Blog

Reflections after ISS 2018

By |2018-06-19T11:22:04+02:0019 Jun 2018|Blog|

Three participants at XIII International Symposium on Spermatology explain to us their thoughts on the event: Prof Gerhard van der Horst, Prof Stefan du Plessis and Dr Liana Maree. Representing your country and institution at any international conference is always a great honour, but with that also comes a [...]

Rabbit sperm

By |2022-08-30T11:50:54+02:0014 May 2018|Blog|

Not Easter bunnies or hares, but rabbit reproduction and sperm Fig. 1: Captive bred rabbits There is a new focus on rabbits in terms of their so called prolific breeding rate, huge demand for rabbit meat production globally, but also ethical issues in terms of animal experimentation in medical research. [...]

Manatee sperm

By |2018-04-11T16:55:19+02:0011 Abr 2018|Blog|

Sperm analysis of West Indian manatee by University of Florida Aquatic Animal Health Program team using SCA® CASA System Fig. 1: West Indian manatee from Florida. Modified from National Geographic. The West Indian manatee (Trichechus manatus spp.) is a large herbivorous mammalian species (average length 3 meter and weight 500 [...]

SCA Tricks

By |2018-03-14T17:21:52+01:0014 Mar 2018|Blog|

Tricks for optimizing the analysis of sperms with the SCA     1. The presence of bubbles inside the counting chamber may alter the results obtained by your SCA. This occurs when: a) Non-optimal counting chambers are used for automatic analysis. b) The counting chamber is not filled in correctly. - Micropipettes [...]

Rat sperm morphology

By |2018-02-14T17:01:10+01:0014 Feb 2018|Blog|

Not of Mice and Men but Rat sperm morphology quantified In a previous Microptic blog in 2015, we reported on the SCA TOX system of Microptic and its uses in reproductive toxicology testing. It was further indicated that tailor made modules exist for sperm motility, vitality, fragmentation and that in principle it [...]

Questioning abstinence periods

By |2018-01-18T17:04:50+01:0018 Ene 2018|Blog|

Better sperm motility and kinematics after short vs. long ejaculatory abstinence It has long been observed that semen volume, sperm concentration and total sperm counts increase with increasing duration of abstinence; However, recent studies suggest that there is a paradoxical improvement of sperm motility and kinematic parameters with shorter abstinence periods. [...]

Sperm functionality

By |2017-11-15T11:05:21+01:0015 Nov 2017|Blog|

Sperm functionality: Importance in assessing sperm quality, fertilization success and live birth outcome The WHO5 manual (2010) for semen analysis in 2010 sparked a great deal of debate. Perhaps the most important aspects emerging from the debate was that specific “single value” cut-off points are not useful to distinguish between “good and [...]