Biology

1420 readers

1 users here now

This is a general community to discuss of all things related to biology!

For a more specific community about asking questions to biologists, you can also visit:

/c/askbiologists@lemmy.world

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

Sal@mander.xyz

What You Don’t Know About Sperm (nautil.us)

submitted 10 months ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to c/biology@mander.xyz

3 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] plantteacher@mander.xyz 6 points 10 months ago (2 children)

When the hard-working little swimmers encounter the thicker vaginal mucus, their path is slowed. So the sperm often join together at their heads, which gives them greater swimming speed (up to 50 percent faster) than if they were to carry on individually.

I wonder why that is. If a group of people were to join together and run, the speed of the group would be capped by the slowest runner. And aerodynamics would be worse.

[–] Hawk@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 10 months ago

I mean, professional cyclists do the same, as do migratory birds. Only the front has to take the resistance, the back has to spend less energy. The slow, tired ones just drop off.

[–] BunEnjoyer@lemmy.ca 7 points 10 months ago

This is a guess but the fluid dynamics likely changes? As the size of the group increases the Reynolds number probably increases making inertia a significant factor.

Individual human runners in air is maybe a bad analogy think more like honey where every stroke pushes you back as much as it pushes you forward.

This article might interest you https://doi.org/10.1529%2Fbiophysj.107.118257