The Case for Male Birth Control
Uncanny Valley | WIRED29 Maalis 2019

The Case for Male Birth Control

Hormonal male contraception is not a new idea––in fact, researchers have been working on solutions for men the pill was invented for women. But early tests around male contraceptives were inconclusive, and as birth control pills exploded, interest in a male version of this waned.

A new male contraceptive gel, one that reduces sperm count, could change that. It’s been in the works for more than a decade, WIRED’s Arielle Pardes reports this week, and it looks promising. Even if the gel eventually make its way to pharmacies, though, there may still be societal hurdles to overcome. And survey results are mixed, Arielle tells us on this week’s Gadget Lab podcast: Some men indicate they would be reluctant to use birth control, while others are for it.

Also on this week’s pod, Mike, Lauren, and Arielle discuss all of the news announced at Apple’s services-focused event on Monday. You could say it was an unusual presentation, as far as Apple events go. But on the upside: Oprah was there.

Show notes: You can read Arielle’s story about the clinical trials of the latest male contraceptive gel, called NES/T, here. Here’s everything that was announced during Monday’s Apple event. Lauren Goode and Peter Rubin also wrote a story about the real choice you make when you’re using Apple’s services.

Recommendations: Arielle recommends the Day One journaling app. Lauren recommends Square’s Cash app for peer-to-peer payments. Mike recommends season 2 of the Broken Record podcast, particularly the episode with Questlove.

Send the Gadget Lab hosts feedback on their personal Twitter feeds. Arielle Pardes can be found at @pardesoteric. Lauren Goode is @laurengoode. Michael Calore can be found at @snackfight.

Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. Our theme song is by Solar Keys.

Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Jaksot(433)

Alex Kipman’s Holographic Tendencies

Alex Kipman’s Holographic Tendencies

Microsoft just unveiled a brand new product, but it really doesn’t want to hype it. That’s according to Alex Kipman, technical fellow at Microsoft who is credited with inventing Kinect and HoloLens. K...

1 Maalis 201952min

You’ve Got to Know When to Fold ‘Em

You’ve Got to Know When to Fold ‘Em

At its flagship phone event this week in San Francisco, Samsung announced not one but four different versions of the new Galaxy S10: A phone with a 6.1-inch display, a plus-sized model, a “less expens...

23 Helmi 201942min

The Treacherous Allure of OG Usernames

The Treacherous Allure of OG Usernames

Product designer and internet native Chris Messina was lucky enough to snag the username @chris on Instagram back when Instagram was known as Burbn, and, like all of his early usernames, it became a p...

15 Helmi 201959min

The App Smackdown

The App Smackdown

Move fast and break app store rules: That very well may have been Facebook’s motto for awhile now, only, we’re just learning about it this week. After TechCrunch reported that Facebook was sidesteppin...

1 Helmi 201949min

Amazon Delivery Bots Are Here

Amazon Delivery Bots Are Here

Kids are particularly terrible for robots. At least, that’s what researchers in Japan discovered when they let a robot roam around a shopping center in Osaka in 2015. A group of kids antagonized the r...

25 Tammi 201942min

Nike’s Truly Smart Sneakers

Nike’s Truly Smart Sneakers

Self-lacing sneakers have been the dream since Marty McFly first rocked Nike MAGs in 1989, but most attempts at turning shoe leather into smart sneakers have been expensive, produced in small batches,...

19 Tammi 201946min

The Best of CES

The Best of CES

We came. We saw. We touched a lot of gadgets. This week was the annual CES, one of the world’s largest consumer electronics show, and WIRED’s team was on the ground covering all of the top tech trends...

12 Tammi 201952min

The Year in Tech, in One Word

The Year in Tech, in One Word

If you had to sum up the year in tech in one word, what word would you choose? That’s what we at the Gadget Lab asked ourselves as we looked to somehow recap a year’s worth of tech-related drama in ap...

21 Joulu 201849min