September 1, 2010 • 19 mins
Some recent studies have suggested a positive correlation between semen quality and intelligence. But do smart men really have better sperm? In this episode, Molly and Cristen sift through a wealth of research in an attempt to answer that question.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff mom never told you?
From House to works dot Com. Hello, this is Molly.
Welcome to the podcast. And I'm Kristen Christ. And they
(00:20):
were going to talk about something called the G factor.
And it's not what you think it is. It's not
that G. Y'all. Get your minds out of the gutter
right now and then put them right back in. Today
we're going to talk about sperm and this and the
G factor. But the G in this case is general intelligence.
And then it is a variable that is sort of
(00:41):
used across across the board in terms of, uh this
fitness quality known as intelligence because they're thinking that intelligent
people tend to do pretty good in life, tend to
take care of themselves. Yeah, they think it's a marker
of good genetics. And uh so they've they've studied, they've
studied intelligence a lot, you know, kind of trying to
(01:03):
figure out whether or not you can inherit intelligence, whether
or not kind of runs in your bloodline things like that,
or in your sperm or in your spur. Which is
why we're gonna talk today a lot about semen. Now,
the reason why we are talking about intelligence and semen
is because we came across the study entitled intelligence and
semen quality are positively correlated. And this is when it
(01:25):
just really pays off to host a podcast called stuff
Mom and or Tology, because it was really the highlight
of my week, Kristen, to get an email from you saying,
look at the study about intelligence and semen quality. Yeah,
because we we have talked about this guy, Jeffrey Miller.
He did a study that we've talked about a couple
of times about how strippers who are not on birth
(01:45):
control and who are also opulating getting more tips than
strippers who are not opulating. So Jeffrey Miller knows this stuff,
and so we were naturally when you a title of
study intelligence and semen quality was really correlated, Jeffrey Miller,
we are going to get right on that. Yes. So,
the reason why Jeffrey Miller and his colleagues were interested
in looking at intelligence and seeming quality because it might
(02:08):
seem like those are two sort of disjointed ideas, or
at least kind of disjointed on the body. You know,
once at the top ones more in the middle Well.
And also, I mean you think of that old expression
like he's just thinking with his peanuts. I mean that's
marker of saying, oh, you know, he's not. But apparently
here we've got two disparate things linked. Yeah, and so
(02:29):
so Miller and his colleagues they're trying to get at
cognitive correlates to positive health outcomes because there have been
studies about how more intelligent people tend to be healthier.
They obviously don't smoke as much, they tend to drink less,
they tend to eat better and live longer, all of
(02:49):
this kind of stuff. So they're wondering if there's if
there any biological underpinnings to that, right, I mean, is
it is intelligence basically passed down because these people are
the most fit evolutionarily? I mean that that's sort of
how evolution works. You think that the best primed people
to live the longest will pass on their genes. Are
(03:10):
they doing that via sperm? Yeah? And this all also
gets into kind of the nature versus nurture question, and
I like this this comes up a lot um. Miller
describes all of this as a matrix, like what is
this human matrix of intelligence? Versus health. Right, So the
way they did this study, and uh, we read quite
(03:31):
a few studies on this, and you know, you can,
I guess kind of make quibbles with how the study went.
You know, they're different. I don't think researchers have quite
found the perfect way to study semen yet. Yeah, apparently,
you know, if you need to research something semen, research
harder than it might sound. So let me explain how
this study worked, because you know it's one of those
things where you're gonna have to kind of, I think,
(03:52):
make a judgment on how you feel about this particular methodology.
What they did is they had UM the Vietnam Experience Study,
which was conducted by the CDC in that was when
four thousand, four hundred sixty two veterans underwent extensive medical
and mental examinations and of those at the time, five
d seventy one had provided semen samples. So what they
(04:14):
did was they looked at four and twenty five of
those samples, and uh, what they had was a pool
of men that were age thirty one to forty four,
various races, but predominantly white. UM. And they kind of knew,
you know, a few things about these men because they
had undergone sort of this whole battery of testing which
allowed them to make exceptions for you know, environmental factors
(04:36):
like smoking. Uh, they were able to kind of figure
out how long the men have been in Vietnam and
what they might have been exposed to mental disorders, right,
and so, but they also had intelligence testing for these men.
