reproduction news stories on Newser

Save Humanity: Have Sex

Matt Cantor — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 14:25:05 CDT

Scientists have long theorized that sexual reproduction was better, evolutionarily speaking, than its asexual counterpart—and now they’ve got some evidence. Researchers in Britain found that sexually-reproducing worms were better at staying “one evolutionary step ahead” of parasites than asexual versions of the same worm, NPR reports. That sheds light...

The Celeb With the Most Baby Mamas Is...

Mark Russell — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 10:54:26 CDT

Times change but one thing remains constant—successful men find success with the ladies. But success at birth control? Not so much. So the Daily Beast put together an overview of some of the most notable celebrity super-spawners. Here's a list of the father(s) of all baby mamas: Jack Nicholson,...

Radiation Threatens Deep-Space Sex: NASA

Matt Cantor — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 07:47:00 CST

Propagating the human race far away from home could be tough: Powerful radiation in space would likely sterilize female embryos conceived there, NASA finds, and it could shrink sperm counts, too. At the moment, we don’t have the technology required to create spacecraft shielding to block the radiation, the Telegraph...

Childlessness Soars to 18%

Rob Quinn — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 05:30:00 CDT

The percentage of American women who enter their 40s having never had a child has almost doubled since the 1970s to 18%, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of census data. White women are more likely than ethnic minorities to remain childless, though the gap is rapidly narrowing, the...

Docs: 'No One Will Need Sex to Make Babies in 10 Years'

Rob Quinn — Tue, 18 May 2010 06:07:59 CDT

Sex will become purely recreational even for couples seeking babies within a decade thanks to advances in IVF technology, predict veterinary Australian scientists. Calling the traditional form of baby-making a "fairly inefficient process" in a report published in the Reproductive BioMedicine journal, they claim in vitro fertilization methods will soon...

Higher SATs Mean More Cash for Egg Donors

Harry Kimball — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 13:21:43 CDT

Smarter women—or at least those who test well—get paid more to donate eggs. "Holding all else equal, an increase of 100 SAT points in the score of a typical incoming student increased the compensation offered to oocyte donors at that college or university by $2,350," according to...

Professional Group Expels Octomom Doc

Kevin Spak — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:17:13 CDT

Michael Kamrava, the fertility doctor who twice implanted six embryos into octomom Nadya Suleman (two embryos reportedly split into twins), has been kicked out of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. The society recommends no more than two embryos for women under 35, to reduce the risk of multiple births;...

'Sex Mints'? No, Thanks!

M. Morris — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 17:10:25 CDT

The press release was so intriguing that Jen Phillips had to know more. Linger mints are being promoted as "internal feminine flavoring"—you read that right—with the catchall please-don't-sue-us warning that they're "for novelty use only." And no wonder: They're mostly sugar, which is a recipe for a yeast...

Who Needs Males? Not Self-Cloning Tropical Ants

Kevin Spak — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 10:49:19 CDT

Are men really necessary? Not if you’re a Mycoceperus smithii ant. Researchers have discovered that the tropical ant species is comprised entirely of females, the BBC reports. A colony’s queen will clone itself, producing only daughters. Though such sex-free reproduction is common in the ant world, this is the first...