From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Sat Nov 24 2001 - 10:54:24 MST
Mike Linksvayer wrote:
> There should be an _option_ for both sexes to be sterilized
> (especially men, vasectomy is much less invasive and easier to
> reverse than tubal ligation) just before reproduction is possible.
What you want is to be able to reversably program the immune
system to produce antibodies to the key surface proteins that
allow sperm to bind to eggs. If you can disrupt binding you
should be able to prevent fertilization. Interfering at that
point would be least disruptive of hormone functions I suspect.
> Reversal technology is improving rapidly, and should be more than
> ready for today's youth once they are ready in all senses to
> reproduce and parent in a couple decades.
Obviously nanobots programmed to block the tubes would be highly
desirable (or you could have the nanobots physically digest the
eggs or sperm).
> Caveat: I don't know how early sterilization could be done
> without disrupting development, and I doubt much research
> has been done to find out.
Probably not much, but I suspect some research into genes that
result in defective sexual maturation would yield some insights.
Interestingly enough, delaying sexual maturation may have some
interesting anti-aging effects as it seems that many of the
"aging" related "pathologies" begin with sexual maturity.
This makes evolutionary sense as one switches resources
from growing to reproductive size to actually reproducing.
Robert
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