amazingspermatogenesis-blog

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A Tip: Eggs, Please Stop Being Lazy!

Spermatogenesis creates more sperm so that fertilization becomes more efficient! Imagine this, if both the egg and the sperms were to stay motionless inside the fallopian tubes, it would not be very productive. Instead of the egg moving around to look for the sperms, it attempts to stay at the exact same position until a sperm comes to penetrate it, sometimes even resisting the sweep of the follicles. For that reason, I found that the sperms might be playing a more important role than the egg just solely based off the fact that they compromise to be “invariably active” (p. 351) in order to balance out the passiveness of the egg. 

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A close up action shot of sperms penetrating an egg. Which sperm do you think will win? 

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Production of "Something Valuable," A Modern Day Analogy: Sperm cells are like valuable Bitcoins (a new digital currency that is highly regarded in today's global economy). Egg cells, on the other hand, are like valueless Zimbabwean dollars.

Justin Chen

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Sperm: The More The Merrier

Martin compares and contrasts the sperm cell and egg cell, and how biology textbooks have described the greater number of male sex cells make them more important than the “passive” (p. 351) female sex cell in the reproductive process. She states, “the texts celebrate sperm production because it is continuous from puberty to senescence, while they portray egg production as inferior because it is finished at birth.” (p.350) It only takes 72 hours to transform two spermatocytes to four spermatids, while eggs in the ovaries are at the peak amount at birth. If we think about it, sperm can be wasted and it will not really matter because the seminiferous tubules will keep producing more. In contrast, the number of eggs will keep decreasing with each menstruation. 

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The amazing process of Spermatogenesis! ZOOM IN FOR A CLOSER READ! 

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Common Symptoms of Menstruation

Mood swings (feeling tense and angry)

Certain cravings for food

Abdominal cramps 

Body aches

Added mental stress

Fatigue

Acne

Feeling of being bloated 

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Menstruation as Failed Production

Martin notes that the authors from textbooks used in pre undergraduate medical studies expressed “intense enthusiasm” (p. 349) while describing the millions of sperm, but merely understates the usefulness of the ability of the egg to give life when menstruation is mentioned as a side effect. There is a reason why and here it is! Each month, one gamete is prepared for pregnancy, but if it is not fertilized by an sperm, it is deemed a waste because it gets flushed out. Where does it end up? The sewers. 

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A heartbreaking story about the lonely egg...

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The paragraph I chose to remediate (p. 348-349): Male reproductive physiology is evaluated quite differently. One of the texts that sees menstruation as failed production employs a sort of breathless prose when it describes the maturation of sperm: “The mechanisms which guide the remarkable cellular transformation from spermatid to mature sperm remain uncertain.... Perhaps the most amazing characteristic of spermatogenesis is its sheer magnitude: the normal human male may manufacture several hundred million sperm per day.” In the classic text Medical Physiology, edited by Vernon Mountcastle, the male/female, productive/destructive comparison is more explicit:”Whereas the female sheds only a single gamete each month, the seminiferous tubules produce hundreds of millions of sperm each day.” The female author of another text marvels at the length of the microscopic seminiferous tubules, which, if uncoiled and placed end to end, “would span almost one-third of a mile!” She writes, “In an adult male these structures produce millions of sperm cells each day.” Later she asks, “How is this feat accomplished?” None of these texts expresses such intense enthusiasm for any female processes. It is surely no accident that the “remarkable” process of making sperm involves precisely what, in the medical view, menstruation does not: production of something deemed valuable.

The Egg And The Sperm, Emily Martin