contraceptives
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Contraceptive app under fire for causing unwanted pregnancies
A contraceptive app used by more than 500,000 women has come under fire after reportedly causing 37 unwanted pregnancies. Stockholm's Södersjukhuset hospital has now reported the Natural Cycles app to the Swedish Medical Products Agency (the government body tasked with the regulation of medical devices) according to news outlet SVT.
Gates Foundation: Empowering women is key to fighting poverty
In 2006, Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffet donated $31 billion in company stock to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. As a way of outlining just what the Gates family did with the "single biggest gift anyone ever gave anybody for anything," the couple have penned a lengthy report. The big takeaway is that the most impact will come from social change -- not tech. Considering where Bill Gates worked, that might surprise you.
Injectable male contraceptive tested successfully on monkeys
It's 2017, and male birth control methods haven't really advanced beyond the vasectomy -- a procedure that's been performed since the 1800s -- or condoms. That's what makes Vasalgel so intriguing. It's a "potentially" reversible method that uses gel to chemically incapacitate sperm as they pass through the vas deferens. It doesn't stop sperm production, and, like with a vasectomy, the swimmers are just absorbed into the body. In a recent experiment, male rhesus monkeys given the treatment didn't sire any offspring during a year-long study.
Birth control for men comes down to flipping a switch
Birth control for men still tends to be divided between condoms (which aren't always fun or reliable) and more drastic surgical procedures like vasectomies (which are frequently permanent). Not exactly ideal, is it? However, inventor Clemens Bimek thinks he can make it just a matter of flipping a switch. His Bimek SLV project uses tiny, switchable valve implants to prevent sperm from entering the semen stream. If everything goes well, you'd have surefire contraception without dulling sensations or ruling out children altogether -- you'd just have to switch it off the moment you're ready to try for kids.
