In Honor of the Holidays...

And utterly outside the domain of bioethics, a link to the Scared of Santa photo gallery, which gives vivid testimony of the vulnerable subjects exposed to greater than minimal risk during the last part of December.

Nerds Eliminate Selves from Gene Pool

Danger, Will Robinson. Laptops destroy sperm. Apparently, "As well as being capable of producing direct local heat, [which decreases sperm concentration dramatically, laptops] require the user to sit with his thighs close together to balance the machine, which traps the scrotum between the thighs." Birth control for those whose religion opposes more direct methods? At a minimum, this should end the blogging revolution ... by attrition. [thanks Art Caplan]

Thor's Sperm

You couldn't make up a joke as good as the story in the Times today about the Arhus sperm bank Cryos International, which is marketing sperm from the men of Denmark by playing on the Scandanavian mystique, as well as the high success rates encountered with that sperm and the laws there that protect the anonymity of donors. One of us is on record in the journal Human Reproduction about the dangers of anonymous donation, but frankly the customers of this bank are already so far gone that issues about the risks of anonymity for their children are the least of their problems. File this under "soon to be a movie."