So what they did is they compared the intelligence battery
testing to UH three semen measures UH sperm concentration, sperm count,
(04:58):
and sperm motility, which just basically whether your sperm can
move in a in a in a forward direction towards
a goal. Is it? Is it vibrus sperm? Yes, sperm
motility learned a new term myself during this research. And
if you score well on these factors, if you've got
you know, very mobile sperm and you've got a lot
(05:19):
of it, then that's what they're gonna deem high quality sperm,
because that's the sperm that's gonna get a woman pregnant
as opposed to more sluggish sperm, fewer sperm and a sample.
That's what they're talking about when they say that sperm
is quality. Yes. And I found a statistically significant correlation
between these highly mobile sperm a k a. High quality semen,
(05:44):
and high intelligence scores. So that allowed them to make
the statement that the strongest influence on intelligence differences in
adulthood is genetic. You know, if you're thinking nature versus
nurture um score one for nature and this idea that
you know, the people who can most effectively pass on
their seat and get a woman pregnant are the people
(06:05):
who are intelligent, have lived longer, who make good health choices.
I mean, not every smart person makes good health choices,
but you know, they were able, like we said, to
exempt those factors people who had abused alcohol or cigarettes
or drugs, and what they were left with was the
people who had chosen to make really good decisions regarding
their health, and they had really good sperm. And I mean, like,
(06:27):
you know, it's not an accident that we also we
want a smart guy. It's because it seems that he's
going to give us better babies. And the tone in
the in the study too, when you when you read
it is that the researchers were almost skeptical of their
own findings, saying, you know, making the connection between smarts
and semens seems like a pretty kind of tenuous connection
(06:49):
to draw and so they even went back and looked
even closer at this because they said, Okay, we've got
this correlation, but what on earth could be going on
in the body. How could how could sperm and your
neurons in your brain somehow be connected. There has to
be some kind of you know, connecting factor in the body.
(07:10):
So they went back and published an article addendum called
wise intelligence Correlated with seemin Quality to address all of this,
and they found some similar biochemical pathways between neuron development
and sperm function. Yeah, this is just fascinating to read,
and I I'm probably going to oversimplify it, and I'm
sorry for that, but we'll put it up on our blog.
(07:33):
But essentially, neurons and sperm are very similar. UM. For example,
they both have high concentrations of polyunsaturated batty acid pasofas
relative to other body tissues. And that these UM batty
acids are so important in nerve development function and maintaining
all those neurons in the brain. UM it's a mark
(07:56):
of all land mammals, including humans, So uh they knew
it was essential to the brain. And then regarding semen,
the difference between uh an immature germ cell and a
mature spermatozoa. Guess what it is. Polyunsaturated batty acids PUFAs.
Poufa's during sperm development are just crucial to developing a
(08:17):
good sperm. And here's the thing. A mutation that um
negatively affects the poufa's and therefore the sperm will also
negatively affect neuron development. So there we go. You get
the low quality sperm, you're the lower quality neurons, and
vice versa. And then in this article donehom they provide,
(08:37):
you know, two or three more examples of ways in
which the brain and semen used the same bodily functions,
the same ingredients. Uh, you know, it's just the same
things that go into good brain function go into good
semen development. And it was I've never read anything that
made that connection like that before. I mean, it kind
(08:59):
of u sort of make you think to oversimplify it dramatically,
that expression that I mentioned earlier about thinking with with
your penis has some sort of biological basis. And this
also is not to say that men of lower intelligence
are rendered infertile, you know, I mean they they're really
just more looking at this subset of men who do
have high i Q scores and looking at their sperm.
