By April MacIntyre Feb 8, 2010, 17:05 GMT
Yes, you read that headline correctly.
Sperm is the bomb if you ask National Geographic Channel producers, so much so that the bodily fluid, often relegated to sophomoric jokes in film, is getting its own TV show. Photo courtesy of Nat Geo
Sperm is the bomb if you ask National Geographic Channel producers, so much so that the bodily fluid, often relegated to sophomoric jokes in film, is getting its own TV show.
The documentary "Sizing Up Sperm" will celebrate the magical, mystical properties of the lesser celebrated half of the human procreative cocktail combo.
Sure, the egg is a big to-do, always talked about, yet did you know it is a game of survival of the fittest when it comes to the male issue that fertilizes the giant egg? "Sizing Up Sperm" premieres Sunday, March 14, at 9 p.m. ET/PT on NGC Each of us was the grand prize in an ultimate reality competition, the amazing race a sperm makes on the road to fertilization. In each epic battle, millions of sperm compete while overcoming armies of antibodies, spermicidal-soaked Today sponges (fail), treacherous terrain and impossible odds to reach their single-minded goal.
To portray the full weight of their monumental challenge, the National Geographic Channel literally brings to life this miracle of biology and athleticism, scaling each sperm to the size of an adult human. Premiering Sunday, March 14, at 9 p.m. ET/PT, Sizing Up Sperm presents a creative twist on sex education, using real people to represent 250 million sperm on their marathon quest to be first to penetrate the waiting egg.
Leading fertility experts walk us through the dramatic visual journey from the sperm’s point of view, using striking landscapes to illustrate the various phases of the process, with the testicle represented by an oversized London skyscraper, and the extraordinary proportions of the female anatomy by the North American Rockies. It’s survival of the fittest: within 30 minutes of ejaculation, over 99 percent of the sperm will be dead or dying. But for those that remain it will be a vicious 14-hour fight to the end, with only one champion. Our tale of fertility begins with the testicles— depicted as a building that would be 3,000 feet, more than double the height of the Empire State Building, if the sperm were human-sized.
Next it’s a high-speed evacuation from the skyscraper along a 10-mile, ultra-fast water slide to the female, where the constant barrage of threats begin.
For the sperm, landing in the female’s vagina is like storming the beaches on D-Day, only facing chemical weapons in the form of a deadly acid attack on the hundreds of millions of invaders. The survivors press on into the cervix high above them. In our people-sized sperm world that would mean climbing a ladder a mile into the sky, a gravity-defying feat that only a few will achieve. Once the heights have been scaled, kit's horror-show time as they reach a cervix Stephen King-style.
What happens next for the sperm? Hundreds of tiny branching tunnels trap, crush and slowly kill sperm. From here, the remaining sperm enter the uterus, the equivalent of a two-mile-long field at these proportions.
But wait, there's more!
Here the sperm are ambushed by the female’s natural assassins, large white blood cells that dismantle the trespassing sperm. For the tiny fraction left, it’s on to the fallopian tubes, where the egg may be waiting. One last obstacle remains — a freestyle swimming final of Olympic proportions, where the winner gains immortality, and the rest are killed.
Life is a competition. Sizing Up Sperm illuminates the truth behind some of the myths surrounding sex — including when and how to have it to improve the odds of fertilization, and whether the chances of conception improve with more enjoyable sex.
Every day, 350,000 babies are born, and each stemmed from the one sperm that overcame remarkable odds to win the great sperm race.
Sizing Up Sperm demonstrates this intricate, extraordinary journey of life's first contest and lottery. For more information, visit www.natgeotv.com/sperm
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