'Why does nature toss a billion sperm when one can do the job?' Time magazine essay
- Thread starter Sajidkhan
- Start date
I think it has to do with the loooooong way a sperm has to travel to meet the only one egg. Consider this:
If you have to throw one spoon from a certain faaar distance (say, few meters), what's the odd that the head of the spoon will fall exactly on the sink hole?
Now, if you throw a bundle of spoons all at once, likely you'll have better chance that one spoon's head will hit exactly the sink hole And no, I don't mean to troll. I think if the distance that should be travelled by a sperm to meet an egg is much shorter, probably evolutionarily men will not released that much sperms.
If you have to throw one spoon from a certain faaar distance (say, few meters), what's the odd that the head of the spoon will fall exactly on the sink hole?
Now, if you throw a bundle of spoons all at once, likely you'll have better chance that one spoon's head will hit exactly the sink hole And no, I don't mean to troll. I think if the distance that should be travelled by a sperm to meet an egg is much shorter, probably evolutionarily men will not released that much sperms.
Enmos
Valued Senior Member
It's the same every where.
Thousands of bloody foreigners come in and only one of them does any work.
Who was that again? Some British minister, I think?
|| Anyway, thread moved to 'Biology & Genetics'.
because if you are the result of 1 sperm that won the race to survival, out of a billion, it means that you were the strongest and the best of them all, I THINK, it is a way for us to take the strongest genes of the bunch and incorporate them into the new life, while the losers are left to die because they were just not strong enough,
Making humans and what ever species stronger.
Making humans and what ever species stronger.
Yellow Jacket
Registered Senior Member
It's a long journey for those bad boys, only a few will make it to the end.
I think soullust said it best.
I think soullust said it best.
Is that the one with the Cystic Fibrosis gene?
This interesting analogy should be fully fleshed out.It's the same every where.
Thousands of bloody foreigners come in and only one of them does any work.
What would happen if all foreigners did some work?
The country would explode.
So foreigners who do not work are protecting the country.
It like that situation in the US where farmers are paid NOT to grow certain crops.
Think of sperm as Google Ads!
I shant.Think of sperm as Google Ads!
What does sperm strength have to do with fitness of the offspring?
The offspring would have "fitter" sperm.
I think one reason might be that it's good to start out lucky!
Ehm...the first one...
In any case, Kennyc, does it matter to the offsprings fitness of the sperm which sperm was most fitted to reach the egg? I mean, does the fitness of the sperm reaching the egg depend on the DNA that controls fitness inside the sperm?
Isn't rather the sperm created outside itself, like all the other sperms, using the DNA of the "host" rather than the DNA of the sperm itself?
It's not obvious to me that the DNA inside the sperm would create fitter sperm if the sperm was the fittest to reach the egg. In fact I think that even if a different sperm accidently reached the egg before the most fittest that the offspring could be better off (the fitter sperm could even produce a infertile offspring, while the less fitter did not).
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actually its none of the above, sure rapidly dividing cells like sperm are going to cause mestakes which wont work (2 heads, no tail ect) but thats not the reason there are so many of them. in fact the mestakes are more likly because there are so many.
the female body is the compleatly wrong ph for sperm to survive. the only way the sperm can change this is by using other sperm. so its more like a suicidle charge on a castle wall with them all knowing that the last rank will get to the wall by litterally running over the bodies of the dead. it doesnt matter how fit the sperm are, its only those at the back who will get near the egg
the female body is the compleatly wrong ph for sperm to survive. the only way the sperm can change this is by using other sperm. so its more like a suicidle charge on a castle wall with them all knowing that the last rank will get to the wall by litterally running over the bodies of the dead. it doesnt matter how fit the sperm are, its only those at the back who will get near the egg
Mother Nature uses one big egg and hundreds of millions of tiny sperm for one simple reason and one reason alone—to ensure that every human that is conceived is a champion of champions, one so good that she/he is the best from hundreds of millions! The sperm race ensures that only a big winner is born and hundreds of millions of sperm ensure that the very best of the very best is born. Also the woman's egg number is so low because the womb space is adequate mostly for just one or two fetus'. In order to make this ingenious plan work the only practical way to make every human being a champion of champions was to make the sperm tiny. Imagine hundreds of millions of egg size sperm. The testicles would have to be much, much larger which among other things would be very inconvenient. The amount of energy and body material needed to produce this large quantity and egg size sperm would produce its own logistical problems and would be near impossible.. Even the pathway for the sperm to run through would have to be made much larger. So Mother Nature made the sperm tiny to create this perfect way to a human race of only champions. Every human being has to win the sperm race to get the gift of life.