(09:21):
Like you said, yeah, it's not the opposite does not
prove true yet. But once we we found this pair
of studies and then all of a sudden, we had
this research domino effect take place, and we would like
to invite you along for for this little, this little
journey that we took. Okay, because where are we right now?
We're as semen and intelligence. Okay, but semen high quality
(09:44):
semen also correlated two looks. And maybe this sounds like,
maybe it sounds obvious, because I mean when you when
you watch these shows and maybes about women going to
like a sperm donor or looking for a sp sperm donor, honously,
I want someone who's handsome and alligen, et cetera. But
the fact of the matter is is that when we
were looking at these studies, they were all dated within
(10:06):
the last if not year or so, the last five years.
So this is a fairly new research of study, to
the point that one of the literature literature reviews we're
reading basically gave the SmackDown to some of these methodologies
and was like, we need a lot more studies on semen, right,
because a lot of times when researchers need to study semen,
where do they go. They go to fertility clinics, and
so you start off right there. It might not be
(10:27):
the most representative population sample because a lot of times
this is um semen coming from men who might have
had fertility issues in the past. But going back to
this um handsomeness correlation. UM, there was a study from
the University of Valencia in Spain and they found a
(10:48):
correlation between uh faster sperm those very what it was
molly the sperm motility, excellent sperm motility, and faces men
of faces most attractive to women. Like they basically had
women come in check out pictures of men, rate the
ones they found most attractive, and then kind of took
(11:09):
the most attractive ones, checked out their sperm low and behold,
they got some good swimmers, right. But this was an
interesting aspect of these findings too. While they have a
lot of good swimmers, there was no relationship between how
handsome the men were in the concentration of sperm. So
you might have like, you know, like ten really great
(11:30):
swimmers in there, but it's not necessarily like jam packed
there seems not necessarily jam packed with sperm, not like
the intelligent guys, because that's I mean, in that first
day we were talking about those men. Could we all
meet all of those qualifications in terms of quantity and motility,
the brains in a way winning out over beauty. But
then then research starts to snowball because there was kind
(11:53):
of a counter study to this, saying I'm not so
sure that semen quality and men's attractiveness are really that correlated.
But this took place in Australia. This was serving Australian
men as opposed to the Spanish men who were surveying
in the in the first study. So based on these
two studies, we found we have sort of an interesting
(12:14):
competition going on between Spanish men Australian men because the
Australian men didn't have that despite being as handsome as
the Spanish. Yes, that's a very handsome men. Yeah, we're
not dissing either either countries. Men take no offense, but
your sperm is different. Yeah. But again, like we said,
(12:35):
you've got to look at the methodology because people are
not quite convinced we've got the best way to collect
sperm yet. And when you continue researching sperm quality. All
of these studies on sperm quality, there are other factors
obviously that go into whether or not, you know, semen
is chock full of highly mobile or sperm or not
(12:57):
so much. For instance, there's been research done saying that
once men hit around the age of twenty, their sperm
count starts to diminish a little bit. Some think that
antioxidants have an impact, like the more an accident rich
diet men have been, the richer their semen is. All
of these different factors going into well and even to
go back to this first day we were talking about
(13:18):
with intelligence, um, the one with the v A men. Uh.
They were told to have stained from ejaculating for several
days and you know, they have no way of knowing
whether the men actually did that, but there was some
sort of hypothesis that if these men truly were intelligent,
that they would have had the ability to follow instructions
and not do that. But I mean, obviously the amount
(13:39):
of time between your last ejaculation effects how much sperm
is in your semens exactly. They're all these different variables,
which is probably why you mentioned that literature review that
we found analyzing all these different sperm studies saying, oh
my gosh, we need to go back and we need
to find a better way to study semen essentially, And
it's kind of funny because for for all these thousands
(14:02):
of years, semen has kept the world turning and have
the human species here and we're just kind of getting
to the bottom of it. And the thing about it is, Molly,
the last podcast we recorded involved so many studies looking
at every different angle of women and ovulation and how
that affects us. I mean, there are just journals devoted
(14:26):
to that egg dropping, that fallopian two, the craziness that
happens afterward. Semen. It's just now starting to step into
the spotlight. Really it is. And uh, you know that
I think it'll be an interesting research field. I guess
to keep an eye on. That sounds weird to say,
and specialists Jeffrey Miller, man, he's breaking new ground. I
know this has been Jeffrey Miller week on the podcast.
