Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.

My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.

As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable

experts and genuinely engaging voices. What you may not know is that the BBC

makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,

poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.

If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds.

Hello and welcome to more or less on the BBC World Service.

We're your statistical guide to the numbers all around us in the news and in life, and I'm Tim

Harford.

This week we investigate these disturbing headlines.

Sperm counts in the West plunge by 60% in 40 years as modern life damages

men's health. In less than 40 years sperm counts are fallen by more than half

in Western countries.

That's according to new research published in the journal Human Reproduction

Sperm counts of Western men plummeting analysis fines.

The headlines are terrifying. It sounds as though we're all going to go extinct.

Is this just scaremongering or do we genuinely have a survival problem?

The results come from a study snappily named temporal trends in sperm count from the Hebrew

University of Jerusalem which suggests that sperm count has fallen from 99 million

sperm in every milliliter to just 47 million of the little guys per

milliliter, a fall of more than half over 38 years.

...