Today I watched a documentary on SBS Two called 'The Great Sperm Race'.
(Sperm racing through the vagina)
(Sperm in a giant valley that is the uterus)
(Sperm are encountered by red blood cells that identify the sperm to be invading infection and attack)
The journey of the sperm to fertilise the egg is like no other - millions will die so that one can hopefully conceive. This documentary brings the process to life through a fun 'reenactment' by human actors of the reproductive process. (From the UK in English) (Documentary) CC WS
It was highly amusing and informative, and was slightly frightening because the 'reenactment' of the sperm racing from storage in the males testes to fusion with the female egg was like a war. The sperm people were dressed in all white clothing and there were millions and millions of them racing to the egg. I gave a hearty chuckle when the sperm were in the semen and being ejaculated into the vagina -- they were riding a water slide, ha! When they were traveling through the vagina they were running through a massive mountainous valley, because, apparently, that is how big a vagina is to a mere sperm. The sperm then went into the cervix, uterus (where they encountered the enemy that in a woman's immune system), fallopian tubes and then, finally, the egg where only two sperm remain from the original 250, 000, 000.
Then there was that lucky little fella that made a home run to the egg and sacrificed his life to create another.
Imagine how many people there are in the world now. Think about all the sperm that died while racing to the egg that created each and every person on earth. If every single sperm had an egg each to create it's own human... Wow, the earth would have a humongous population.
The thing that got me thinking in this documentary was that scientists were explaining that even it 1-4 sperm make it to the ovaries, it all depends on their timing on whether the egg is ready to be fertilised or not. They said that if the sperm that fertilised the egg that then created you was to be too late or too early when reaching the ovaries, a different sperm could have gotten to it and thus made you a different person. Smarter, better looking, different personality. Just one little difference in timing could have made you a whole different person.
To end this abruptly, after mulling over how I could have been different in anyway, I realised that I am incredibly lucky to be born just as I was: a healthy and normal baby who grew to be a somewhat bearable human being.
No comments:
Post a Comment