Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This is an emergency No, this is hope. Converting the entire biomass of earth into homo sapiens is not the goal.
Sperm count is falling in wild animals as well.
do you have a source for that?
Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought
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Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought
#802When it comes to issues that affect one of the genders, the structure of academia tends to basically ignore things unique to men. I think this is because every University researcher has a brigade of gender activists who only care about female issues ready to raise hell. The delta between likelihood of attending college between males and females is higher now than it was before title IX was enforced. It's simply shift…
I suspect males tend to have a wider bell curve in income so when you combine the data from both sexes males will dominate the winning end (e.g. CEOs) as well as the bottom end (e.g. prisons). Nobody pays any attention to the bottom of the pyramid so all they see is a distorted view of a few alpha males dominating in the top half of the pyramid.
Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought
#803We're overpopulated. This isn't a problem.
It's not young western babies causing the overpopulation though. Why should we commit generational suicide?
Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought
#804Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or leather water bottles as well.
Do you know of any that don't have a liner of some sort? I'd be interested in trying one but wouldn't know where to get one.
I think Viking Dragon makes some handmade ones. Being handmade they are not cheap, but I wouldn't call them too expensive either.
Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought
#805Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sperm count is falling in wild animals as well.
do you have a source for that?
Page 1 of Google
https://theconversation.com/amp/male-fertility-how-everyday-...
Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought
#806Earlier quoted context omitted.
With all of these it's a matter of quantity. For instance, bullet point 9 about soy makes me question this list. It turns out that phytoestrogens are much less potent than real estrogen, and the only people that were found to have measurable effects from soy was through a study of older men that ate massive amounts of soy every day in Japan. There is real estrogen in cow's milk, which would have a much stronger effec…
Does estrogen in food even enter the blood?
"Estrogens are also contained in meat and eggs, but the major sources are milk and dairy products. By drinking a glass of milk, a child’s intake of estradiol is 4000 times the intake of xenoestrogens, in terms of hormone activity. See, modern genetically-improved dairy cows can lactate throughout their pregnancy; the problem is that that’s when the estrogen levels can jump as much as 30-fold.
Though cheese intake has been associated with lower sperm concentration, dairy food intake has also been associated with abnormal sperm shape and movement, so this suggests that dairy intake may be implicated in direct testicular damage, and not just a potential suppression of sperm production due to the estrogen."
https://nutritionfacts.org/video/dairy-estrogen-and-male-fer...
"Estrogen hormones can be thousands of times more estrogenic than typical endocrine-disrupting chemicals. Dietary exposure to natural sex steroids (in meat, dairy, and eggs) is “therefore highly relevant in the discussion of the impact of estrogens on human development and health.” And chicken estrogen is identical to human estrogen—they’re the same molecule."
https://nutritionfacts.org/2016/09/13/estrogen-animal-produc...
"Foods of animal origin in general naturally contain hormones, but cow’s milk may be of particular concern. The hormones naturally found in even organic cow’s milk may be playing a role in the studies that found a relationship between milk and dairy products with human illnesses, such as teenagers’ acne; prostate, breast, ovarian, and uterine cancers, many chronic diseases that are common in Western societies, as well as male reproductive disorders. Milk consumption has even been associated with an increased risk of early puberty in girls, and endometrial cancer in postmenopausal women, but hormonal levels in food could be particularly dangerous in the case of vulnerable populations, such as young children or pregnant women. "
"Pregnant cows excrete significantly higher levels of sex steroids into their milk than non-pregnant cows. The subsequent consumption of such dairy products may mean an unnecessary risk, but one that could be easily avoided. But it’s not just dairy. Although dairy products are an important source of hormones, other products of animal origin must be considered as well.
All edible tissues of animal origin contain estrogen. This may explain why, in a study of over a thousand women eating plant-based diets, vegan women have a twinning rate that is one fifth that of vegetarians and omnivores."
https://nutritionfacts.org/video/why-do-vegan-women-have-5x-...
Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought
#807Earlier quoted context omitted.
Plastic is generally defined by its mechanical and thermal properties and a dominance of polymers. There’s are lots and lots of different chemicals used as plastics today and they have wildly different chemical properties. It seems incredible to state that “all plastics” are endocrine disruptors. Many plastics are essentially chemically inert in a biological sense. In some ways DNA itself can be seen as a plastic bei…
> In some ways DNA itself can be seen as a plastic being a biopolymer if it were handled properly and in enough quantity. To be fair, DNA absolutely disrupts all kinds of biological processes - that's why viruses do anything, for example. And random nonsense DNA that you'd see if someone was using it as a plastic would probably uncover new and exciting failure modes that existing biological systems haven't had to dea…
Not really, no. For obvious reasons, genetic material is very hard to get into a cell. The immune/digestive system fights it!
That’s why mRNA (BioNTech & Moderna) and DNA (J&J) vaccines took so long to develop!
Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought
#808> “Levels of testosterone have been reported to be declining during the same period of time that the sperm production rates were measured in this meta-analysis.” Testosterone is the new canine tooth.
Mentioned in a top level comment, but higher bodyfat levels have been proven to correlate with lower testosterone levels. May explain a large portion of this shift. I wonder if they normalized for bodyweight in this study
I'd be interested in reading more about this. I'm curious if that correlation is due to people with lower bodyfat being more likely to exercise regularly which, in turn, would increase testosterone levels.
Seems like the obvious conclusion, but that doesn't mean it is correct.
Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought
#809Earlier quoted context omitted.
PEX is fine. Water that sat in a PEX pipe is chemically indistinguishable from water held in a test tube, unlike what happens with water in PVC piping. Another indicator of fine-ness is that PE and PP tubing is used extensively in chemical process plants where high purity is required.
But the water delivered to your house probably ran through miles of PVC pipe. What's a few feet more? I just run the water for 10 seconds or so (feel for it to get colder) before I drink.
What? Are you suggesting that most in the United States that most people have miles of water mains with PVC on the other side of the meter?
Most PVC is not rated for potable water. In many localities (like nyc) it's a code violaton to use PVC on anything. I am a professional plumber.
Btw, fun fact for you non-plumbers, pex as we know it was invented by a hardcore nazi.
Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought
#810Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you please make your substantive points without being snarky? This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html . This is particularly important when correcting misimpressions. If your comment is neutral, the neutral reader can absorb the new information fairly easily. But if you're hostile (as with " ah yes, that, definitely that "), then you're also signaling a pre-existing battle…
Of all the worthless, flame-inducing posts in hacker news comments, "Ah yes, that study" is the example that need to be highlighted?
I've done that at least 40,000 times. This isn't a linear ordering!
There are many principles, which we're discovering together, around curious conversation. I went into this one in detail because I think it's interesting.
Btw, if you see a post that ought to have been moderated but hasn't been—for example, a "worthless, flame-inducing" one—the likeliest explanation is that we didn't see it. You can help by flagging it or emailing us at hn@ycombinator.com.