Word: sperm
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...November 20, 1820, the Nantucket whaling ship Essex was attacked by a sperm whale, and sank in mid-Pacific. The incident provided Herman Melville the ending for Moby Dick. It also sent the 20-man crew of the Essex zigzagging across open ocean for three months in three 23-ft. whaleboats. Eventually they resorted to cannibalism to survive. For more than 100 years the only known account was that of the first mate, Owen Chase. But this spring 100 pages written by Thomas Nickerson, who shipped on the Essex as a boy of 16, were found in an attic...
When James Noyes, 32, flew home to Rochester earlier this month, he left his two-month-old son behind in Arcadia, Calif., and there is a good chance he will never see him again. Noyes and his wife Bjorna, 28, unable to produce children, had had his sperm injected into Nisa Bhimani, 29, a California widow and mother of three. But during her pregnancy, Bhimani decided she wanted to keep the child. Noyes sued for custody. Then, just before the trial, he withdrew his suit, partly to avoid publicly divulging his wife's transsexuality-which came out, in court...
...suicidal leviathan was a relatively rare sperm whale. Such whales have the biggest brains on the planet...
Tests on the mucus, which Hyman had collected by poking a giant Q-Tip into the blowhole, revealed four different types of pneumonia bacteria. The prospects seemed bleak. But scientists dosed the animal with penicillin and began serving it squid-a sperm whale favorite. Soon it started "sitting" higher in the water, raising its head and emitting the clicking sounds that sperms seem to use for communication or echo locating...
...boats it slowly headed out to sea. Two Coast Guard vessels followed it 4% miles into the Atlantic, watching it make three dives of about 3 min. apiece, blowing off its steamy breath each time. Then Physty was seen no more. It was the first time that a stranded sperm whale had ever been saved...