A smartphone attachment has been developed to test sperm count:
Men may soon be able to take their own sperm count — at home. With a smartphone. Yes, there's an app for that. You may be asking yourself, why? Low sperm count is a marker for male infertility, a condition that is actually a neglected health issue worldwide, according to the World Health Organization.
Current methods to diagnose male infertility require laboratory equipment that can cost up to $100,000. On top of that, standard methods often require a specially trained technician. A team of researchers at Harvard is trying to change that. Led by Hadi Shafiee, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School who works on developing new tools for patient care, researchers have developed a rapid infertility diagnostic tool that attaches to a smartphone.
[...] The process is fairly simple. First, you load a small amount of a semen sample onto a disposable microchip. Then you put the microchip into the cell phone attachment through a slot. The attachment turns the phone's camera into a microscope. After the sample is loaded, you run the app, which allows the user to see a video of the sample. Then hit record, and the app analyzes the video to identify sperm cells and track their movements. At no point does semen touch the smartphone.
An automated smartphone-based diagnostic assay for point-of-care semen analysis (open, DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.aai7863) (DX)
(Score: 5, Funny) by MostCynical on Thursday March 23 2017, @07:52AM (3 children)
"at no point does semen touch the smartphone". Well, maybe not when you're using *this* app...
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 23 2017, @03:50PM
Unless you're into that kind of thing.
(Score: 1) by Sourcery42 on Thursday March 23 2017, @06:03PM
Came here to say something like this, and you're already +5, so I'll just say bravo
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Friday March 24 2017, @12:40AM
And there's something fishy about this app...
(Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 23 2017, @08:32AM (2 children)
Alright! I saw this on the Fake News, and that works for both of you, you pervs, and I immediately thought that this would turn into some kind of man-on-man contest. So just let me be the first to post my results: According to my iPhone 7, with Siri 95.2, I have a population of 6.384 gazillion per cubic meter. Read it an weep, all you wanna be men!
(Score: 3, Touché) by davester666 on Thursday March 23 2017, @09:10AM
Come back when you can output more than 1 microliter. And your output "unit" would be considered more of an atomizer than a penis.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 23 2017, @10:13AM
I hope your wimmen are inflatable, cuz extruding into them a cubic meter of filler is gonna plump them up pretty good!
However, some good will come of it if they were constipated it may well give then a good case of the runs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 23 2017, @08:59AM (1 child)
...hands?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 23 2017, @10:10AM
Here it is. [google.com]
The page says the app shows advertisements. I wonder for what. ;-)
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Thursday March 23 2017, @12:46PM (1 child)
From the data that will be sent back to him, he can create a map of fertility demographics.
(Score: 1) by Soylentbob on Thursday March 23 2017, @01:17PM
Or market the data to dating-websites, matching the sperm-count against the women desire to have children in the future.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 23 2017, @02:57PM
Put the sensor chip into a robot, but keep it away from E.F.
(Score: 2) by OrugTor on Thursday March 23 2017, @03:56PM (1 child)
You can turn a phone into a microscope?! That's the news here. There has to be a ton of uses for a hand-held computer with its own microscope attachment. Discovering not being able to make babies should be way down the list. And yes, I have (indirectly) experienced the misery of infertility so don't bother calling me an insensitive clod.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 27 2017, @07:29PM
The misery of infertility pales in comparison to the misery of so much of the world thinking so highly of their fertility in the first place that they can't seem to stop using it.
The number of problems that'd be solved or much more easy to address by a sustained drop in birthrate is staggering.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 23 2017, @05:04PM (2 children)
And her name is Candy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 24 2017, @05:06AM
"I put my hands and pressed hard. All I could think of was, Candy Crush."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 24 2017, @06:53AM
Reminds me of that B movie starring Monica Vitti (must be Amori Miei), something along the lines of:
- "Honey you should really test your fertility"
- "Darling, spare me that, it is embarassing"
- "Nooo, honey, there are new methods, they make a tiny tiny puncture on the finger, extract a little blood and you are set"
- "Oh really? did not know"
cut to the scene with no dialogue of the guy at the clinic.
guy given a vial
guy is confused
nurse points at a door
guy gestures at puncturing the finger
nurse gives him a magazine and points at the door