The Great Sperm Race

The Great Sperm Race Review Paper

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Friday 20 March 2009

Click below to download a document that incorporates the latest scientific thinking on human sperm delivery and transport through the female reproductive tract.

From storage in the male epididymis to fusion with the oocyte plasma membrane in the oviduct and formation of a fertilised ovum.

This paper, written by the programme’s Science Producer, Jennifer Beamish, is in the style of a review article. Like all scientific papers it has undergone ‘peer review’, where an anonymous panel of experts checks the paper for accuracy before it is published. Each of the reviewer comments has been left in to ensure balance and illustrate the peer review process.

Click to download a PDF of the The Great Sperm Race

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Comments

Correction: The sentence in my last post: "(the sperm race on the website is fun though, although strictly speaking based on the same premise)" should read: "the sperm race GAME....etc.".

Posted by David Finer on 01/02/2010 09:03:22

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Saw most of the programme on Swedish TV the other night. The science - as well displayed in your research summary paper - is fascinating and sufficiently interesting without anthropomorphising the sperm as humans with volition (and emotions!) of their own, played out by scantily clad humans swimming, "drowning", etc. I am referring to the voice-over - I only had the Swedish version - regarding the sperm's struggle, failure, demise, etc. In fact, this trend - if it is one - in science popularization is deeply disturbing. It is populistic to the point of inviting the most obvious and catholic ridicule, and - in the simplest sense - simply wrong. It is ludicrous that positivistic scientists (e.g. presumably those interviewed on the programme) would lend themselves to explicitly allowing for an Intelligent Designer imbuing every living thing with consciousness on the level of human beings(otherwise how do the sperm reason, think, express themselves and feel disappointment and, the few who reach their goal, ultimately a sense of religiously tinged fulfilment - accompanied by light and corresponding music?). The program is a complete parody of misguided popularization of scientific facts which are - as already stated above - sufficiently exciting in themselves (the sperm race on the website is fun though, although strictly speaking based on the same premise). I am the first to advocate "translating" scientific jargon and making science communication attractive and appealing, and have successfully done so for some 35 years as a medical journalist in Sweden. But there are limits to the scope and sense of simplification. Sadly, this production, apparently the object of so much cost and hard work, not only transcends these limits by light-years, it must for some time to come stand as an almost surreal example of well-meaning science communication gone desperately wrong (for the longest time watching, I was convinced it was a spoof). Science communicators, watch and beware.

Posted by David Finer on 26/01/2010 09:50:44

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Very interesting documentary. Did I hear correct ? Does it take 14 hours from ejaculation until new life is created ? Is new human life created at the moment when : 1. The sperm enters the egg ? 2. A new human chromosome has been created ? 3. When the zygote starts to divide ?

Posted by HumbleWarrior on 11/01/2010 01:11:56

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