"Speculative theories range from the mundane (carrying cellphones in front pockets) to the far-fetched (depleted uranium from exploded munitions)."

Strange. Depleted uranium is almost certainly a better guess than cellphones. The health effects of DU are pretty well understood, while cellphone radiation is in the realm of quackery.

Environmental depleted uranium is far-fetched because there isn't very much of it, it is not retained or accumulated in the body, it tends not to move through the environment, and compared to many other elements widely found in the environment it has a lower health risk, both radiologically and chemically.

For example, thorium in the environment is a much greater health risk and far more common as well. One of the problems with studies of environmental non-depleted (read: worse) uranium exposure is that results tend to be dominated by effects of environmental thorium such that any effects from uranium are below the noise floor.

Depleted uranium is a pretty harmless environmental contaminant as heavy metals go. In the US we routinely dump thousands of tons of uranium around population centers in the form of coal ash. There are small but measurable health risks to living around coal ash, but those risks are attributed almost entirely to other components of coal ash (like the aforementioned thorium).

Environmental contamination by industrial organic chemicals is vastly more probable than uranium as a cause.

The article states that many of the sperm donors are IDF soldiers. I'd imagine their exposure to DU is a bit more intense than environmental background noise.

You sound so sure of yourself with regards to DU. Do have a PhD in it?

I went to school for chemistry and chemical engineering. This is pretty elementary environmental chemistry, no PhD required.

There are an enormous number of popular myths about the toxicity, non-toxicity, and comparative toxicity of many elements and chemicals. Understanding the actual risks are part of a chemist's job. Most people lack the chemistry education required to put claims about particular chemicals into context, so their intuitions about the relative health risks of chemicals are often wildly incorrect. Many ubiquitous household items are much more of a health risk than DU, both chemically and as a radionuclide, but no one worries about it.

When the DU shell explodes upon impact or fired through a barrel, it oxidizes and if inhaled can pose a severe health risk. There's lots of news articles on illnesses caused by DU.

> The health effects of DU are pretty well understood, while cellphone radiation is in the realm of quackery

I think you are confused. Claims that cell phone radiation causes brain cancer may be borderline quackery, but we aren't talking about the brain or cancer here. There's plenty of evidence that phones near testicles can be bad. A couple references:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19076254

http://www.clevelandclinic.org/reproductiveresearchcenter/do...

As someone that had a lot of fun there for a year:

The ministry of health & the media are constantly scaring the easy-minded. Bottled water in plastic bottles is your instant death for example. Cellphones? Yeah, they boil you. A lot (as in, I've never seen anyone do that before I went to Tel Aviv and saw lots of people over there do that all the time) of people talk with their smart phone extended in front of them, via speaker. Shouting (and sharing the partner's voice with the world). The people that I actually interviewed why this would _ever_ make sense said that radiation from phones is far too dangerous near your head..

I loved my stay, I'm still sad that I left. But a couple of (mostly health related) ideas shocked me nearly out of existance. I had a bunch of environmental/health related moments of utter, painful disbelief.

"But a couple of (mostly health related) ideas shocked me nearly out of existance."

Can you expand on this? Ware these ideas in Israel that shocked you?

"Strange. Depleted uranium is almost certainly a better guess than cellphones"

Especially given the several tonnes that have been embedded in the ground (and Palestinians) around Gaza. General conscription means radioactive fun for everyone!

Before going too far with this hypothesis, its worth considering that general conscription doesn't mean that everyone has combat experience in Gaza - there are a lot of people whose military service involves office work, or patrolling quiet borders, etc. It may be that this sperm bank has a high proportion of combat veterans because getting into a top combat unit is something that many of the best male Israeli high school students aspire to, but in general, a lot of people serve in the IDF in positions that wouldn't expose them to DU.

This is especially true of older people doing their mandatory reserve service. My understanding is that if you have a particular skill, the IDF will find a way to use that. Actors get reserve duty entertaining soldiers, professors get reserve duty in the IDF education department, etc.

> General conscription means radioactive fun for everyone!

Depleted uranium isn't a radiation risk.

If you can't be bothered to get simple scientific facts correct, why should I think that you're accurate on other things?

> If you can't be bothered to get simple scientific facts correct, why should I think that you're accurate on other things?

Ahem.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium#Radiological_h...

If you can't react like a mature adult, why should I think that you can debate like one?

A description of "the radiation risk" does not imply that there is a radiation risk.

At some level, lead is radioactive. So is coal. So is atmospheric carbon. However, we don't consider any of these radiation risk. (They're instances of a more general rule, namely that almost everything is radioactive, which means that we can talk about the radiation risk of almost anything.)

That's why your reference didn't talk about radiation dangers associated with depleted uranium.

I agree. A simple search on Fallujah Children and Depleted Uranium yields some truly shocking pictures. I just wonder how far and wide the winds have taken and are taking this uranium oxide dust. People who say DU is no risk are totally off their rocker.

Is "the white-coated director of the Hadassah Sperm Bank [...]" some attempt at a pun, or am I just tired enough to be inventing one where there's nothing to be found? :)

"There's also a political aspect, because birthrates among Arabs in Israel have at times been as much as double those of Jews, triggering a population race that some believe could one day affect who controls the land."

What problem is there in Arabs "controlling" the land?

This question veers off into a political conversation that's off-topic for HN, so I'll stick to a factual answer and leave it at that: Israel is currently defined as "a Jewish and Democratic State".

Your anti-anti-semitism has no place in modern society!

Without the snark, I can only say that the racism and ethnic superiority complex of the ruling portion of the Israeli population is startling considering the last 100 years of history. I've met many Israelis who say "I don't feel that way or agree with what goes on," but I've only met a few who have actually spoken out against it in a meaningful fashion.

I'm not sure I understand how they are measuring quality in these sperm. The article mentions that they are now rejecting 80% of their candidates based on the simple fact that their sperm is not up to the same standards they set years ago.

What if their standards are flawed? Is there scientific proof that straight-moving and quick sperm is of higher 'quality' or 'healthier'? Is the sperm bank promising me a strong child that will grow tall or what is this quality metric in fact measuring?

They are measuring sperm motility, which is a way to gauge the sperm's ability to fertilize an egg.

So they measure every spermatozoid's motility? It seems like a daunting task.

The solution is fairly easy: start importing it