What happens when orgasmic pleasure or heroin-like bliss is accessible at the push of a button?

Neuralink, headed by Elon Musk, has recently made a stir with the claim that their products can directly stimulate pleasure centers in the brain.

Neuralink is a company dedicated to creating “Brain Computer Interfaces” (BCI), which are devices that communicate directly with the brain at the synapse level.

In plain speak, they want to put microchips inside people’s skulls.

Last week, Musk unveiled a pig named Gertrude who has a coin-sized chip implanted in its brain. According to the BBC, NeuroLink applied for approval to begin human testing last year.

What is this ‘brain chip?’

In the company’s 2019 launch video, Elon Musk refers to BCIs as a “digital superintelligence layer” that mediates communication between the limbic system and the cortex.

The key notion here is that the limbic system, which deals primarily with emotions, is not as “intelligent” as the cortex, which is more concerned with the immediate experience of consciousness, perception, and thought.

He contends that “you already have this layer” in the form of devices like smartphones and laptops, but the key restraint is how well we interface with these products. Ie. The speed bottlenecks of typing, touching, and clicking are what stop us from truly taking advantage of the information revolution.

Fighting mental conditions

The initial use case for BCIs is aimed at brain-related diseases. Musk claims that conditions like Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD),  amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and autism could all potentially be “solved’ with a microchip that Neuralink are working on.

Direct stimulation

Here’s where things get interesting. Connecting directly with the brain is not just about access to information.

It’s about controlling brain signals that release chemicals, and chemicals make us feel things in a VERY direct manner.

If the Neuralink chip can tap directly into sexual pleasure centers, does that mean that all the physical actions and scenarios that we associate with sex, the things that make sex great, can be bypassed altogether?

Thinking simulation

The difficulty of physically accessing the conditions that lead to sensory experiences has already led to huge advances in technology, culture and entertainment. Most of us will never fight in a war, but most children these days have done this in a first person shooter game. Almost everyone’s erotic imagination has been augmented by the sex scenes they’ve seen in films. 

But the sense of really ‘being there’ is difficult to reproduce. This is why gamers don’t get PTSD, and adult films often leave us dissatisfied. This can be because not all of our senses are engaged by audio-visual media, or because we know that we are not really implicated by what we see on screen; We can close the window whenever we like.

So much about the art of simulation has, until now, been about recreating the sensory conditions that go on to produce mental responses. We perceive virtual worlds like we do the real world – through our senses. It is the combination of sensory inputs that gives us the feeling of being in a situation. Recreating these scenes effectively leads to what we call ‘immersion’. Effective immersion leads to more effective stimulation of pleasure response chemicals in the brain.

The ‘real’ world

The same concept applies to the ‘real’ world. Often we have an idealised version of what a situation will be like in our minds, and then, upon discovery, we find that the actual experience just doesn’t feel the way we thought it would.

The correct recipe of sensory inputs did not produce what our brains demanded for chemical release, and we were disappointed.

Skipping the event altogether

But what if the release of these chemicals could be manually triggered?

This is basically the possibility that Neuralink is working on. The Computing revolution has, up until now, allowed us to supplement real bodily experience with a simulated sensory copy.

Now, computing is poised to merge with the body to produce the end products of experience, skipping the event altogether, and working directly on the brain. Neuralinks BCIs propose this next step, whereby the feeling we seek from activity can be triggered directly in the brain.

This doesn’t mean that “doing things’” has to be a thing of the past. At least not yet anyway. The stimulation of pleasure centers could be used to heighten arousal and orgasmic sexual response.

If the pleasure responses of another person could be recorded by a chip, then that same pleasure experience could potentially be rewired into their partner, letting them know what their partner’s sexual pleasure feels like.

Maybe some people like having sex in an environment of risk or tension. These feelings could be overlaid onto a sexual experience, setting the mood so to speak, so that the sexual experience unfolds within a certain mental context.

It should be noted that many people do this kind of thing already with recreational drugs.

Drugs change the way our brains release and absorb certain chemicals, altering our perception and making us feel certain things we wouldn’t otherwise experience.

Having sex while ‘intoxicated’ is an ancient tradition, but as we know, the chemicals that go in, are not always wholly advantageous for the experience and/or the health effects that we get out.

This leads us on to risks…

Risks

Naturally, many people have misgivings about interfacing directly with the human brain. If the chip is connected to the internet, what happens when someone’s chip gets hacked? Would an anonymous individual be able to control your emotions from afar? 

