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Whats one thing most Americans likely dont know? Demand for donor sperm is increasing. Initially established in the 1970s to help men undergoing vasectomies and facing cancer treatments, sperm banks today support people facing a wide range of challenges on their path to pregnancy. Alongside heterosexual couples dealing with infertility issues like azoospermia and young men facing cancer diagnosis, single mothers by choice, and same-sex couples are frequently turning to sperm banks in hopes of building their family. With approximately 1,500 sperm donors serving the entire United States, a new sperm bank, Premier Sperm Bank, is venturing to address modern family building needs with a commitment to research and ethically-minded practices. I caught up with John Jain, MD, the sperm banks founder, to understand more about the future of family building with donor sperm. Q: Why sperm and why now? Why enter the sperm bank industry? Jain: During my time running an egg bank in California, I took a real interest in male reproductive health, observing that very little research was being done even though sperm is 50% of the baby equation. So, it was sort of a natural progression for me, having run an egg bank, to open Premier Sperm Bank. And this is an exciting time to open a sperm bank, as the way people build their families has evolved and society is adapting with new technologies. Were seeing increased rates of single mothers by choice, lesbian couples, and people of all identities wanting to be parentsand we can help these families by offering them a chance to self-inseminate in the privacy of their own home as an alternative to in-clinic insemination. Simultaneously, while launching Premier, I built a research center in Oxford, England to study the genetics and epigenetics of sperm. Q: Can you explain a little bit more about your research? How is that connected Premier Sperm Bank? Jain: The cornerstone for male fertility has been the semen analysis, a nearly 100-year-old test that was standardized in the 1930s that does not truly predict fertility. There have been no meaningful advances in sperm testing to connect the health of the sperm to fertility outcomes, and/or the health of the resulting children. This field is strangely quite nascent when compared to our understanding of female fertility. How does the DNA work, how do the epigenetics fit in? My research going forward is focused on epigenetics and how we better assess sperm to ensure we are optimizing for good fertility outcomes and healthy babies for families using donor sperm. Q: Your website mentions that you are the only sperm bank in the world that DNA verifies sperm. What does that mean? Jain: It means we have verified the identity of the donor by matching his sperm to his DNA profile. Its important because the other methods of verification used by sperm banks depend on manual human processes or electronic medical witnessing systems. Clients want to know that they are receiving the correct sperm. DNA-verified is nearly 100% accurate and Premier is the only sperm bank in the world to offer the service. Q: What is your donor selection process? How do you select a donor? Jain: It’s pretty rigorous. We only accept 1.8% of donor applicants into our portfolio. While we consider physical characteristics, personal accomplishments, and check criminal and educational backgrounds, my role as a medical director is to assure quality sperm from healthy donors. We do that by performing an extensive 100-question family and medical history, FDA-mandated infectious disease tests, and sperm quarantine for 6 months. We also use a test that screens 500 genes to lower the risk of passing on a genetic disease. Q: Where do you see the industry in the next 10 to 20 years? Jain: I think there needs to be more acknowledgement about the needs of donor-conceived children and their families. Legacy sperm banks have not consistently monitored how many families have used a donors sperm; it is not uncommon to see donors whose sperm has resulted in dozens or even hundreds of donor-conceived children. Many donor-conceived children eventually want to meet their biological father. Anonymous donation is becoming a thing of the past, as we are now only accepting donors willing to disclose their identity once the child is 18. The next 10 to 20 years will also see the emergence of better tools to evaluate sperm and predict fertility and childhood health. My lab in Oxford was built with that purpose in mind. And then there’s germline gene editing, the intentional modification of DNA in sperm, eggs, and embryos, currently banned in most countries. I believe gene editing is inevitable as it brings the potential of eliminating serious diseases like cancer, but it does change the human genome and presents an ethical slippery slope that requires oversight. Maureen Brown is CEO and cofounder of Mosie Baby.
