Smart men make better sperm

In the s the biologist Ronald Ericsson came up with a way to separate sperm carrying the male-producing Y chromosome from those carrying the X. He sent the two kinds of sperm swimming down a glass tube through ever-thicker albumin barriers. The sperm with the X chromosome had a larger head and a longer tail, and so, he figured, they would get bogged down in the viscous liquid. The sperm with the Y chromosome were leaner and faster and could swim down to the bottom of the tube more efficiently. In the late s, Ericsson leased the method to clinics around the U. Instead of a lab coat, he wore cowboy boots and a cowboy hat, and doled out his version of cowboy poetry.

Rachel uses her own experiences with infertility to write compassionate, practical, and supportive articles. She works in house at a reputable private clinic in New York City while also seeing her own clients through her concierge fertility consulting and nursing services business. Thinking of starting a family? Or adding to the one you have?

Sperm count refers to the amount of sperm per milliliter of semen. Measuring sperm count is usually part of a sperm analysis that also examines the shape of sperm and their motility. All these factors can play a role in a man's fertility. Millions of sperm are in one ejaculation, but only a few hundred will make it to the egg. Many sperm die in the acidic environment of the vagina before they migrate up to the uterus and into the fallopian tubes.

Men of higher intelligence tend to produce better quality sperm, UK research suggests. A team from the Institute of Psychiatry analysed data from former US soldiers who served during the Vietnam war era. They found that those who performed better on intelligence tests tended to have more - and more mobile - sperm. The study, which appears in the journal Intelligence, appears to support the idea that genes underlying intelligence may have other biological effects too. This does not mean that men who prefer Play-Doh to Plato always have poor sperm Dr Rosalind Arden Institute of Psychiatry Therefore, if tiny mutations impair intelligence, they might also harm other characteristics, such as sperm quality.