From owner-cellbiol@net.bio.net Sat Jan 11 22:00:00 1997 Path: biosci!ihnp4.ucsd.edu!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!feed1.news.erols.com!howland.erols.net!news3.cac.psu.edu!news.cse.psu.edu!news.ece.nwu.edu!newsfeed.acns.nwu.edu!news.cc.uic.edu!usenet From: Ed Arias Newsgroups: bionet.cellbiol Subject: Re: Are Sperms Alive? Date: Sun, 12 Jan 1997 01:49:21 -0500 Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago Lines: 35 Message-ID: <32D88971.1E38@uic.edu> References: <5b89a1$m3f@falcon.le.ac.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: slip5a-08.dialin.uic.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.01Gold (Win95; I) Dr E. Buxbaum wrote: > > sung@UTMDACC.MDA.UTH.TMC.EDU (GongQin Sun) wrote: > >I have a comment in response to Dr. E. Buxbaum's post. > > > >1) I agree with the five characteristics, but think a sperm meets number 4 > >(self propagation) only partially at best. Sperms can not reproduce > >themselves first of all. With the help of an egg, only half of the sperm > >population (those carrying the Y chromosome) can eventually "reproduce" > >themselves. Am I missing something here? > > Yes, you are. You yourself are not able to reproduce without the aid of a > partner of the opposite sex. However, this does not mean you are not > alive (assuming you havn't just won the Turing test). First of all "I" am not a sperm cell. Secondly, cancers do very well in self reproduction with few limitations. Thirdly, aside from parthenogenic activation...if you culture an egg (haploid #) with blastomeres derived from a blastocyst..it will develop...apparently, the egg is able to access the "needed" DNA from the diploid cells to activate itself toward development (I'm vague on this work...but if you insist I will produce it for you). Therefore, women don't need the opposite sex to reproduce, just a diploid cell (from another female) to activate the egg. -- Ed Arias University of Illinois at Chicago Dept of Physiology & Biophysics 835 S. Wolcott Avenue Chicago, IL 60612 Tel: 312.996.4161 Fax: 312.996.1414 e-mail: earias1@uic.edu WWW: http://www.uic.edu/~earias1/racquetball.htm .