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E-Commerce
A Powerball ticket purchased at a gas station outside Little Rock, Arkansas, won a $1.817 billion jackpot in Wednesday’s Christmas Eve drawing, ending the lottery game’s three-month stretch without a top-prize winner.The winning numbers were 04, 25, 31, 52 and 59, with the Powerball number being 19. The winning ticket was sold at a Murphy USA in Cabot, lottery officials in Arkansas said Thursday. No one answered the phone Thursday at the location, which was closed for Christmas. The community of roughly 27,000 people is 26 miles (42 kilometers) northeast of Little Rock.Final ticket sales pushed the jackpot higher than previous expected, making it the second-largest in U.S. history and the largest Powerball prize of 2025, according to www.powerball.com. The jackpot had a lump sum cash payment option of $834.9 million.“Congratulations to the newest Powerball jackpot winner! This is truly an extraordinary, life-changing prize,” Matt Strawn, Powerball Product Group Chair and Iowa Lottery CEO, was quoted as saying by the website. “We also want to thank all the players who joined in this jackpot streak every ticket purchased helps support public programs and services across the country.”Lottery officials said they won’t know who won until at least Monday because winners must contact a claims center, which is closed for the holidays until then, according to Karen Reynolds, a spokesperson for the Arkansas lottery.The prize followed 46 consecutive drawings in which no one matched all six numbers.The last drawing with a jackpot winner was Sept. 6, when players in Missouri and Texas won $1.787 billion.Organizers said it is the second time the Powerball jackpot has been won by a ticket sold in Arkansas. It first happened in 2010.The last time someone won a Powerball jackpot on Christmas Eve was in 2011, Powerball said. The company added that the sweepstakes also has been won on Christmas Day four times, most recently in 2013.Powerball’s odds of 1 in 292.2 million are designed to generate big jackpots, with prizes growing as they roll over when no one wins. Lottery officials note that the odds are far better for the game’s many smaller prizes.“With the prize so high, I just bought one kind of impulsively. Why not?” Indianapolis glass artist Chris Winters said Wednesday.Tickets cost $2, and the game is offered in 45 states plus Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Associated Press videojournalist Obed Lamy in Indianapolis contributed. Olivia Diaz is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Olivia Diaz, Associated Press/Report for America
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E-Commerce
Its time to reckon with the reality that nonstop doomscrolling has delivered us: a hard-to-ignore erosion of our cognitive skills. Weve lost the ability to focus on words for long stretches of time . . . er, read books. Years of turning everything worth consuming into content thats been optimized for attention has turned our brains into mush, shoved our mental health into free fall, and reduced our ability to pay attention to anything for more than five seconds at a time. (In fact, I clicked away from completing this sentence to check Facebook Marketplace for credenzas on sale.) While were still in the early days of what the long-term impact of artificial intelligence on our brains might look like, a growing contingent of folks are fighting back against the hijacking of our attention spans in favor of good old-fashioned reading. These are teenagers forgoing social media for social reality, working moms carving out time in their busy schedules to devour books, and people on #BookTok swapping tips to get into reading. In the spirit of celebrating the dying art of reading actual, honest-to-god chapter booksand not just furiously scrolling through endless Instagram slideshows and calling it a dayand before AI-written novels completely take over (this reality might already be upon us), I consulted a number of my colleagues at Fast Company to compile a list of the best books theyve read this year in the hopes of inspiring you, too. You Dreamed of Empires by Álvaro Enrigue From Amy Farley, Executive Editor You Dreamed of Empires is a weird, wild, hypnotic retelling about the fateful meeting between emperor Moctezuma and Hernán Cortés in Tenochtitlan. The action takes place across a single day in 1519, but what a day: packed with family drama, palace intrigue, world history-altering misunderstandings, and lots and lots of psychedelics. But the highlight, for me, were Enrigue’s descriptions of the city of Tenochtitlan itself: its layout and architecture, the smells and food, the everyday routines of its many residents. Halfway through reading the novel, I started planning a trip to Mexico City. Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid From Isa Luzarraga, Social Media Producer Nearly everyone knows the name Sally Ride. In 1983, she became the first American woman in space, setting a crucial precedent for female astronaut candidates at NASA. Still, the National Geographic documentary Sally, released earlier this year, verified what many had only surmised during the astronaut’s life, that Ride was queer. There are clear parallels between Ride’s story and the protagonist of Taylor Jenkins Reids most recent novel. Atmosphere follows astronomer Joan Goodwin as she becomes a member of the second NASA astronaut class to accept female candidates. The narrative alternates between two timelines: Joans years of training at NASA and her role as the on-ground liaison between the astronauts and command center for a mission gone wrong. Throughout her training, Joan forms a secret relationship with fellow astronaut Vanessa. Like the rest of Taylor Jenkins Reid’s body of work, this historical fiction novel is rigorously researched and highlights the author’s signature, evocative prose. It is an ode, not only to Ride and the first female astronauts, but also to the queer community as a whole. Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams From Bryan Lufkin, Senior Editor I started reading this after getting super into the This Jungan Life podcast. The three brilliant, warm and funny psychoanalysts who host it wrote this book about how to analyze dreams. (They analyze a listener’s dream at the end of every episode.) Every one of us is an iceberg, and this book gives amazing insight into the huge stuff going on with you underneath the surface! Natives: Race & Class in the Ruins of Empire From Vanessa Singh, Executive Producer This is such an insightful look into Britain’s world empire takeover, but specifically about the Caribbean-British experience and growing up in London as a Black person during the ’80s and ’90s. Written by Akala (a British rapper and activist), the book is history that is easy to digest and semi-autobiographical. I love it because it is not written by an upper-class historian who has no emotional investment in the topics discussed. It is written by a highly intelligent, working-class, mixed-race man from London. The book looks at how racism and class shape life in modern Britain, and he shows how the legacy of empire still influences policing, education, and opportunities today. Very no-nonsense. The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante From Rebecca Barker, Event Producer I cant believe it took me until 2025 to read Elena Ferrantes esteemed Neapolitan Novels, but, as they say, better late than never. The Story of a New Name is the second book of the series and follows the events of the New York Times best book of the 21st century, My Brilliant Friend, chronicling the teenage and early adulthood years of friends Lenu and Lila, who have grown up together in poverty in 1960s Naples. I consider the first books role as building a rich foundation for the characters and setting that drive the plot of the secondin my humble opinion, The Story of a New Name is where things get good. As the girls navigate Lilas new marriage (which brings her wealth and stability but lacks love and respect), a growing schism between their social classes and the opportunities available to them, political turmoil, and a shared romantic interest, they are forced to reckon with the strength of their friendship and what it can survive. Ferrante paints one of the most intricate and beautiful portrayals of female friendship in literatureI cant recommend it enough. Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro From Maia McCann, Executive Digital Director The story is told by Klara, an artificial friend/AI robot for a very ill child. Klara and her human, Josie, live in a dystopian future where some children are genetically lifted or enhanced and others are left behind. The reader follows an AI as it tries to understand complex human emotions like grief and love. Potentially a little disturbing, but you wind up really rooting for the robot. This Is How You Lose The Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone From Anne Latini, Art Director I was absolutely rapt reading this beautiful science-fiction fantasy while on vacation this summer. Written as a series of letters that rove forward and backward through time, the book reminds you that the tension between technology and nature has been with humanity since the beginning and will continue long after we’re gone. [Image: Scribner] Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan From Jill Bernstein, Editorial Director I finally read Jennifer Egan’s Manhattan Beach and couldn’t put it down. I loved the characters and was totally absorbed by the action and historical detail. It’s about bravery, love, and the mysterious pull of the sea. Foster by Claire Keegan From Jay Woodruff, Senior Editor Knowing my wife and I were heading to Dublin for our daughter’s wedding in October, a friend told me, “Read everything you can get your hands on by Claire Keegan.” If this exquisite Irish novella doesn’t help restore your faith in humanity, it will definitely restore your faith in first-rate, quiet, vivid storytelling. Manys the man lost much just because he missed a perfect opportunity to say nothing, one kindly character tells the narrator. Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism by Sarah Wynn-Williams From Sandra Riano, Photo Editor This was an eye-opening memoir about Facebook’s leap from Silicon Valley tech enterprise into global politics. Both illuminating and terrifying, it poses the question, How far will Meta go under the guise of free speech? Carless People is a cautionary tale about Big Tech’s quest for more and what we all stand to lose.
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