Also, who controls all the data that’s coming straight out of someone’s mind, and what could be done with huge amounts of said data? With the revelations of the Cambridge analytica scandal showing how big data can change the results of referendums and national elections, could access to this level of intimate data en mass give private interests a way of controlling people?

The popular science fiction imagination contains many stories of AI eventually enslaving the human race. But Musk claims that Neuralink’s devices are the very things that will protect humans from this eventuation. He says that BCIs are a “Mitigation of the existential threat of AI” in that they give humans near-instant access to information in a way that rivals those of completely automated systems.

There are also potentially harmful and addictive effects that could come from overstimulating pleasure centers.

If people have orgasmic pleasure or heroin-like bliss accessible at the push of a button, will they be able to continue functioning without constantly bombarding their neurons with pleasure chemicals..?

Image source: Neuralink

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The high-tech wearable “Teslasuit” undergoes impressive upgrades.

Back in 2015, Future of Sex covered the Teslasuit prototype—a haptic bodysuit that integrates with both virtual and augmented realities and sends sensations. (Note the Teslasuit has no relation to Tesla Inc., which is the car company co-founded by Elon Musk).

Since then, Teslasuit has come a long way in development. And while it’s not explicitly marketed as a sex product, we’re very excited about this new technology’s sexual possibilities.

On their website, Teslasuit meticulously specifies the haptic capabilities of their fully realized suit. Before exploring the technology’s potential erotic applications, let’s explore its specs.

Suit Specs

Haptic feedback

Teslasuit has 68 haptic points distributed over the body. These points deliver minute electrical pulses to the body’s nerve endings in order to simulate sensation.

These electrical pulses can cause muscle contractions, effectively triggering the body to move in a certain way, or simply provide haptic feedback that mimics a sensation.

Teslasuit also uses 80 different electrostimulation channels, producing sensations that include temperature, impact, liquid, gas, and fluid environment simulation. 

Weight simulation can also be achieved by triggering the muscles that would be necessary to support additional weight on the body.

Teslasuit’s alternating signal flows can also produce wave-like pulse distributions, which we’re told are a crucial factor for simulating physical phenomena and creating special effects.

Many such effects are collected in Teslasuit’s “haptic library,” a digital database of haptic animations that can sync VR/AR video content with bodily sensation sequences. 

Motion capture

Using 10 motion capture points, Teslasuit is able to track the body’s full skeletal position in real-time, and can use this data to simulate movement for a user’s avatar in a virtual space. 

This means the user can set up the suit to realistically simulate their movements in video games and simulations—the next best thing to downloading yourself into a virtual world.

Biometrics

Teslasuit also boasts integrated biometric reading. The suit measures electrodermal activity over the entire surface of the body, and can capture 84 different biometric signals emitted by the skin and the active muscles beneath. These signals can be used to detect fatigue, stress, nutrition and many other factors that describe the wearer’s mental and physiological state. 

The suit also uses ECG to detect heart rate, which can be reviewed within Teslasuit’s included software package for advanced diagnostics and analytics.

Sexy possibilities

Sex is, in large part, sensation. So it doesn’t take a genius to recognize that Teslasuit offers an incredible opportunity for those seeking new erotic experiences.

But what kind of things could be simulated…?

Horny-meter

Teslasuit’s biometric data can be easily explained in terms of athletic performance tracking, but what if the body’s signals could be tested against a different set of benchmarks? 

These benchmarks could be calibrated to correspond with a basic indicator of the user’s level of arousal, which could have incredible applications for couples utilizing teledildonic devices (link) at long distance. Watching a meter indicating their partner’s arousal levels climb could set off the perfect reciprocal arousal boost.

But this type of indicator could go even further.

Virtually designed sex experiences could use arousal levels to trigger changes in the simulation, allowing virtual sex experiences to develop at the user’s own erotic pace.

Furthermore, sex-workers who connect remotely via webcam could connect to their subscribers’ Teslasuit data, which could allow them to curate their performances based on what is and isn’t working for their audience.

Fantasy erotica

The Internet is full of pornography that entertains certain fantasies that can never really be realized. This type of representation includes genres like monster pornography, extreme BDSM, and cosplay/cartoon character adult content. 

The great thing about Teslasuit is that it is designed to integrate with VR/AR experiences. So it’s not a great leap to imagine 3D video content depicting an ogre, and perhaps some larger than life force sensations applying directly to the suit, corresponding with real-time moments in the video presentation, making the user really feel like their engaged in a sexual encounter with a mythical beast.

