By Michael Marshall
There’s more to semen than we thought
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Baby fish grow up differently depending on the liquid their fathers sperm swam in. The finding shows that fathers can influence their offspring through chemicals in the semen, as well as through the sperm themselves.
There is something in the seminal plasma, maybe some non-genetic factor, that is modifying the offspring, says Jukka Kekäläinen of the University of Eastern Finland in Joensuu.
Among sexually reproducing species, males produce sex cells called sperm that are carried in a liquid called semen. The sperm merge with eggs produced by females, which …