Strange swimming patterns of sperm

The monitoring of sperm and its exotic movements has helped scientists better understand the single-cell swimming mechanism, with potential applications in the pharmaceutical field.

Experts have discovered a new technique that allows them to track the movements of more than 1,500 sperm cells swimming at the same time in a space of about 1 / 100mm. Although not as big as a regular drop of water, it is a miniature world of cells. After several experiments, engineers at the University of California at Los Angeles (USA) observed up to 24,000 sperm cells, enough to distinguish unusual behavior. So how does the behavior of sperm be classified as abnormal?

Normal sperm swim in the shape of a limb, but 4 - 5% of sperm in the study move in a perfectly spiral pattern, something that has never been discovered before. Among such perfect swimmers, about 90% swim in a spiral toward the right, while the remaining 10% are left.

New tracking methods help detect new types of sperm movement

The new cell observation method allows researchers to see single-cell spiral travel paths, with a diameter of less than 1 nanometer. Other unusual behaviors include walking around at twice the speed of a normal sperm, and swimming in an extremely wide spiral. Experts discovered that most of the sperm swim abnormally for a short time before returning to the traditional way of moving. But they are not sure what caused sperm to swim like that, according to a report published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Sperm exploration of sperm activity has opened up research directions to determine the effect of the drug on a large number of cells. Scientists can also apply new techniques, which create images of light interference, to learn about the swimming mechanism of individual cells that can carry pathogens in drinking water.'Light interference techniques can accelerate pharmaceutical findings and prove useful in monitoring treatments for bacterial or bacterial diseases' , Leon Esterowitz, expert of the National Science Organization (USA), who oversees fund allocation for research on the comment. To create a light interference pattern, the expert team used a blue LED and a red LED set at a 45-degree angle to each other. They also wrote computer programs to handle huge data obtained from observation devices.