Are men the new endangered species? According to a Melbourne bio-ethicist, they're way up there with pandas and polar bears.

In a speech titled Should human beings have sex?, Dr Robert Sparrow yesterday told the Australian Medical Students Association convention that females could soon rule the world as hermaphrodites without any biological use for men.

With the help of some frozen sperm at first, females could procreate on their own until stem-cell technology meant bone marrow and other human tissue could be converted into sperm, the senior lecturer at Monash University's Centre for Human Bioethics said.