Much of BDSM is based around ideas of restraint and control, but if you’re home alone, what really holds you back. Teslasuit could allow online dominatrix’s the ability to make their sub’s wrists feel tied up, or apply the weight of a body part to a portion of the body. The possibilities for submitting to another’s control are very far-reaching and exciting for those who seek this kind of erotic exchange.

Most of us will have come across pornography depicting a character who was never actually written that way. These sexual expressions of fan-fiction take the likes of Marge Simpson, Fortnite Characters, and even Looney Tunes like Lola Bunny and place them in seductive scenarios, often for a kind of taboo pleasure. 

Many of these characters have distinctive bodily features like hair, clothing/armor and skin consistency, which Teslasuit could simulate directly onto the body of the wearer. What would it feel like if Kratos rubbed up against you..?

Simulating sensual spaces

This idea of unleashing the sexual side of pop culture characters can go even further. What about entire settings? 

In the real world, place simulations already exist. Take for example the Tokyo simulated settings like Maid Cafe’s, where patrons are spoon fed and doted upon by waitresses dressed up as old English maids, or Cuddle Cafes, where people pay for the pleasure of lying beside a cutely dressed girl, and can pay extra to lay their head in the girl’s lap.

Could these types of environments not also be created virtually with the Teslasuit? 

Imagine for example logging into a calm quiet space, with a soothing ASMR voice whispering gentle things in your ear. You can feel the warmth of your carer’s body against you, their breath runs over your skin, perhaps a group of 5 maids converge on you, tending gently to your every need…

Custom fantasies

All the ideas posed so far are based around situations that are either conducted by a person live, or pre-recorded/designed. 

But what if you knew exactly what it was you wanted to see and feel? What if you’ve got your fantasy mapped out perfectly already in your head? It’s not too hard to imagine how you could use the Teslasuit in combination with some other technological resources to make your fantasy a reality.

One such pathway could go like this: you take the Holodexxx designed 3D model of Adult‌ ‌Star‌ ‌Marley‌ ‌Brinx‌,  place her in a virtual space like one of many that are currently available to view and explore on vrchat.com, sync her animated movements up with appropriate animations form Teslasuit’s haptic library, and then write your own script for how you want her to address you. 

Using the technology of Deep copies (link) you could reconstruct Saya’s face to lip-sync the lines you’ve prepared for her, use a simulated voice like those available via google cloud Text-to-Speech API (link).

Combining all these technologies could give individuals the ability to direct and star in their own fantasies that not only look and sound, but FEEL the way they’re supposed to.

Sex training

As has been mentioned, Teslasuit are not explicitly marketing their suit as a sex product.

We’ve had to use our imaginations so far to figure out how this amazing device could be adapted to the world of sex. But there is an overlap between our interests and those of the Teslasuit company. 

Much of Teslasuit’s proposed use cases center around professional training and development. Teslasuit’s main aim is to attract big companies whose employees need training to act in specialized and potentially dangerous scenarios to use their suit as a safe and rapid method of training.

So what if people could seek training to improve their sexual performance too? 

The last decade has seen massive leaps forward in social acceptance, body positivity, and has done away with myths about sex as a singular penetrative act. The Teslasuit presents the perfect method through which individuals could learn to better use their entire bodies to give and receive pleasure in a whole range of ways. 

Things like the ancient art of tantric sex could be transferred directly into the muscle fibers of people who might never have felt comfortable going to a live classroom to learn new approaches to eroticism.

Image source: Holodexxx.com [NSFW], Teslasuit

The post From Sex Training to Custom VR Porn, This Haptic Bodysuit Inspires Mind-blowing Sexual Possibilities appeared first on Future of Sex.

New research is giving computers the power to transform prose text into 3D worlds.

NOTE: This article will explain how text-to-scene conversion works and then go on to explore some of its applied possibilities. If you already have a good grasp of the tech or you’re just not here for that, skip to the bottom of the article for our predictions on how text-to-scene could change the way people see sex.

VR is hard work

As more virtual reality (VR) technologies are being developed, the demand for virtual worlds is increasing. Generating virtual worlds is not easy. Currently, they’re constructed through the tedious mouse-based process of manual 3D animation. This means literally thousands of “screen-hours” spent by highly trained professionals piecing these worlds together pixels at a time.

