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sperm

WHAT IF: Men Were No Longer Necessary for Fertilization?

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artificial insemination - deposit photos

Every Wednesday, we’re asking a what-if question – how would our world be different if something were changed? Today’s question is from QSFer Scott: What if science advanced to the point where human sperm was no longer needed for fertilization? How would it change our world/society? Share your serious scientific analyses, your off-color jokes, and random thoughts on the topic on our FB and MeWe Groups: FB: http://bit.ly/1MvPABV MeWe: http://bit.ly/2mjg8lf

Scientists Just Discovered a 100 Million Year Old Sperm. I Kid You Not.

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sperm - pixabay

The oldest known sperm in the world has been discovered, locked in a piece of amber that solidified when behemoths like Spinosaurus dominated the Earth. The giant sperm comes from a much more miniscule creature than the toothy Spinosaurus: an ostracod, a crustacean that looks like a shrimp dressing up as a clam for Halloween. Known colloquially as “seed shrimp,” ostracods typically grow just a few tenths of an inch long. Their bodies are protected by a bivalve shell, from which tiny, crab-like appendages sometimes protrude. There are thousands of ostracod species alive today, and many boast giant sperm cells, … Read more

SCIENCE: Turns Out Sperm Don’t “Swim” Like We Thought

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sperm swimming

Under a microscope, human sperm seem to swim like wiggling eels, tails gyrating to and fro as they seek an egg to fertilize.  But now, new 3D microscopy and high-speed video reveal that sperm don’t swim in this simple, symmetrical motion at all. Instead, they move with a rollicking spin that compensates for the fact that their tails actually beat only to one side.  “It’s almost like if you’re a swimmer, but you could only wiggle your leg to one side,” said study author Hermes Gadêlha, a mathematician at the University of Bristol in the U.K. “If you did this … Read more

SCIENCE: Sperm in Outer Space

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sperm - pixabay

For the first time, err, officially, NASA will set loose human sperm in outer space. The Micro-11 mission, which made its way to space aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket’s Dragon resupply capsule, amounts to a bunch of containers of frozen human and bull sperm. Aboard the International Space Station (ISS), scientists will thaw the sperm, according to a NASA statement, and then study it to see how weightlessness affects its ability to move and prepare to fuse with an egg. “Previous experiments with sea urchin and bull sperm suggest that activating movement happens more quickly in microgravity,” NASA officials … Read more