Pretty well every IT news site worth its salt has in the last week reported on the chilling conclusions of a report in the Oxford Journals online into the long-term effects of laptop use on male fertility.

To summarise, laptops roast your gonads and that will be an end to your reproductive career unless you take immediate action to rectify the situation. Here is the spine-tingling abstract of the boffins’ testicular probe:

Scrotal hyperthermia has been identified as a risk factor for male infertility. Laptop computers (LC) have become part of a contemporary lifestyle and have gained popularity among the younger population of reproductive age. LC are known to reach high internal operating temperatures. We evaluated the thermal effect of LC on the scrotum. METHODS: Right and left scrotal temperature (ScT) was measured in 29 healthy volunteers in two separate 60 min sessions. ScT was recorded from thermocouples on a digital datalogger every 3 min with the working LC in a laptop position and in the same sitting position with approximated thighs without LC. RESULTS: ScT increased significantly on the right and left side in the group with working LC (2.8°C and 2.6°C, respectively; P<0001) and without LC (2.1°C, P<0.0001). However, ScT elevation with working LC was significantly higher (P<0.0001). CONCLUSIONS: Working LC in a laptop position causes significant ScT elevation as a result of heat exposure and posture-related effects. Long-term exposure to LC-related repetitive transient scrotal hyperthermia is a modern lifestyle feature that may have a negative impact upon spermatogenesis, specifically in teenage boys and young men. Further studies of such thermal effects on male reproductive health are warranted.

Crikey. Naturally, there is a solution at hand. And it’s not, as you might imagine, putting the computer on a table, because the emissions from these things can apparently penetrate 18ft of lead shielding sandwiched between 4ft of concrete. Chernobyl? Pah!

Nope. The real solution is to buy a Lapdesk computer pad by Port Technologies, allegedly guaranteed to keep your sperm motile, eager and ready for conceptive action. We'd give you a pointer in the direction of this technological wonder but there wasn't a link in the press release and after 11 seconds on Google we lost interest in the whole thing.

And here's why - what on earth is wrong with infertile laptop users anyway? We can view the whole process as a sort of technogical natural selection whereby self-important IT journalists*, keyboard-hammering suits shouting into mobes aboard trains and pizza-scoffing propellorheads tweaking their Linux OSes would be - over a generation or so - completely eliminated from the face of the earth, thereby leaving the planet's limited natural resources entirely at the disposal of car manufacturers and flatscreen TV developers. Think about it.

Bootnote

*Myself included, before the flame warriors unsheath their CAPS LOCKS. I've got enough bloody kids anyway.

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