| Submit your comments on this article |
| Science & Technology |
| Study: If Trends Continue, All Men May Be Infertile By End Of Century |
| 2018-09-07 |
| [Federalist] Americans are having fewer babies. In 2018, age-controlled fertility may fall to near the lowest level in our history. We aren’t alone in this: fertility rates have fallen across much of the western world, despite widespread economic expansion. The main reasons for this are sociological: declining marriage, rising cost of childbearing, and related factors that amount to cultural norms and practices. Recently, scientists have raised a different alarm bell: human biology may be changing. For decades, some scientists have been arguing that men are producing less sperm than they used to, but these studies were plagued by small sample size, non-randomly selected men, or other methodological problems. Last summer, however, a research team in Israel (the country at the forefront of reproductive technology) assembled a massive dataset, combining hundreds of prior studies, creating a sample of tens of thousands of men across decades. They found that male sperm counts are indeed in decline. While their findings aren’t universally accepted, they have succeeded in persuading a large number of former skeptics. The sample sizes are sufficiently large, the extra checks for possible counterarguments sufficiently robust, and the findings sufficiently clear in the data that it’s time to take seriously that men really may be losing some degree of their biological fertility. |
| Posted by:Besoeker |
| #11 If it affects the 3rd world countries in say, the Mid East I’m ok with that. |
| Posted by: jvalentour 2018-09-07 21:52 |
| #10 Effects of marijuana on male and female fertility rates? |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2018-09-07 18:50 |
| #9 Vast, that was 😢 |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2018-09-07 16:18 |
| #8 This may help: |
| Posted by: Vast Right Wing Conspiracy 2018-09-07 16:15 |
| #7 By the end of the century Ah'll be fertilizer. |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2018-09-07 11:44 |
| #6 There's a hell of a Ph.D project: "Concentrations of estradiol analogues found in hipsters' favorite brands of craft beer." |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2018-09-07 10:32 |
| #5 The BPA used to line cans and in many flexible plastics was developed in the 1800s to be like an estrogen. We really should get rid of that. I wonder why we haven't. |
| Posted by: gorb 2018-09-07 10:08 |
| #4 ^ Wonder if they did a study of location vs infertility. Like upstream flyover vs greater Metro areas? |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2018-09-07 07:55 |
| #3 Sewage treatment doesn't removed estrogen from the pill. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2018-09-07 06:46 |
| #2 Isn’t it more reasonable to assume the curve will be asymptotic? And that the trend can be reversed simply by increasing male competitive physical activity? Nobody suggests that professional athletes lack virility. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2018-09-07 05:24 |
| #1 We'll have to recruit teenagers as sperm donors. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2018-09-07 05:11 |