the goo were barely there. Sperm are such great swimmers because of a slender flagellum that ripples like a …

Semen, sperm, spunk, cum, ejaculate, pre-cum, seminal fluid. These are just some of the many words we use to describe what comes out of an erect penis. Some of these terms can be used interchangeably, but they’re not all the same. Do you know the difference? What is sperm? Sperm are male reproductive (sex) cells. The word “sperm” can refer …