(14:47):
I hope Jeffrey Miller, here's this podcast, and I hope
we explained your study right. So if you do hear this,
But um, you know, it's like I said, it does
seem odd that there in one way, it does seem
out that there says about this because you know, women
who have gone to clinics looking for a firm downer
do look for these factors. But and you know, obviously
if you ask them on what she wants, she probably
(15:08):
said someone who I find attractive and who I find intelligent. There,
you know there's a reason for it. Even though it
might seem as more aesthetic and about companionship, it might
actually just be because we know that those people can
give us really good children. We're looking for that, um,
the best matrix. Going back to the fitness factor, uh,
(15:29):
that that different researchers are kind of trying to unravel
and see what all goes into it. So maybe, you know,
maybe intelligence and semen maybe that's a that's an interesting
starting point. So we would like to hear what you
all think about this idea of intelligence and and semen
quality and all of the other correlates, because again, I
(15:51):
think a lot of these researchers kind of make these claims,
but also a little with a little hesitation, because it
does seem like a pretty huge conclusion to draw. So
let us know your thoughts, mom stuff at hell stuffworks
dot com or posted up on our Facebook page. All right,
I've got a listener email from someone who did not
(16:13):
want to be named, and I'm just gonna summarize her
emails since there are some distinguishing factors in there, but
basically it's about one of our older podcasts about sororities,
and we were talking about hazing and all the different
forms that hazing can take. And this particular listener lived
through and experience where she was hazed pretty badly and
as a result, quit the sorority and disaffiliated, and uh,
(16:37):
became re quainted about the sorority because she was still
upset about what was going on, was worried about girls
who might be getting expelled or would be in serious,
you know, physical danger, and so she went through the
process of testifying against her sorority. And uh, long story short,
just wanted to tell our listeners about a website called
(16:59):
www dot Stop hazing dot org because she found it
very helpful in terms of getting help and getting the
word out about hazing and trying to bring it into it.
So stop hazing dot org. All right, and for a
some more kind of public awareness um emails, we got
(17:19):
one from Jennifer in response to our episode on rape
kits and Jennifer has been working with people over the
last six years working with people who have experienced rape
and sexual violence as a medical advocate, hotline worker, and
account sort at a rape crisis center, and she just
had a few more things to throw out there in
terms of what to do if you are raped or
(17:41):
sexually assaulted, and she says, calling UM the rain hotline,
which is one eight hundred six five six hope will
automatically direct a college to the closest rape rape crisis
hotline in her area code is or her area code,
I should say UM. She also says, if you've changed
your clothes since an assault, please place them in a
paper not plastic bag when you bring them into the hospital.
(18:02):
I can't remember the science behind it, but it keeps
any potential evidence fresher if you will. She says, if
you're still wearing the clothes you are assaulted in, try
to find someone who can bring you a new outfit.
You might want to hand over what you were wearing
for evidence, and it can take a while to get
it back. She says, bring a friend if you can
to the hospital and the e R visits can take
a very very long time and This is her last
(18:24):
tip that she put in bold. She says, it is
never ever too late to talk about and heal from
great and sexual violence, even if it's been decades. There's
someone who's willing to listen and care. Please call and
ask for support. Contrary to what many people fear, asking
for help is a sign of courage and strength, not
weakness for instability. So thank you so much, Jennifer for
(18:45):
the good advice. Um again, our email is mom Stuff
at how stuff works dot com. You can check us out,
leave a comment on Facebook as well, follow us on Twitter,
and of course we always have our old blog Stuff
I've Never Told You at how stuff works dot com.
