Daily Sex Helps Improve Fertility 174
mmmscience writes "While fertility studies lately seem to have been exclusively focused on in vitro fertilization [IVF], new data coming out of Australia may help with unaided successful conceptions. The study has found that men who have ejaculate daily produce sperm with less damaged DNA. While such actions decrease sperm concentration, it does increase motility, meaning healthier sperm have a better chance of making it all the way to the egg. Good news, as another report has found severe chromosome abnormalities in over 90% of IVF eggs, meaning artificial insemination is just now discovering a whole new field of problems."
Good news (Score:3, Insightful)
Summary misleading (Score:5, Insightful)
While the news services have all been reporting that Daily Sex will improve fertility - surely a more accurate description would be that daily ejaculation (via whatever means) improves fertility.
Fresher Sperm (Score:4, Insightful)
It seems pretty simple to me: fresh sperm are better.
On autism! (Score:4, Insightful)
I have an autistic son and I think that "causes of autism" are something that is used far too often. My wife and I have thought about this and we see in our son's autism some of our own traits as its forbears. Rather than the litany of plastic bottles, vaccines, carbon monoxide, indoor air pollution and other bogus causes, we now wonder if autism is actually part of a natural evolutionary response to dealing with an increasingly complex human society.
Perhaps we've evolved to deal with the fact that we are increasingly specialized, as our society feeds back into our own natural selection, and, we've reached a sort of a tipping point where autism is the next step.
We've been very fortunate in that our son has responded extremely well to aggressive therapy, all, by the way, provided by the taxpayer... (makes this old Republican rethink some of his own values). And, we wonder if, perhaps, a different sort of society might emerge from autism, that, we see it as a disability because we value our own communication so much. Perhaps autism is something that will never be cured, but, people who are autistic can move onto lead intelligent and productive lives if only there is intervention and ever better education and socialization for them and in a way that makes sense, for them.
Regardless of all of that though, I can say this. I'm proud of my son for who he is. When I first heard of his diagnosis, I almost felt like he had died and I was very angry about it. Sometimes, I admit, I still am. But, overall, if I could do it all over again, and make a choice about having an autistic child, I would gladly keep the son that I have.
I wouldn't trade him for anything in the world.
Re:On autism! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:On autism! (Score:3, Insightful)
And I am proud of who I am (officially diagnosed, you insensitive clod!) - and, judging from the growth of forums such as Wrongplanet, the rise in Autism may be perfectly balanced with the rise in the prominence of the Internet. Over textual communication, nobody cares that you flap your hands, or that you can't keep eye contact without getting this weird fidgety feeling, or that you don't quite get anything until the second or third time.
Re:Nothing to do with sex... (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, yes. Yes it does. As bad as this group is, it's far above the common troll. Consider idiocracy [imdb.com]. Now go read 4chan, MSNBC, CNN and Fark. Then come back and comment about how the people here need to surrender their reproductivity to support the Darwinian selection of those mental giants.
Re:Nothing to do with sex... (Score:4, Insightful)
If being able to 'get it' is considered an important quality for improving the gene pool then god help us all.
Re:Nothing to do with sex... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:On autism! (Score:3, Insightful)
Hence the comparison with non-identical twins. Not being genetically identical, the incidence of both being autistic drops greatly, despite the environment being the same.
As you can imagine, twins (both varieties, identical and fraternal) are absolutely invaluable to medical research!
Re:Nothing to do with sex... (Score:4, Insightful)