Here is your daily dose of futuristic medical news: The AP reports that after a decade of research, doctors in Sweden have successfully transplanted wombs from living donors into 9 women. » 1/13/14 10:30am 1/13/14 10:30am

If more of the educational videos kids watched about a sperm's magical luge ride through the Fallopian tubes looked and sounded like this, you can bet someone would have made a "Journey of the Sperm" video game by now. It could still be a great game, but only if it were an ongoing MMO tournament that restarted every… » 12/29/13 5:00pm 12/29/13 5:00pm

Yesterday, a proposed ban on abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy was rejected by voters of Albuquerque. We're not talking a polite "it's not you, it's me" kind of rejection. We're talking changing your phone number-level rejection. We're talking Moving To Another City Without Telling You kind of rejection. Here's… » 11/20/13 11:40am 11/20/13 11:40am

Freaking out about teen girls having teen sex is as American an institution as packing one's overtaxed colon full of heavily processed meats during football games. But reality paints a different picture than the pearl-clutching; for the severalth year in a row, all that sex teens are supposedly having due to TWERKING… » 9/06/13 5:00pm 9/06/13 5:00pm

What started as an investigation into developmental mouse biology has become a lot more than that. Biologist Katsuhiko Hayashi discovered a way to turn mouse skin cells into sperm and egg cells — and actually used these modified cells to create a living baby mouse. The question is, can it work in humans? » 8/21/13 9:59pm 8/21/13 9:59pm

The children's literature market has come a long way since (the ever wonderful and important) Pat the Bunny. These days, kid's tales tackle topics from adoption to egg donation — and they do it in giant books with adorable, full-color illustrations. Basically, if you're looking for something to explain to your… » 4/10/13 10:00am 4/10/13 10:00am

The most popular question of 2012 on Slate's "The Explainer" was "Why do rich ladies sunbathe topless?" After that important exercise in investigative journalism was completed, Slate doubled back to answer another high-ranked question that's a modicum more interesting, although the interested parties could probably… » 1/12/13 4:30pm 1/12/13 4:30pm

Um! If any girlfish are reading this, please beware when you come across male freshwater llanos mosquitofish, otherwise known as Gambusia quadruncus. The evolution of the females of this Mexican species has given them a large ball of tissue that blocks most of their genital canal in order to allow them to keep away… » 9/29/12 2:40pm 9/29/12 2:40pm

In some parts of the world, there has been a considerable decline in sperm quality and quantity in recent years, according to reports from sperm banks as well as evidence from scientific research. The cause is not yet known, but some are pointing pollutants and a "modern Western lifestyle," which includes cellphones… » 8/29/12 12:00pm 8/29/12 12:00pm

Despite vigorous headshaking from healthcare professionals who don't live in Denmark, 1 in 13 women still drink even when they're pregnant. A CDC report released Thursday found that 51.5 percent of non-pregnant women ages 18-44 said they had used alcohol in the past 30 days, with 7.6 percent of pregnant women in that… » 7/19/12 9:15pm 7/19/12 9:15pm

According to new research from (duh) Europe, pregnant women who cave to the siren's call of a glass of wine or four don't necessarily put their future babies at risk for cognitive problems, at least early in life. Unfortunately, a distended pregnant abdomen may make it difficult for others to take body shots off of… » 6/20/12 7:00pm 6/20/12 7:00pm

File this under "Future Very, Very Rich People Problems" — a British medical panel ruled today that a method of in vitro fertilization that seeks to eliminate inherited genetic diseases by introducing a third set of DNA to the mix is ethical as long as it's safe and effective. And as long as all parties agree on… » 6/12/12 11:55am 6/12/12 11:55am

We've long been fed the image that sperm make their way to our eggs by wiggling their little tails and magically swimming up our reproductive tract to find the treasure at the end of the line. Well, new research is painting a decidedly less appealing picture of what actually happens when the little sperm get released… » 5/07/12 10:00pm 5/07/12 10:00pm

It might be a total pain in the ass to woo sexual partners and make an effort to have a relationship with them, but science has now confirmed what any teenager could tell you: the sex makes it totally worth it. Apparently, mating "can produce benefits for a species in the long term." Well, you don't say? » 4/09/12 11:15pm 4/09/12 11:15pm

If you're an average person and not some kind of jizzologist, you may not have given much thought to how sperm actually works. Luckily, scientists have — and now they're telling us that sperm is actually intelligent. Specifically, it seems to be able to count. » 3/08/12 3:50pm 3/08/12 3:50pm