For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
(19:05):
how staff works dot com. Want more how stuff works,
check out our blogs on the house stuff works dot
com home page. Brought to you by the reinvented two
thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff mom never told you?
From House to works dot Com. Hello, this is Molly.
Welcome to the podcast. And I'm Kristen Christ. And they
(00:20):
were going to talk about something called the G factor.
And it's not what you think it is. It's not
that G. Y'all. Get your minds out of the gutter
right now and then put them right back in. Today
we're going to talk about sperm and this and the
G factor. But the G in this case is general intelligence.
And then it is a variable that is sort of
(00:41):
used across across the board in terms of, uh this
fitness quality known as intelligence because they're thinking that intelligent
people tend to do pretty good in life, tend to
take care of themselves. Yeah, they think it's a marker
of good genetics. And uh so they've they've studied, they've
studied intelligence a lot, you know, kind of trying to
(01:03):
figure out whether or not you can inherit intelligence, whether
or not kind of runs in your bloodline things like that,
or in your sperm or in your spur. Which is
why we're gonna talk today a lot about semen. Now,
the reason why we are talking about intelligence and semen
is because we came across the study entitled intelligence and
semen quality are positively correlated. And this is when it
(01:25):
just really pays off to host a podcast called stuff
Mom and or Tology, because it was really the highlight
of my week, Kristen, to get an email from you saying,
look at the study about intelligence and semen quality. Yeah,
because we we have talked about this guy, Jeffrey Miller.
He did a study that we've talked about a couple
of times about how strippers who are not on birth
(01:45):
control and who are also opulating getting more tips than
strippers who are not opulating. So Jeffrey Miller knows this stuff,
and so we were naturally when you a title of
study intelligence and semen quality was really correlated, Jeffrey Miller,
we are going to get right on that. Yes. So,
the reason why Jeffrey Miller and his colleagues were interested
in looking at intelligence and seeming quality because it might
(02:08):
seem like those are two sort of disjointed ideas, or
at least kind of disjointed on the body. You know,
once at the top ones more in the middle Well.
And also, I mean you think of that old expression
like he's just thinking with his peanuts. I mean that's
marker of saying, oh, you know, he's not. But apparently
here we've got two disparate things linked. Yeah, and so
(02:29):
so Miller and his colleagues they're trying to get at
cognitive correlates to positive health outcomes because there have been
studies about how more intelligent people tend to be healthier.
They obviously don't smoke as much, they tend to drink less,
they tend to eat better and live longer, all of
(02:49):
this kind of stuff. So they're wondering if there's if
there any biological underpinnings to that, right, I mean, is
it is intelligence basically passed down because these people are
the most fit evolutionarily? I mean that that's sort of
how evolution works. You think that the best primed people
to live the longest will pass on their genes. Are
(03:10):
they doing that via sperm? Yeah? And this all also
gets into kind of the nature versus nurture question, and
I like this this comes up a lot um. Miller
describes all of this as a matrix, like what is
this human matrix of intelligence? Versus health. Right, So the
way they did this study, and uh, we read quite
(03:31):
a few studies on this, and you know, you can,
I guess kind of make quibbles with how the study went.
You know, they're different. I don't think researchers have quite
found the perfect way to study semen yet. Yeah, apparently,
you know, if you need to research something semen, research
harder than it might sound. So let me explain how
this study worked, because you know it's one of those
things where you're gonna have to kind of, I think,
(03:52):
make a judgment on how you feel about this particular methodology.
What they did is they had UM the Vietnam Experience Study,
which was conducted by the CDC in that was when
four thousand, four hundred sixty two veterans underwent extensive medical
and mental examinations and of those at the time, five
d seventy one had provided semen samples. So what they
(04:14):
did was they looked at four and twenty five of
those samples, and uh, what they had was a pool
of men that were age thirty one to forty four,
various races, but predominantly white. UM. And they kind of knew,
you know, a few things about these men because they
had undergone sort of this whole battery of testing which
allowed them to make exceptions for you know, environmental factors
(04:36):
like smoking. Uh, they were able to kind of figure
out how long the men have been in Vietnam and
what they might have been exposed to mental disorders, right,
and so, but they also had intelligence testing for these men.
