Spermbot could help solve male infertility - Headline Science

One of the main causes of infertility is low sperm motility. Sperm that are healthy, but can’t swim. Now a team of scientists has developed a possible solution: the Spermbot.

Oliver Schmidt, Ph.D. and his team at the IFW in Dresden, Germany built a tiny metal helix controlled by a rotating magnetic field. The Spermbot can wrap around a sperm and drive it into an egg, leading to possible fertilization.

The research appears in the ACS journal Nano Letters.

ACS Headline Science:
Executive Producer:
Noel Waghorn

Scientific Consultant:
Oliver Schmidt, Ph.D. - IFW Dresden

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[Klezor]

They took "I never ask to be born" to a whole new level

[richfiles]

Kid: "Where do babies come from?"
Dad: "Nanobots, son."

[Sammy]

My kid is... "special"
(whispers) We had to hire a robot to drag him into the world.

[sanroy]

great thinking but this bot should pick the healthiest one ...

[errhka]

Incredible feat of engineering! Don't want to ruin the party here but isn't the winning sperm *supposed* to be a healthy one (structurally speaking, not genetically). Giving victory to a subpar sperm help will likely lead to progeny with further reproductive problems. What's wrong with taking the egg and putting in a petri dish with other sperm a little distance away? That way the best ones that can actually swim will be able to reproduce - mother nature knows what she's doing.

[NurulIslam-pwnv]

Age 32 years
Liquefaction- 30 minuts
Appearances- Normal
Viscosity- 1.00
Volume - 2.5 ml
pH-7.5
Total sperm concentration - 20 million
Progress Motility -17%
Normal Morphologies -16%
Motile Sperm Concentration -2.0
Total Functional sperms Concentration -1.2
Sperm Motility Index -44 Million
Pus cells-0-2 HPF

[americancitizen]

What happens if the spermbot gets accidentally lodged in the egg cell?

[sandoy]

How did i get why cant i stop watching ?

[LordTeaOfBiscuits]

Hah, now we can be cyborgs before we're even conceived xDD

[stevenprodriguez]

What ever happened to natural selection? This is by far the worst idea I've heard in a long time.

[MaxOfficial]

thats like if i joined the Olympics with a jetpack

[captaindiptoad]

Does anyone else feel like they just watched sperm get raped?

[DivaAlize]

What happens to the robot after and how do you put this

[eliemalak]

as if world population wasn't enough today .... they still want more

[FreakFolkerify]

Is time to spread this on swimming pool

[turabhirani]

WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO SPERM-BOT AFTER CONCEIVING ?

[FrancescoPaterna]

Viagra and contraceptives? = Thanks Science.
Spermbot? = No, we want Natural Selection.

[katk]

Is that sperm real human beings' sperm in experiment??? Or animal?

[renateziegler]

Der absolute Horror. "Frankenstein" und "Matrix1" lassen grüssen.

[sebastianto]

Nice Research. But isn't our planet already overpopulated, and your trying to overpopulate it even more.