With the recession grinding into its 17th official month, a lot of things are on sale right now – including male sex cells.

In a move unprecedented in its history, Xytex, one of the oldest sperm and tissue banks in the U.S., is offering a steep discount on sperm: up to $200 off, for a net price of between $250 and $350 per vial.

Unfortunately, the discount only applies to sperm from donors with large inventory, thanks to multiple donations and/or an unusually high sperm count and quality.

"We're all feeling the effects of the economy and, especially for families seeking reproductive options, every dollar counts, " Xytex spokesperson Danielle Moores told AFP, explaining why the company took the step.

Our buddies over at PopSci have just put up a surprisingly accessible video (given its subject matter) that uses Super Mario to explain the multiverse.

Click on the above and you'll find a fairly succinct explanation of the many-worlds hypothesis, as illustrated by a modified version of that classic Nintendo game.

For something a little more in-depth, you can check out our 50th anniversary (of the many-worlds hypothesis) feature package that appeared in December of last year (subscribers only), or last november's feature on new evidence for the multiple-worlds hypothesis (free!)

As Abby Seiff, the author of PopSci's article on the subject, puts it:

You're unique. Aren't you? One of the more creative hypotheses surrounding quantum mechanics posits the exact opposite. Though we can readily see only one world, quantum mechanics says that when we're not observing the particles that make up that world, those particles exist in multiple places at once.... In this John Pavlus edit of a postsilence video, the 134 overlaid playthroughs represent the manifold possibilities Mario encounters as he progresses through his world.

This kind of meaningless bloviation comes from the ideologically-driven disinformation machine so often that it's hardly worth highlighting here, except that this is a particularly egregious example of it.

(And those of you who think I'm unfairly picking on the political right need only examine our coverage of the Thimerosal = Autism controversy and Genetically Modified Food issue to realize that the left is just as susceptible to this sort of nonsense, and just as wont to be called out by this publication.)

Yesterday both Rush Limbaugh and Fox News reported that last year was so much cooler than previous years that it contravenes any evidence of Global Warming (or Climate Change, if you prefer.)

At Scientific American, we don't just make science media; we're also, of necessity and by choice, avid consumers of it.

We sit around making catty comments about Wired Science the way most people dissect celebrity outfits at the Oscars. We admire or dismiss the latest issues of our comrades' magazines, and we perk up when other publications redesign their websites or make questionable decisions.

So I was happy to see that the Discovery Channel, which often defines science so loosely that they lose me completely (but who get points for bringing to this shore the BBC's utterly awesome Planet Earth series, which possibly got even better with the replacement of David Attenborough as the narrator with Sigourney Weaver), have decided to take the high road with their new show (mostly).

We already knew that corn ethanol is, at best, only a little better, emissions-wise, than plain old gasoline.

Now a study in Science indicates that biofuels are even worse, in terms of the net CO2 they're going to pump into the atmosphere, than the gasoline we're already putting into our cars. Mostly because of land-use changes.

"Prior analyses made an accounting error," says one study's lead author, Tim Searchinger, an agricultural expert at Princeton University. "There is a huge imbalance between the carbon lost by plowing up a hectare [2.47 acres] of forest or grassland from the benefit you get from biofuels."

-- Biofuels Are Bad for Feeding People and Combating Climate Change | Scientific American

Which raises the question -- if biofuels are a nightmare and universal adoption of electric vehicles is decades away, doesn't that make plain old petrochemicals the greenest "alternative" fuel out there?

Are you a Giants fan? Are you feeling good today? It could be the testosterone boost you got from vicariously participating in the Giants' miraculous late-game win in Sunday's Super Bowl.

This effect has been known about for quite some time -- a 1998 paper by University of Utah researchers Berhardt et al. demonstrated that beyond its effects on mood and self esteem, watching your team win not only boosts your testosterone level, but also decreases the levels of circulating testosterone in the fans of the losing team.

Because testosterone, long linked to violence, now appears to have much more to do with social dominance -- here's an article I wrote on the subject last year -- it's hardly surprising that these changes in hormone levels can affect not only a fan's post game euphoria (or depression) but also their future behavior.

Things are really starting to heat up over at Sciam's freewheeling new news firehose, 60 Second Science. Here's what you're missing:

James Watson might be 16% black; gods of irony shout,"BUUURN!"

Voyager 2 leaves solar system, looking forward to 'new projects with Diddy'

Atlantis shuttle crew fends off giant arachnid

OMG-we-wish-we-were-kidding-dept: Airborne pig brain matter may cause neurological disorder in pork industry workers

How Saturn's 'UFO' Moons formed [video]

Social psychologists from the University of Granada found that bosses who feel insecure or unqualified to hold their position often choose to hire and surround themselves with less competent people.

Continue reading "Think your boss is an idiot?" at our new site, 60SecondScience.com >

I'm proud to announce that Scientific American just launched a new site.

It's not under the same domain name, because, well, it's a bit of a departure. Hopefully in a good way. Think of it as the Old Navy to Scientific American's Banana Republic. (Does that make sciam.com the Gap? Does anyone else besides me know that they're all owned by the same company?)

Inspired by Steve Mirsky's hit podcast 60 Second Science, which is now available at its new home on its own channel at the new site, as well as via an in-page player on the homepage and, for those of you who are so inclined, via a new 60 Second Science widget...

I bring you the greatest hits of the first couple weeks of life of 60secondscience.com:

Watson has done the wise thing and decided to distance himself from his by all appearances much-beloved Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. A statement from the board lauded his 40 years of service, during which he "[transformed] a small facility into one of the world's great education and research institutions."

Simultaneously, he released a statement of his own, in which he declared "That the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory is now one of the world's premier sites for biological research and education has long warmed my heart."

Watson's statement did not directly address his comments to the Sunday Times (of London) about Africans and African Americans that set off this firestorm, but earlier this week he apologized, saying that he was surprised by what he was quoted as saying, and that "there is no scientific basis for such a belief."