It turns out our eyes were wrong.
Now, using state-of-the-art 3D microscopy and mathematics, a
new study says we have actually been the victims of "sperm deception."
"Sperm are very cheeky little creatures. Our new research using 3D microscopy shows that we have all been victims of a sperm deception," said study author Hermes Gadelha, head of the
Polymaths Laboratory at the University of
Bristol's department of engineering mathematics in the UK.
"If you want to see the real beating of the tail, you need to move with the sperm and rotate with the sperm. So it's almost like you needed to make a (camera) really tiny and stick it to the head of the sperm," Gadelha said.
Gadelha's co-authors, Gabriel Corkidi and Alberto Darszon from the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, developed a way to do that. Using state-of-the art tools, including a super-high-speed camera that can record over 55,000 frames a second, the researchers were able to see that the side-to-side movement was actually an optical illusion.
In reality, a sperm's tail lashes on only one side.
That one-sided stroke should cause the sperm to swim in a perpetual circle, Gadelha said. But no, sperm were smarter than that.
"Human sperm figured out if they roll as they swim, much like playful otters corkscrewing through water, their one-sided stroke would average itself out, and they would swim forwards," said Gadelha, who is an expert in the mathematics of fertility.
"The rotation of the sperm is something that is very important. It's something that allows the sperm to regain a symmetry and actually be able to go straight," he said.
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