So what they did is they compared the intelligence battery
testing to UH three semen measures UH sperm concentration, sperm count,
(04:58):
and sperm motility, which just basically whether your sperm can
move in a in a in a forward direction towards
a goal. Is it? Is it vibrus sperm? Yes, sperm
motility learned a new term myself during this research. And
if you score well on these factors, if you've got
you know, very mobile sperm and you've got a lot
(05:19):
of it, then that's what they're gonna deem high quality sperm,
because that's the sperm that's gonna get a woman pregnant
as opposed to more sluggish sperm, fewer sperm and a sample.
That's what they're talking about when they say that sperm
is quality. Yes. And I found a statistically significant correlation
between these highly mobile sperm a k a. High quality semen,
(05:44):
and high intelligence scores. So that allowed them to make
the statement that the strongest influence on intelligence differences in
adulthood is genetic. You know, if you're thinking nature versus
nurture um score one for nature and this idea that
you know, the people who can most effectively pass on
their seat and get a woman pregnant are the people
(06:05):
who are intelligent, have lived longer, who make good health choices.
I mean, not every smart person makes good health choices,
but you know, they were able, like we said, to
exempt those factors people who had abused alcohol or cigarettes
or drugs, and what they were left with was the
people who had chosen to make really good decisions regarding
their health, and they had really good sperm. And I mean, like,
(06:27):
you know, it's not an accident that we also we
want a smart guy. It's because it seems that he's
going to give us better babies. And the tone in
the in the study too, when you when you read
it is that the researchers were almost skeptical of their
own findings, saying, you know, making the connection between smarts
and semens seems like a pretty kind of tenuous connection
(06:49):
to draw and so they even went back and looked
even closer at this because they said, Okay, we've got
this correlation, but what on earth could be going on
in the body. How could how could sperm and your
neurons in your brain somehow be connected. There has to
be some kind of you know, connecting factor in the body.
(07:10):
So they went back and published an article addendum called
wise intelligence Correlated with seemin Quality to address all of this,
and they found some similar biochemical pathways between neuron development
and sperm function. Yeah, this is just fascinating to read,
and I I'm probably going to oversimplify it, and I'm
sorry for that, but we'll put it up on our blog.
(07:33):
But essentially, neurons and sperm are very similar. UM. For example,
they both have high concentrations of polyunsaturated batty acid pasofas
relative to other body tissues. And that these UM batty
acids are so important in nerve development function and maintaining
all those neurons in the brain. UM it's a mark
(07:56):
of all land mammals, including humans, So uh they knew
it was essential to the brain. And then regarding semen,
the difference between uh an immature germ cell and a
mature spermatozoa. Guess what it is. Polyunsaturated batty acids PUFAs.
Poufa's during sperm development are just crucial to developing a
(08:17):
good sperm. And here's the thing. A mutation that um
negatively affects the poufa's and therefore the sperm will also
negatively affect neuron development. So there we go. You get
the low quality sperm, you're the lower quality neurons, and
vice versa. And then in this article donehom they provide,
(08:37):
you know, two or three more examples of ways in
which the brain and semen used the same bodily functions,
the same ingredients. Uh, you know, it's just the same
things that go into good brain function go into good
semen development. And it was I've never read anything that
made that connection like that before. I mean, it kind
(08:59):
of u sort of make you think to oversimplify it dramatically,
that expression that I mentioned earlier about thinking with with
your penis has some sort of biological basis. And this
also is not to say that men of lower intelligence
are rendered infertile, you know, I mean they they're really
just more looking at this subset of men who do
have high i Q scores and looking at their sperm.
(09:21):
Like you said, yeah, it's not the opposite does not
prove true yet. But once we we found this pair
of studies and then all of a sudden, we had
this research domino effect take place, and we would like
to invite you along for for this little, this little
journey that we took. Okay, because where are we right now?
