Tonight We Have The Stars at LaVaSa

Do not worry if you have built your castles in the air. They are where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.
-Henry David Thoreau
I came. I saw. I was mesmerized. I decided to settle down. I made my retirement plans. I made my castles in the air. I leased out my future home [...]

Alcohol abuse in women linked to fertility problems

Researchers studying Australian groups of twins have established a link between heavy alcohol use and delayed pregnancy, in findings to be published in the journal ‘Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research’.
Mary Waldron, assistant professor of psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine and corresponding author of the research, wrote that this was the first study [...]

Sperm From Female Stem Cells

 
British scientists have created early-stage, human sperm from female stem cells, according to a news reportin New Scientist magazine. It is claimed that the research will pave the way for same sex couples to have children that are genetically their own. However, other scientists are sceptical that this procedure would ever be possible.
Professor Karim Nayernia [...]

A step towards three-parent babies?

 
Scientists at the University of Newcastle are developing a technique that they hope will enable women with a group of devastating hereditary illnesses – known as mitochondrial diseases – to have children without passing on their genetic disorders. Because the method involves sperm from one man and two eggs from different women it has been [...]

Insulin-secreting cells produced by stem cells

Scientists in the US have derived insulin-producing cells from human embryonic stem cells (hESCs), and have successfully implanted them into mice. The achievement, reported last week in the journal Nature Biotechnology, could help push forward research into therapies for diabetes. Type 1 diabetes, and some forms of type 2 diabetes, are caused by a deficiency [...]

Viagra could harm sperm and reduce fertility

Two new studies have identified factors that could be causing a decline in male fertility. Research published in the journal Fertility and Sterility on the anti-impotence drug Viagra concluded that men taking the drug could be damaging their sperm and lowering their ability to conceive. Another study, published in the environmental journal the Ends Report, [...]

Computer Assisted Semen Analysis (CASA)

The use of computer asisted semen analysis has advanced the ability to study and understand sperm function as it relates to human infertility. The major advances have been in the ability to more accurately determine sperm concentration (counts) and motility (movement). Generally, sperm are “looked” at by a computerized digitizing tablet through a microscope. The [...]

Sperm Penetration Assays (SPA, “Hamster Tests”)

 There have been many attempts made to develop a Laboratory test that will accurately predict the ability of a human sperm to fertilize a human egg. Dr. Aitken and his group many years ago demonstrated a correlation between sperm movement characteristics and sperm fertilizing ability as evaluated by the zona pellucida-free hamster egg penetration test. [...]

Couple suing over child selection “blunder”

 

An Australian couple has launched an action in the Supreme Court of Victoria against the health services involved in an embryo testing procedure, after the mother gave birth to a boy instead of a girl. The couple had undergone IVF and PGD (preimplantation genetic diagnosis) at Melbourne IVF to enable doctors to select only female [...]

Intrauterine Insemination is the First Line Treatment For Infertility

 
Intrauterine insemination (IUI) is a procedure in which sperm are placed directly into the uterine cavity through a catheter near the time of ovulation. This procedure is most commonly performed when there are problems with the sperm, such as low count or low motility, or an incompatibility between the sperm and the cervical mucus. It [...]