Word: sperms
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...such wondrous power and velocity in swimming as to defy all present pursuit from man," wrote Herman Melville of the finback whale. "This leviathan seems the banished and unconquerable Cain of his race." Captain Ahab and his men felt the same way, concentrated on other, slower beasts (notably the sperm whale, a species to which Moby Dick himself belonged). But today, with steam power and steel cables, the "unconquerable Cains" of the ocean, the fin and the blue whales,* are hunted vigorously-and among the most interested hunters is modern medicine...
...noted. Major Simons admits, of course, that cosmic rays kill tissue cells, but he does not think any part of an animal's body is seriously damaged by the loss of a few cells. Genetic damage is another matter. If a cosmic ray hits a reproductive cell (sperm or ovum), it can cause the birth of an imperfect individual. Major Simons cannot guarantee at present that all his high-flying mice and monkeys will have normal descendants...
...Trained as a lawyer, and a member of Parliament since 1935, Karamanlis early showed his mettle. When John Metaxas padlocked Parliament and declared himself dictator, he summoned Karamanlis and offered him a Cabinet post. Karamanlis looked Metaxas squarely in the eye and said: "Mister Premier, all dictatorships contain the sperm of death. They are doomed from the beginning, as will be yours. I think it might be better if you got some .older men to work with you." (Metaxas replied equably: "Young man, I think you're right...
...virgin births possible in nature? In guppies, yes, because the female may be a hermaphrodite and, by producing sperm as well as ova, fertilize herself. In rabbits, fatherless reproduction has been observed after the doe's ovaries are chilled. But in humans? Maybe, says the Lancet of London, and last week doctors went to work to see whether there are living proofs in England today...
...gave at University College in London. Among humans, she declared, virgin birth could not happen in the case of a hermaphrodite, who would not be self-fertile. However, parthenogenesis* might occur. This is the process by which an ovum begins to divide spontaneously, without having been fertilized by a sperm-perhaps after it has made up for the missing male chromosomes by a form of doubling. It is almost certain that the offspring of parthenogenesis would be a female, since the ovum contains only female chromosomes...