Want To Count Some Sperm At Home? There’s An App For That
If, for fertility reasons or just as a weird party trick, you find yourself wanting to count some sperm at home, congratulations because there is an app for that now.
According to The Straits Times, the app is called the iSperm, because of course it is called the iSperm. The program and its associated iPad gadget were developed in Taiwan for use on commercial farms. It was released about a year ago and sold about 200 copies, and the farmers using it say it is spectacular. Now the company is seeking FDA approval in the U.S. for the device to be used for human men.
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It’s actually a brilliant idea. An estimated one in six couples in the U.S. has trouble conceiving, and the global fertility market is worth an estimated $40 billion .And come on, it’s not like people aren’t putting sperm on their iPads all the time.
To make the iSperm work, you just have to put a couple drops of semen on the device. A microscope blows the image up and shows it to the iPad camera, which puts the dancing little sperm on the screen for you to watch while the program analyzes the number and swimming speed of the sperm in the sample. So far it has been working well for animal sperm, and there’s no reason it couldn’t work just the same way for humans.
When the iSperm is available for consumers to purchase to use at home, it is expected to cost $100 or $200. Meanwhile, livestock farmers who have been using it say the product is very effective.
“Our pregnancy success rate increased by 20 per cent after we started using this gadget,” one pig farmer said, explaining that before the iSperm came to town, he had to use enormous, very expensive microscopes and count all the sperm by hand.
Clearly I am 12 years old, because I cannot stop giggling at the words, “Count all the sperm by hand.” I joke because this is hilarious and ridiculous, but this device could actually be quite useful for a lot of people. And as a bonus, nobody will ever again ask to borrow your iPad.
Photo: iStock/Getty Images
