Sperm don't swim anything like we thought they did, new study finds
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Source: Live Science
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 in a swimming pool and you only did this to one side, you would always swim in circles. … Nature in its wisdom came [up] with a very complex, ingenious way to go forward."
...snip...
The sperm tails weren't wiggling, whip-like, side-to-side. Instead, they could only beat in one direction. In order to wring forward motion out of this asymmetrical tail movement, the sperm head rotated with a jittery motion at the same time that the tail rotated.The head rotation and the tail are actually two separate movements controlled by two different cellular mechanisms, Gadêlha said. But when they combine, the result is something like a spinning otter or a rotating drill bit. Over the course of a 360-degree rotation, the one-side tail movement evens out, adding up to forward propulsion.
Read more: https://www.livescience.com/sperm-swim-like-corkscrews.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
I had to post in it so I can come back and keep reading the responses.
that the "winning sperm" from Fred ended up in this:
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