We're as semen and intelligence. Okay, but semen high quality
(09:44):
semen also correlated two looks. And maybe this sounds like,
maybe it sounds obvious, because I mean when you when
you watch these shows and maybes about women going to
like a sperm donor or looking for a sp sperm donor, honously,
I want someone who's handsome and alligen, et cetera. But
the fact of the matter is is that when we
were looking at these studies, they were all dated within
(10:06):
the last if not year or so, the last five years.
So this is a fairly new research of study, to
the point that one of the literature literature reviews we're
reading basically gave the SmackDown to some of these methodologies
and was like, we need a lot more studies on semen, right,
because a lot of times when researchers need to study semen,
where do they go. They go to fertility clinics, and
so you start off right there. It might not be
(10:27):
the most representative population sample because a lot of times
this is um semen coming from men who might have
had fertility issues in the past. But going back to
this um handsomeness correlation. UM, there was a study from
the University of Valencia in Spain and they found a
(10:48):
correlation between uh faster sperm those very what it was
molly the sperm motility, excellent sperm motility, and faces men
of faces most attractive to women. Like they basically had
women come in check out pictures of men, rate the
ones they found most attractive, and then kind of took
(11:09):
the most attractive ones, checked out their sperm low and behold,
they got some good swimmers, right. But this was an
interesting aspect of these findings too. While they have a
lot of good swimmers, there was no relationship between how
handsome the men were in the concentration of sperm. So
you might have like, you know, like ten really great
(11:30):
swimmers in there, but it's not necessarily like jam packed
there seems not necessarily jam packed with sperm, not like
the intelligent guys, because that's I mean, in that first
day we were talking about those men. Could we all
meet all of those qualifications in terms of quantity and motility,
the brains in a way winning out over beauty. But
then then research starts to snowball because there was kind
(11:53):
of a counter study to this, saying I'm not so
sure that semen quality and men's attractiveness are really that correlated.
But this took place in Australia. This was serving Australian
men as opposed to the Spanish men who were surveying
in the in the first study. So based on these
two studies, we found we have sort of an interesting
(12:14):
competition going on between Spanish men Australian men because the
Australian men didn't have that despite being as handsome as
the Spanish. Yes, that's a very handsome men. Yeah, we're
not dissing either either countries. Men take no offense, but
your sperm is different. Yeah. But again, like we said,
(12:35):
you've got to look at the methodology because people are
not quite convinced we've got the best way to collect
sperm yet. And when you continue researching sperm quality. All
of these studies on sperm quality, there are other factors
obviously that go into whether or not, you know, semen
is chock full of highly mobile or sperm or not
(12:57):
so much. For instance, there's been research done saying that
once men hit around the age of twenty, their sperm
count starts to diminish a little bit. Some think that
antioxidants have an impact, like the more an accident rich
diet men have been, the richer their semen is. All
of these different factors going into well and even to
go back to this first day we were talking about
(13:18):
with intelligence, um, the one with the v A men. Uh.
They were told to have stained from ejaculating for several
days and you know, they have no way of knowing
whether the men actually did that, but there was some
sort of hypothesis that if these men truly were intelligent,
that they would have had the ability to follow instructions
and not do that. But I mean, obviously the amount
(13:39):
of time between your last ejaculation effects how much sperm
is in your semens exactly. They're all these different variables,
which is probably why you mentioned that literature review that
we found analyzing all these different sperm studies saying, oh
my gosh, we need to go back and we need
to find a better way to study semen essentially, And
it's kind of funny because for for all these thousands
(14:02):
of years, semen has kept the world turning and have
the human species here and we're just kind of getting
to the bottom of it. And the thing about it is, Molly,
the last podcast we recorded involved so many studies looking
at every different angle of women and ovulation and how
that affects us. I mean, there are just journals devoted
(14:26):
to that egg dropping, that fallopian two, the craziness that
happens afterward. Semen. It's just now starting to step into
the spotlight. Really it is. And uh, you know that
I think it'll be an interesting research field. I guess
to keep an eye on. That sounds weird to say,
and specialists Jeffrey Miller, man, he's breaking new ground. I
know this has been Jeffrey Miller week on the podcast.
