Sperm. Despite existing in the hundreds of millions — one person with testicles produces 200-300 million sperm per day — and serving as the punchline to every 20-something dudes' favorite jokes, semen has long been a mysterious substance ... or so we thought. Despite its comical nature, semen is as fascinating as it is funny, embodying how, exactly, humans have managed to stick around on Earth for this long.
From human-hamster hybrids to semen's strange, secret usage by British spies during World War II, here are 21 sperm facts that will absolutely go over swimmingly.
1
“Semen is only 10% sperm (the little swimmers). The rest is made up of nutrients such as vitamin C, calcium and protein.”
3
“The world's largest sperm bank won't accept sperm from gingers!”
4
Sperm prefer cooler temperatures, which is why testicles are external.
5
“Human eggs choose the sperm that fertilizes it, not the other way around.”
6
“Sperm cells have a sense of smell.”
7
People in the Middle Ages believed that each testicle was responsible for creating one sex of a child — the right testicle producing “boy” sperm and the left “girl sperm.” For this reason, some men would have their left testicle removed as they believed it’d help them father a son.
8
“Sperms were thought to move by wiggling their tails side-to-side, like eels, for 350 years. But research shows that they roll as they move forward like a spinning top.”
9
“For every 200 million sperm in each human ejaculation, 2 million make it into the cervix, 1 million make it into the uterus, 10,000 make it to the top of the organ, 5,000 enter the uterotubal junction, 1000 enter the Fallopian tube, 200 reach the egg and only 1 enters the egg to fertilize it.”
10
“A Dutch court ordered a 41-year-old man, who judges said had fathered between 550-600 children, to stop donating sperm. The court considered it ‘sufficiently plausible’ that the children has or could have negative psychosocial consequences including problems around identity & fears of incest.”
11
Humsters — or human hamster hybrids — are created, among other reasons, to determine whether human sperm is viable to be used in IVF. They are usually destroyed before dividing into two cells.
12
“THC can be detected and quantified in the semen of men who are chronic users of inhaled cannabis.”
13
“Sperm can work together in a sort of ‘sperm train’ for faster collective movement.”
14
“British spies used semen as invisible ink during WWI and this method was invented by Sir Mansfield Cumming.”
15
“Your semen blood type can be different than the blood type of the rest of your body.”
16
“Sperm Whales are actually named after Sperm. Seamen opened a Sperm Whale’s noggin and thought the oily substance was...Semen.”
17
“There was a group that created a sperm bank exclusively containing the semen of Nobel Prize winners in hopes of selectively birthing the next generation of geniuses.”
18
“Men can be allergic to their own semen, which can be remedied by desensitizing them to it via repeated injections of small diluted doses of it under their skin.”
19
“Ingesting caffeine will caffeinate your semen.”
20
“A woman experienced a Brazil Nut allergy after the allergen was passed to her from her partner's semen during intercourse. The researchers believe this to be the first case of a sexually transmitted allergic reaction.”
21
“Mouse sperm is twice as large as elephant sperm while fruitflies have the largest sperm in the animal kingdom with their sperm measuring a whopping 6 cm (23 times larger than their body).”
22
“Testicles make several million sperm per day — about 1,500 per second.”
