The film "Children of Men" depicts a dystopian society, bereft of almost all sense of civility and functioning social norms, facing the tiny little problem of human extinction. For whatever reason, babies have stopped being born, and the furtherance of the human race is in question.

Good flick. Solid acting. Interesting premise. But it's just a movie.

Or is it?

Well, yes, it is just a movie -- so I may as well end the over-dramatized direction in which I seem to be sending this post. What's eerily thought-provoking about the film, though, is the concept of not being able to conceive any more children. Fortunately, this is an impossibility.......right?

Maybe not. Researchers from Northern Ireland have found that diabetes may damage the DNA in men's sperm, thus affecting their fertility. When studying the quality of DNA in the sperm of men with diabetes and men without diabetes, the researchers found that the DNA in the nuclei of the sperm cells had greater levels of fragmentation in men with diabetes than men who do not have diabetes (52% versus 32%). Also, there were also more deletions of DNA in the mitochondria.

Couple this research with: A) The fact that there has been an overall decline in semen quality (related to diabetes or not) over the past 50 years, B) Rates of diabetes seem to be rising considerably with each passing decade, and C) There are sometimes safety concerns for women with diabetes to have children -- and the idea of a newborn-less society becomes scarily possible.

Fortunately it's just a movie. And, fortunately the study in Northern Ireland was, even by the researchers' own admission, very preliminary and in need of further examination before anything can even begin to be considered conclusive.