This method is not only tedious but very expensive. It means that only the most mainstream worlds get made because the massive investment required to commission them can only be justified by the safest, most broadly applicable ideas. In this creative climate, it’s very difficult to make original and exciting worlds into (virtual) reality.

Utilizing existing creative output

“This paper describes a strategy for automatically converting fiction text into 3D animations,” begins one of many ambitious research papers written by Shaun Bangay, Kevin Glass, and Bruce Alcock.

Bangay is a senior lecturer in Virtual Reality and Games at Deakin University in Melbourne. During the last decade, he’s been investigating and developing the possibility of a text-to-scene conversion system. This system aims to take the detailed worlds described in fictional works (novels) and use them as the building blocks for virtual worlds.

How computers work (in a nutshell)

As you probably know, computers crunch binary code, a series of 0s and 1s, switches that are either on or off, nothing else. It’s this enormous configuration of 0s and 1s, ‘ON’ and ‘OFF,’ across millions of terminals (semiconductors) that power all computational processes.

A program (or an app) is something that interprets and generates these 0s and 1s, using different programming languages to execute desired operations. Each of the many programming languages is a coding system that interprets 0s and 1s differently, using highly specific grammatical alphanumeric systems.

How text-to-scene conversion works

Text-to-scene conversion can be imagined like a language bridge between human language (fictional prose) and computer language (binary code). The conversion tool’s primary aim is to access the huge creative base of detailed imaginary worlds already existent in written fiction for VR.

The system is a text recognition system. It isolates words in a text into different types. These types include:

• Character/Avatar: Identification/description of a character
• Setting: Identification/description of the setting
• Objects: Identification/description of objects in a scene
• Spatial relations: Identification/description of the layout of characters and objects in a setting
• Movements: Identification/description of things that change position
• Scene change: Identification/description of transitions into new scenes

Each of these word types correspond with a parallel database of 3D objects, colours, textures, structures, and motions. These objects and motions can be automatically modified and combined to generate new objects. This gives the final 3D presentation far more variation and subtlety than a one-to-one system where words always correspond with a single 3D form.

You can look at an info-graphic describing text-to-scene conversion in one of Bangay’s papers here.

Text-to-scene conversion and human input

Human language is amazingly complex. A computer’s main problem understanding human language comes from that fact that it’s not universally standardized. Even within the English language, speech patterns and styles change with geography and time, and according to the age and social affiliation of the speaker. Some words have completely different meanings or simply don’t exist between two different places and/or times.

Humans are geniuses of contextual understanding. When we encounter words and grammatical forms we haven’t seen before, we can usually generate a partial understanding and continue to communicate positively with the new form. To compensate for this difficulty, the text-to-scene conversion system requires input text to be prepared and annotated before and after its conversion to a 3D representation.

Bangay and fellow researcher Kevin Glass write: “Fiction writing tends assume much implicit knowledge, and therefore any details not explicitly mentioned are not automatically annotated. As a result, there is an opportunity for manual intervention in the process during which human creativity may be used to insert further annotations into a scene.”
Human input is required at many levels throughout the multi-staged 3D construction process. Descriptors need to be linked to characters, the duration of events needs to be set and/or modified, scene transition and simultaneous non-visual events need to be integrated somehow.

What this means, for sex

At first glance, the realization of text-to-scene conversion means that books can be made visual and auditory, so we can watch instead of read them. This is true but falls short of this technology’s real potential.

Text-to-scene conversion can use books as first drafts for other worlds, cutting out thousands of hours of expensive animating time. This means more virtual worlds and a democratization of world-making ability—almost anyone with a computer can make one!

With development in haptic technologies, people could potentially insert themselves as avatars into a scene from one of their favourite novels. Before entering the text-based world, the user would annotate the text to allow for themselves as an extra character and set the parameters for their interactions before suiting up, seeing, hearing and feeling the scene as a virtual reality.

Some of classical literature’s most fiery relationships were described, to say the least, sparingly. Books create moods that allow the reader to interpret and create the best images for them. This technology could allow individuals to annotate classical texts and literally show others exactly how they imagined Wuthering Heights’ Catherine and Heathcliff, Pride and Prejudice’s Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy, or even Lolita’s Humbert and Dolores.

Fifty Shades of Grey, a more modern novel, has already been given to filmic adaptation, but if reviews of director Sam Taylor-Johnson’s efforts were anything to go by, the film’s imagining fell short of individual reader’s ideas about how E.L. James’ novel should have been.

