Many men might find the idea of visiting the doctor to get a fertility test too awkward or embarrassing to contemplate – and that's where a new microscopic camera, designed to attach to most modern smartphones, can help. A short video recorded using the device is enough for a specialist to check how lively a person's sperm are, making for a cheap and easy diagnostic aid that saves a trip to the clinic.
The lens has been developed by researchers at the University of Illinois in Chicago (UIC) and is less than a millimetre thick. Once clipped to a smartphone camera, it magnifies the image by 555 times, which is enough to spot individual sperm cells.
From that video clip, a doctor can spot potential fertility problems, including a low sperm count or sluggish sperm – issues that may have otherwise gone undetected, whether through a reluctance to get checked or a lack of local healthcare options. The device works by recording a small amount of semen,
which needs to be placed on a plastic sheet around five minutes after ejaculation: the camera is pressed up to the sample to record it, while apparently keeping the phone itself semen-free (probably for the best if you want to keep on using it to Snapchat and catch Pokémon).
A 3-second clip is enough for an expert to gauge the numbers of sperm and check how well they're moving, though it's not possible to fully assess the ability of the sperm to fertilise an egg – as it's just a basic assessment designed to spot the most obvious potential problems. <!-- Global site tag (gtag.js) - Google Analytics -->
<script async src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=UA-109237959-1"></script>
<script>
window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);}
gtag('js', new Date());
gtag('config', 'UA-109237959-1');
</script>
<!-- Google tag (gtag.js) -->
<script async src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=G-XDGJVZXVQ4"></script> <script> window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);} gtag('js', new Date()); gtag('config', 'G-XDGJVZXVQ4'); </script>
No comments:
Post a Comment