Free Republic

Each of you has undoubtedly seen the clips of Bill Clinton bushwhacking Chris Wallace in a Fox News interview last Sunday. Claiming that his interlocutor was doing “the bidding of the right wing,” Clinton lectured Wallace with the same finger-wagging intensity he unleashed on the American people back in 1998. Clinton’s now-famous Lewinsky lie makes for an instructive comparison because it reminds us that this man, this former U.S. president, is a peerless prevaricator. “Clinton’s an unusually good liar,” said former Democrat Senator and Medal of Honor recipient Bob Kerrey. “Unusually good.” Indeed. Even the New York Times once lamented...

Children with older fathers have a significantly increased risk of having autism, a study has concluded. The UK and US researchers examined data on 132,271 children and said those born to men over 40 were six times more at risk than those born to men under 30. They said the study in Archives of General Psychiatry was further proof men also had "biological clocks". One UK expert said the study could be important in understanding the genetic mechanisms underlying autism. Autism and related conditions, known as autism spectrum disorders, have become increasingly common, affecting 50 in every 10,000 children as...

GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- Thousands of sperm samples, some stored by men who feared they could become impotent, were destroyed when the temperature rose undetected in a refrigeration tank at the University of Florida. The problem at the university's Women's Health Center at Magnolia Parke began last October, when a faulty sensor on the liquid-nitrogen-filled tank apparently failed to alert anyone that the temperature had risen, said center spokesman Tom Fortner. The vast majority of the samples were from anonymous donors intended for use by couples with fertility problems. "Our anonymous donor sperm bank is essentially wiped out," Williams said.

Men may cringe at the idea, but sperm-producing stem cells found in testicles could be extracted, grown in the lab, and frozen for future use Men may cringe at the idea, but sperm-producing stem cells found in testicles could be extracted, grown in the lab, and frozen for future use. A team in the Netherlands has successfully harvested spermatogonial stem cells from cows and cultured them inside mouse testes. The hope is that the same thing could be done for men. "This is a very promising route to help young cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy," Dirk de Rooij of Utrecht University,...

See for example this thread first. Again, adult topics. These seem to make the best puns. Please scroll down for this. (Yes, this is stalling.) A blatant attempt to take up room. This regulation makes me squirm-- The Brits ban the sale of fresh sperm! To keep it the best It's subject to test It's the end of the Wanker-based firm!

BODIES of extinct Ice Age mammals, such as woolly mammoths, that have been frozen in permafrost for thousands of years may contain viable sperm that could be used to bring them back from the dead, scientists said yesterday. Research has indicated that mammalian sperm can survive being frozen for much longer than was previously thought, suggesting that it could potentially be recovered from species that have died out...

...Between 1990 and 2000 the U.S. teen pregnancy rate plummeted by 28 percent... [Many assume] sex education and conservative abstinence initiatives are both to thank for [this] fact ... What, though, if there's a third explanation, one that has nothing to do with just-say-no campaigns or safe-sex educational posters? What if teenagers are less fertile than they used to be? In a well-respected study published in Environmental Health Perspectives, [epidemiologist Shanna] Swan, now at the University of Rochester Medical Center, found that sperm counts are dropping by about 1.5 percent a year in the United States and 3 percent in...

A group of people dressed as sperm cross a main avenue during a campaign promoting use of condoms in Bogota, Colombia, in this May 18, 2005 file photo. Roman Catholic priests in a Colombian town are furious over a councilman's proposal that people 14 and older must carry a condom at all times to reduce unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases, Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2006. (AP Photo/ Javier Galeano, file)

MEN are often accused by women of, to put it bluntly, having their brains in their balls. A joke, of course. But perhaps not as much of one as people might like to think. For a study of bats carried out by Scott Pitnick, of Syracuse University in New York State, and his colleagues, suggests that there really is a trade-off between the two organs. With about 1,000 species, bats are the second-largest group of mammals (rodents are top), so there is plenty of material for interspecies studies. Dr Pitnick's project, published in this week's Proceedings of the Royal Society,...

Teenager finds sperm donor dad on internet Ian Sample, science correspondent Thursday November 3, 2005 The Guardian (UK) Using nothing more than a swab of saliva and the internet, a 15-year-old boy has tracked down his anonymous sperm donor father, according to details released today. By sending a swab taken from the inside of his cheek for genetic testing, the teenager was able to use genealogy websites to trace his father by looking for men with a matching Y-chromosome, which is passed down the male line. The genetic detective work has major implications for men who have donated sperm under...