Literary erotica, a genre with huge reader participation, is fertile ground for a text extension technology. Thousands of people contribute to personal and public blogs, churning out thousands of erotic fan fiction stories every day. Fifty Shades of Grey was originally written as fan fiction, designed to re-imagine the love affair between the Twilight saga’s protagonists, Bella and Edward.

People have written their own fantasies using existing characters from Harry Potter to Star Wars, and sometimes characters from different sagas meet. One Direction erotica has become a genre unto itself with tens of thousands of rated, erotic stories available online.

Show, don’t tell

“Show, don’t tell” is an often-mentioned axiom of fiction writing. It basically means that to write good fiction, the writer must display the scene so it is there in front of the reader instead of explaining it, or revealing it with secondary information.

Perhaps ironically, this rule may never have been better satisfied than with the application of what text-to-scene conversion could offer. It massively increases the potential for sharing imagination and constructing tangible realities that others can experience, refine and even participate in.

Sex, while a constant topic of conversation, has never been something you can really explain. It has a certain ineffability that demands experience and participation for proper understanding. While text-to-scene conversion is by no means the technology that will make virtual sex equal to the “real thing,” it’s certainly a huge leap in that direction

In what literary sex scene would choose to participate?

Image sources: Alicia Chenaux, Bloop Animation, Christiaan Colen, Dae’ya Sip, Luna Jubilee / !bang poses, Movieclips Trailers, ƝƖƇƠ ƬƖMΣ , Peter Jackson

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Robot sex workers bumbling about, just like humans…

50 years ago, predictions for what life would look like by the year 2000 were fueled by the same imaginations that made The Jetsons, Star Wars, and 2001: A Space Odyssey. But as the millennium approached, excitement turned to fear as many prepared for the “‘Y2K”’ virus and widespread chaos.

In 2016, beyond the yardstick of the millennium, future predictions are ramping up again. Advances in technologies like speech recognition, Google’s automatic translation, facial expression recognition, mechanical prosthetic limbs and highly advanced “chatbots” are all seem zoning in on the realization of a human-like robot.

These advances have sparked heated ethical debates about the use of robots in society, especially in the area of sex work.

Enter “Gigahoes,” the web series that aims to remind us that robots and people, together, are very funny.

The first season of “Gigahoes” featured 12 five-minute episodes. Set in the year 2030, the show tracks fictional company Artificial Intercourse (AI) in a mockumentary style. AI’s clients and employees (robotic and human) encounter a range of social and mechanical problems that highlight both human and robot ineptitude when it comes to satisfying desire.

The first season was made with $5,000. Props, effects, image and sound quality, and costumes were not fantastic. The style of the show does have a charming deliberate amateurism, though it’s can be a little too drab and awkward for its own good.

However, we can appreciate how the comedy presents sexbots in a unique and refreshing way—avoiding the trope of the killer robot. And if you’ve seriously contemplated having a robotic sex partner, this show may be right up your alley.

Thanks to a generally positive online response, “Gigahoes” creators Adam Lash and Kevin Gilligan have launched a Kickstarter campaign for a second season. This time they hope to raise $15,000, which should contribute to a more polished video product.

“Gigahoes” is not a mainstream series, but its unflinching oddity could prove to be surprisingly relevant if and when its science fiction becomes our social reality.

Image sources: Gigahoes

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Illusion VR is pushing virtual limits again with its interactive bodysuit.

Evolutionary context

This Illusion VR sex suit isn’t a debut product and it’s unlikely to be the last of its kind. Future of Sex reported on the first collaboration between Tenga, Novint, and Illusion at the Oculus Game Jam tech conference in 2013. These three companies engineered the interactive genital stimulator section that forms part of the Illusion VR sex suit.

The basic set-up

The Illusion VR sex suit gives the wearer simulated sexual encounters with an anime character. While she is seen through a pair of VR goggles, her cartoon breasts move if their plastic counterparts, which are attached to the suit, are fondled by the wearer.

The haptic suit also creates physical sensations of heat (body warmth) and contact with the anime character on different parts of the wearer’s body. Finally, the male sleeve moves over the wearer’s penis in sync with whatever sex act appears on screen, completing the simulated sexual experience.

The ins and outs

Tenga makes male sex toys, and is responsible for the Illusion VR sex suit. The suit comes complete with motion sensors and haptic feedback nodes, an interactive male sex sleeve, a robotic thrust arm, and touch-feedback breasts.