(14:47):
I hope Jeffrey Miller, here's this podcast, and I hope
we explained your study right. So if you do hear this,
But um, you know, it's like I said, it does
seem odd that there in one way, it does seem
out that there says about this because you know, women
who have gone to clinics looking for a firm downer
do look for these factors. But and you know, obviously
if you ask them on what she wants, she probably
(15:08):
said someone who I find attractive and who I find intelligent. There,
you know there's a reason for it. Even though it
might seem as more aesthetic and about companionship, it might
actually just be because we know that those people can
give us really good children. We're looking for that, um,
the best matrix. Going back to the fitness factor, uh,
(15:29):
that that different researchers are kind of trying to unravel
and see what all goes into it. So maybe, you know,
maybe intelligence and semen maybe that's a that's an interesting
starting point. So we would like to hear what you
all think about this idea of intelligence and and semen
quality and all of the other correlates, because again, I
(15:51):
think a lot of these researchers kind of make these claims,
but also a little with a little hesitation, because it
does seem like a pretty huge conclusion to draw. So
let us know your thoughts, mom stuff at hell stuffworks
dot com or posted up on our Facebook page. All right,
I've got a listener email from someone who did not
(16:13):
want to be named, and I'm just gonna summarize her
emails since there are some distinguishing factors in there, but
basically it's about one of our older podcasts about sororities,
and we were talking about hazing and all the different
forms that hazing can take. And this particular listener lived
through and experience where she was hazed pretty badly and
as a result, quit the sorority and disaffiliated, and uh,
(16:37):
became re quainted about the sorority because she was still
upset about what was going on, was worried about girls
who might be getting expelled or would be in serious,
you know, physical danger, and so she went through the
process of testifying against her sorority. And uh, long story short,
just wanted to tell our listeners about a website called
(16:59):
www dot Stop hazing dot org because she found it
very helpful in terms of getting help and getting the
word out about hazing and trying to bring it into it.
So stop hazing dot org. All right, and for a
some more kind of public awareness um emails, we got
(17:19):
one from Jennifer in response to our episode on rape
kits and Jennifer has been working with people over the
last six years working with people who have experienced rape
and sexual violence as a medical advocate, hotline worker, and
account sort at a rape crisis center, and she just
had a few more things to throw out there in
terms of what to do if you are raped or
(17:41):
sexually assaulted, and she says, calling UM the rain hotline,
which is one eight hundred six five six hope will
automatically direct a college to the closest rape rape crisis
hotline in her area code is or her area code,
I should say UM. She also says, if you've changed
your clothes since an assault, please place them in a
paper not plastic bag when you bring them into the hospital.
(18:02):
I can't remember the science behind it, but it keeps
any potential evidence fresher if you will. She says, if
you're still wearing the clothes you are assaulted in, try
to find someone who can bring you a new outfit.
You might want to hand over what you were wearing
for evidence, and it can take a while to get
it back. She says, bring a friend if you can
to the hospital and the e R visits can take
a very very long time and This is her last
(18:24):
tip that she put in bold. She says, it is
never ever too late to talk about and heal from
great and sexual violence, even if it's been decades. There's
someone who's willing to listen and care. Please call and
ask for support. Contrary to what many people fear, asking
for help is a sign of courage and strength, not
weakness for instability. So thank you so much, Jennifer for
(18:45):
the good advice. Um again, our email is mom Stuff
at how stuff works dot com. You can check us out,
leave a comment on Facebook as well, follow us on Twitter,
and of course we always have our old blog Stuff
I've Never Told You at how stuff works dot com.
For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
(19:05):
how staff works dot com. Want more how stuff works,
check out our blogs on the house stuff works dot
com home page. Brought to you by the reinvented two
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