I was really surprised the article didn't mention this. To be fair it's apparently something that has been evolving for decades, so it wasn't so much prediction but they definitely aren't inventing something wild. https://ourworldindata.org/fertility/
I thought the part informing us that men cannot be inseminated was particularly educational and reflects the high levels of experimental research being conducted on behalf of this fine publication.
Though it does perhaps lack a certain rigor, as surely there is nothing to stop men being inseminated. It is merely that they are unable to then become pregnant after insemination, as other visitors to this planet can surely attest from their long running experiments on unlucky country folk. Which will no doubt be the subject of next months exciting issue.
The article said there might be "missing cues of fertility that would otherwise increase sperm production" which reminded me of "study shows that when men smell T-shirts worn by women while ovulating, it triggers a surge in the sex hormone testosterone" [1] which would be exactly such a cue of fertility.
Male sperm counts have dropped by half in the last 5 decades. This is an existential level threat more relevant than climate change by a large factor, I don't understand why studying it is on a back burner.
> IVF still applies to testicles. With frozen sperm you need it.
Pretend there's enough sperm you don't need IVF, or something. I'm pretty sure the thought experiment is about something that only affects the man, not the woman or child.
summary:
This article contains a lot of speculation, but none of it contradicts the evidence that sperm counts have dropped.
I makes the argument that that might not reduce fertility as much as other scientists assume, and so we don't really know if there's an actual crisis happening.
> Perhaps, at least in some cases, the egg is saying, "no way buddy."
Assuming this is true, it would be happening in less than 1% of cases (given the prevalence of male-factor infertility and the prevalence of its known causes). So if such an ability exists, it doesn't seem to be getting used very often. Which, given the evolutionary complexity that would be required to evolve such a system, seems surprising. So my guess is that either that's not a thing, or else it exists only as a failure state of some other mechanism rather than as something that has evolved to directly confer some sort of reproductive advantage.
I love how everyone is so worried about male fertility and how it is referred to as a sperm count 'crisis'.
The real elephant in the room which is never spoken about is overpopulation of our planet. This is far bigger problem and in my opinion, any slight percentage drop in male fertility would be a blessing in disguise!
The phathalates hypothesis sounds plausible to me. However, it will be a combination of factors social, economical and biological. One hypothesis, I have been thinking of is about relation between the age of the father when the child was conceived and it's correlation with sperm count of the child when he grows up.
I am not sure if this data was collected in the study. Does anyone know about any such study?
I think "lack of fertility" to design low sperm count/inviable spermatozoids is accurate. Lack of virility would be impossibility to use your own penis for different reasons. 10-8 year ago i knew a trans who was fertile and could give sperm to her lesbian friends, but lacked virility.
The female counterpart of virility should be femininity.
DNA and knowledge of the specific of procreation is probably as recent as the use of fertility.
Wanted to comment about obesity but i guess most people said what i wanted to say, so i'm rebounding on a tangent for my own self-esteem, sorry.
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