Reversible Male Contraception With Gold Nanorods

MTorrice writes "Men's options for birth control have significant downsides: Condoms are not as effective as hormonal methods for women, and vasectomies require surgery and are irreversible. Doctors and scientists have for decades searched for more effective and desirable male contraception techniques. Researchers in China now propose a nonsurgical, reversible, and low-cost method. They show that infrared laser light heats up gold nanorods injected into mice testes, leading to reduced fertility (abstract) in the animals."

Comments

Re:The problem is statistics

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Male sperm travel faster, it sounds credible to me that based on cycle the male sperm could have an advantage (less effective at waiting for an egg to drop perhaps, but if the egg is right there, they get in it first). 120 M to 100 F at fertilization I think.

The X/Y size difference is actively being exploited for IVF sex-selection; but apparently the accuracy is a bit tepid even with fancy flow cytometry techniques.I'd imagine that less carefully calibrated distance-based tests would show even weaker results(and not have the amusing side effect of making ethicists cry, which is a pity).