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Problem drinking may dampen both a man's sex life and his chances of having children, according to a new study. Researchers in India found that men being treated for alcoholism had lower testosterone levels and more sperm abnormalities than non-drinkers did. They also had a far higher rate of erectile dysfunction (ED) - 71 percent, versus 7 percent of abstainers. Some past studies have suggested that heavy drinking can take a toll on men's reproductive health. One recent study found that couples had a higher miscarriage risk if the man had consumed 10 or more...

It seems like a simple question — the kid’s mom and dad, right? The people who made the baby. But for decades, legal and technological changes have been reshaping families, as reproductive techniques like sperm donation, egg donation, and surrogate motherhood become far more embedded in our culture than most of us realize. Now we have kids with two moms, four moms, or none at all. These technologies, and the legal tangles they create, have shifted us to an understanding of family that pretends bodies don’t matter, and denies children’s need for their own mother and father. Here are only...

Websites offer donor eggs and sperm to women who want children. Proposals to crack down on internet sites that trade in human sperm and eggs are set to be unveiled this week by the government. The plans are part of a consultation on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990. ...The Department of Health has said there are a number of concerns regarding how internet sites currently operate, including the fact that internet sperm donors do not benefit from the same legal protection as that given to donors at regulated clinics. This means website donors are regarded as the legal...

COPENHAGEN, Denmark, JUNE 25, 2005 (Zenit.org).- A flurry of news stories on in vitro fertilization techniques emanated from the 21st Annual Meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology. The conference, held from Sunday to Wednesday in Copenhagen, heard from speakers about the latest research developments. A press release posted Monday on the conference Web site explained that scientists in the United Kingdom have proved that human embryonic stem cells can develop in the laboratory into the early forms of cells that eventually become eggs or sperm. This opens up the possibility that eggs and sperm could be...

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - For men with low sperm counts, sexual abstinence -- but only for a day -- increases semen quality. More prolonged sexual abstinence may actually reduce sperm numbers, a new study indicates. "After only two days of abstinence, sperm from patients with male factor infertility initiate a process of quality degradation," Dr. Eliahu Levitas of Soroka University Medical Center in Beer-Sheva, Israel, and colleagues report. The findings are important for men trying to father children through in vitro fertilization, or even through the natural method. Levitas and his team note in the medical journal Fertility and...

At 5-foot-11, Arnt has straight blond hair and blue eyes. He swims, runs, skis on water and snow, and works out. A law student, the 28-year-old describes himself as easygoing, a creative perfectionist with a good wit, an extrovert. He's not advertising for a girlfriend. His sperm is for sale. Arnt is one of 50 men from Denmark whose sperm sits in one of three metal vats in Manhattan - waiting for a couple or a single mother desperate for a baby. In this case, a Viking baby. The company, Scandinavian Cryobank, has been in business in Denmark for almost...

The evolutionary path that separated humans from chimps 5 million years ago may have made human sperm survive better but paradoxically may have made humans prone to cancer. A comparison of chimpanzee genes to human genes shows a concentration of genes unique to people in areas associated with sperm production and cancer, and suggests the changes that make humans unique also make us uniquely prone to cancer. "If we are right about this, it may help explain the high prevalence of cancer," said Rasmus Nielsen of the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, who led the study while at Cornell University...

CHICAGO An appeals court said a man can press a claim for emotional distress after learning a former lover had used his sperm to have a baby. But he can't claim theft, the ruling said, because the sperm were hers to keep. Dr. Richard O. Phillips' accuses Dr. Sharon Irons of a “calculated, profound personal betrayal'' after their affair six years ago, saying she secretly kept semen after they had oral sex, then used it to get pregnant. He said he didn't find out about the child for nearly two years, when Irons filed a paternity lawsuit. DNA tests confirmed...

A Chicago doctor has won the right to sue his former lover because, he claims, she caused him distress by making him a father against his will. Doctor Richard Phillips claims Sharon Irons stole his sperm and used it to impregnate herself six years ago. Phillips' lawsuit contends that he and Irons never had intercourse but did have oral sex three times. He says Irons, without his knowledge, kept some of his semen and used it to impregnate herself.

CHICAGO (AP) A woman accused of using her lover's sperm to impregnate herself without his knowledge can be held liable for the unwitting father's emotional pain, the Illinois Appellate Court has ruled. In the ruling released Wednesday, a three-judge panel reinstated part of a lawsuit against Sharon Irons, a doctor from Olympia Fields. The ruling sends the case back to Cook County Circuit Court. Irons was sued by her former lover, Chicago family physician Richard O. Phillips, who accused her of a "calculated, profound personal betrayal" of him after a brief affair they had six years ago. Phillips alleges that...