Seminal fluid, not just sperm, can influence offspring’s survival

By Michael Marshall

katoosha/Getty

Toddler fish grow up in every other case relying on the liquid their father’s sperm swam in. The finding exhibits that fathers can affect their offspring via chemical substances in the semen, as neatly as via the sperm themselves.

“There is something in the seminal plasma, perhaps some non-genetic component, that is bettering the offspring,” says Jukka Kekäläinen of the College of Eastern Finland in Joensuu.

Amongst sexually reproducing species, males type intercourse cells called sperm that are carried in a liquid called semen. The sperm merge with eggs produced by females, which …