Aldous Huxley is most famous for "Brave New World" (1932), but among scientists working on sperm competition and reproductive biology his "Fifth Philosopher's Song" (1920) is also well-known:
| A million million spermatozoa All of them alive Out of their cataclysm but one poor Noah Dare hope to survive And among that billion minus one Might have chanced to be Shakespeare, another Newton, a new Donne But that one was me |
In biology texts and lectures, these first two verses are all that are usually quoted, the point being that males must manufacture millions of sperm that compete intensively to fertilize the female's eggs. They also emphasize that all sperm are different, carrying a random half of the father's genes. But there is a third, lesser known verse, that after new findings reported this week is sure to get quoted:
| Shame to have ousted your betters thus Taking ark while the others remained outside Better for all of us, froward homunculus If you'd quietly died |
Do some sperm die for the sake of another? Do they sacrifice themselves and their opportunity to fertilize an egg in order to increase the chances of one of their sperm brothers? Huxley's verse may have been truer than he knew. According to a paper in Nature this week, the answer is yes.