Illusion develops erotic and often controversial video games. Illusion’s multi-release title, Sexy Beach (2000-present) provides the visuals that sync with the VR sex suit.

Novint’s Falcon is a 3D haptic controller, and the “robotic thrust arm” mentioned above. Its three-pronged arm pumps the Tenga sex sleeve in sync with the Sexy Beach visuals.

The visual content is viewed through a Samsung VR headset, which communicates with the VR sex suit via Bluetooth.

How does it (make you) feel?

Product testers with the IBTimesUK reported on a spectrum of first impressions to the virtual reality sex suit. After testing the suit, journalist Ben Skipper flatly said that virtual reality pornography was not the future. Alistair Charlton said that “the men and women were all slightly larger than you’d expect them to be, turning them into intimidating giants.” Jessica Clerkin said “as a woman, it was certainly eye-opening… I can see it really taking off.”

And an unnamed reviewer said that “It’s so realistic it would probably make people feel like they were cheating on their partners,” sardonically adding that it “will probably spell the end of civilisation. I just know some people will never, ever take that thing off.”

It might seem shocking to some, but…

The first videos of the Tenga sex sleeve used with VR, which emerged from the 2013 Oculus conference, seemed to inspire uniform shock and bemusement. And, more than one April Fool’s joke has found its way into headlines describing the Illusion VR sex suit release.

But, the fact that IBTimesUK journalists and Russia Today also used less than savory terms, including “intensely creepy,” to describe Illusion VR’s sex suit seems at odds with sales, which have reportedly taken off. An Illusion VR sex suit costs around $400 and as of April 7, Tenga reported them sold out.

Where we’re headed

The Illusion VR sex suit is the latest footprint in what may be the inevitable path toward virtual reality sex that’s indistinguishable from the “real” thing. In fact, it’s not presumptuous to assume that in the not-too-distant future, quotation marks will always be necessary around the word “real” when referring to sex.

As everyday life experiences mesh with new technologies designed to synthesize reality, “reality” itself could cease to be an absolute, and become more like an abstract concept comparable to “freedom,” “happiness” or “fulfilment.”

Images:  V4VIRAL

The post Japanese VR Sex Suit Lets You Feel Realistic Sex with Anime Women appeared first on Future of Sex.

Breakthrough could lead to the end of male infertility. 

The scientific method

The scientists began by taking embryonic stem cells from mice and exposing them to a number of different chemicals. These chemicals caused the embryonic stem cells to progress to early-stage germ cells. Once transformed, the scientists placed these germ cells inside testicular tissue with controlled amounts of testosterone and other sex hormones.

In these mimicked natural conditions, the germ cells underwent complete meiosis, which means the splitting of a cell into four separate parts, each with half of the original cell’s genetic information. The resulting cells all had correct nuclear DNA and chromosomal content, the basic precursors of fertility.

The sperm created by the scientists was not fully mature. The artificial sperm has no tail, which means it is unable to propel itself towards an egg in order to fertilize it. To overcome this problem, the scientists directed the sperm directly into an egg, which is a method already used in human IVF.

Due to the recent interest in artificial sperm production, a gold standard for correct meiosis was recently outlined by three world-leading reproductive biologists. The gold standard requires (among other things) that the sperm has correct DNA and chromosome numbers at various meiotic stages, and that the resulting offspring are healthy and able to reproduce naturally.

So far, the mice created by these artificial sperm have proven to be healthy and capable of reproduction, satisfying the gold standard.

What this breakthrough means for humans

15% of couples experience fertility problems, and of this 15% a third are due to problems with the man’s reproductive ability. One major cause of male infertility is the inability of precursor germ cells to correctly undergo meiosis and become functional sperm. This research could help to treat this and many other causes of male infertility.

It also means that with a basic supply of embryonic stem cells, scientists could synthesize sperm and remove the need for willing male donors in artificial insemination situations.

Future challenges

Having successfully used artificial sperm in mice to create offspring, the question becomes whether or not the same can be done with humans. Currently, embryonic stem cells cannot be taken from infertile men, so treating infertility would require a different starting point.

Mouse germ cells have been produced from what are called pluripotent stem cells by another scientific team from Kyoto University. These stem cells can be taken from human subjects and this research is currently underway at Kyoto University.

A company in France claims to have produced human sperm in a laboratory; though, they began from germ cells and are yet to publish anything.

Image sources: Nucleus Medical Media, DNews

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