Are humans running out of sperm?

When scientists write their own rules for life, how do they know what could go wrong before it’s too late? This is the final episode of our new three-part series, Life from Scratch. Guests: Kate Adamala, associate professor at the University of Minnesota; David Relman, professor ...  Show more

Synthetic biologist Kate Adamala has been making major headlines as her lab creates cells that feed, divide, and grow — all from nonliving parts. It may sound like sci-fi, but Kate believes that these “not quite alive” cells are key to a renewable future. This is the second episo ...  Show more

James Gallagher get's behind the hype to find out if sperm counts are really falling? There are plenty of headlines telling us they are, but also scientists who disagree - he unpicks the evidence with two of them. James also gets his own sperm sample analysed and meets a couple w ...  Show more

James Gallagher investigates whether there is a decline in male sperm including the results of his own sperm count analysis. He meets a couple who conceived after having treatment for a varicocele, enlarged veins in the testes that can heat the sperm up and the leading known caus ...  Show more

Reproductive science has come a long way in recent years, but there's still plenty we don't understand - particularly around male fertility. The reliability and availability of data in this field has become more of a concern in light of a study published this year, suggesting tha ...  Show more

The research focused on figuring out what enables certain sperm to gain some competitive advantage over millions of others fighting for the same prize. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices