Now, smartphones can help men test sperm health at home;
Those men who find it too embarrassing to visit a fertility clinic to test the health of their sperm have reasons to cheer, thanks to a new smartphone-based system that allows men to have a semen test at home to know about potential fertility problems. Using a low-cost lens, Yoshitomo Kobori from Dokkyo Medical University Koshigaya Hospital in Japan and his colleagues at the University of Illinois in Chicago created a smartphone microscope to analyse semen samples at home, with help from an app that is in development. Clipped onto the camera of a smartphone, the lens magnifies an image by 555 times – perfect for looking at sperm cells, New Scientist reported. “I thought a smartphone microscope could be an easy way to look at problems with male fertility,” Kobori was quoted as saying. To do a home test, a man would have to wait for around five minutes after ejaculation for the semen to liquefy, then apply a small amount to a plastic sheet and press it against the microscop