A computer system designed to analyse the motion of traffic has
found a new role: tracking the movement of sperm to help in the
treatment of male infertility. Geoff Hobson developed the
traffic tracking system while a professor at the University of
Sheffield. He collaborated with Bill Holt of the Institute of
Zoology in London to produce the Hobson Sperm Tracker which is
now being sold by Hobson's Sheffield-based company, Sense and
Vision Electronic Systems. The sperm tracker can analyse live
sperm via a video camera attached to a microscope, which is
trained on a sample of semen. Alternatively, video recordings of
sperm movement can be fed straight into the system's computer.
The sperms' motion is detected by comparing each frame of the
video image with the previous one and registering the
difference. The system displays the results as colour tracks
superimposed over the microscope image. Information on eight
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