Mystery of how sperm swim revealed in mathematical formula

Sophia Dibbini March 21, 2017

University of York. "Mystery of how sperm swim revealed in mathematical formula." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 20 March 2017. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/03/170320085505.htm>.

I read the article called “Mystery of how sperm swim revealed in mathematical formula” by ScienceDaily and I found it very interesting and informative. In this breakthrough article, it explains that researchers have developed a mathematical formula based on the rhythmic movement of a sperm’s head and tail, significantly reducing the complexities of understanding and predicting how sperm make the difficult journey towards fertilizing the egg. These researchers, from the Universities of York, Birmingham, Oxford, and Kyoto, found that the sperm’s tail creates a characteristic rhythm that pushed the sperm forward, while pulling the head backwards and sideways in a coordinated fashion. Successful fertility relies on how a sperm moves through fluid, but capturing details of this movement is a complicated issue. Dr Hermes Gadêlha, from the University of York's Department of Mathematics, said: "In order to observe, at the microscale, how a sperm achieves forward propulsion through fluid, sophisticated microscopic high precision techniques are currently employed. Numerical simulations are used to identify the flow around the sperm, but as the structures of the fluid are so complex, the data is particularly challenging to understand and use. Around 55 million spermatozoa are found in a given sample, so it is understandably very difficult to model how they move simultaneously. Now that the team has a mathematical formula that can predict the fluid movement of one sperm, the next step is to use the model for predictions on larger numbers of cells. They also believe that it will have implications for new innovations in infertility treatment.

This article will affect our society because this discovery has improved scientific research and findings because it has simplified it. The team aim to use these new findings to understand how larger groups of sperm behave and interact, a task that would be impossible using modern observational techniques. The work could provide new insights into treating male infertility. Their actions have impacted society because they have created a mathematical formula that would simplify how we address this problem and make it easier to predict how large numbers of sperm swim. This would help us understand why some sperm succeed and others fail.

I really enjoyed reading this article because it thoroughly explained their discovery and what they plan to do with their new mathematical formula and how effective is it in the study of sperm movement. This author also provided many quotes by the researchers themselves supporting the importance of this discovery. However, this author did not provide details into a specific case study that used this formula, which would have been helpful for the reader. Also, the author failed to include how they found this formula, they only included what this formula could do. Even though there are some weaknesses, I really enjoyed reading this article and I found it very educational and informing.