what would you pay?

at work today, i got to place an order with one of our vendors for "human semen". what does human semen cost? apparently $359.10 for 25 ML.

which sure seems like a lot.

but it got me thinking....

what does NON-human semen cost?

for comparison, i checked on bull semen. i picked this for a few reasons. mainly, i was pretty sure i could find the answer on the internet without stumbling across some pervy bestiality porno site. but also because my grandfather was an (attempted? failed? i dunno) bull breeder of his favorite big-ass bull. it seemed fitting somehow.

a little research showed me that bull semen costs about $20 a straw. a straw is roughly equivalent to 1/2 a ML. so some fancy math shows me that bull semen costs about $1000 for 25 ML.

a few thoughts on this:

is bull semen more expensive than human semen because the bull doesn't donate voluntarily?

$20 is the cost for semen from a mediocre bull. the fisher scientific catalog does not specify the quality of the human. can we assume equally mediocre?

we recently purchased something at work called the Ultra SpermFinder. it's mission is to allow slides from rape victims to be scanned electronically for sperm, which is an incredibly time consuming thing to do by hand. the hope is to help clear up some of the DNA backlog. but it made me wonder..... could we use the Ultra SpermFinder to... well.... find sperm and perhaps not have to pay through the nose for it? and, if so... could an enterprising young scientist perhaps devise an UltraBullSpermFinder and really make a fortune? go ahead and do it! i give you the idea for free!!