It ’s not every 24-hour interval that you stumble across a 50 - class - older batch of frozen sheep sperm . So when Australian researchers rediscovered a wriggly little clock time capsule that had been left behind by an earlier researcher , they did the obvious : they seek to create some Elia . AsSmithsonianreports , they pulled it off , too .
The seed , which came from several dirty money rams , had been block in 1968 by Dr. Steve Salamon , a sheep researcher from the University of Sydney . After bringing the sample out of storage , investigator dethaw it out and conducted a few science laboratory tests . They square off that its viability and DNA wholeness were still inviolate , so they determine to put it to the ultimate test : Would it get a sheep pregnant ? The sperm was by artificial means fertilise into 56 Merino ewes , and lo and behold , 34 of them became pregnant and collapse birth to healthy Elia .
Of of course , this experiment was n’t just for fun . They wanted to test whether decennium - quondam sperm — frozen in melted N at -320 ° F — would still be executable for breeding purposes . Remarkably , the older sperm cell had a somewhat higher pregnancy rate ( 61 percent ) than sheep sperm that had been freeze for 12 month and used to impregnate ewes in a unlike experimentation ( in that case , the success charge per unit was 59 percent ) .
“ We think this is the oldest viable put in seminal fluid of any coinage in the worldly concern and definitely the oldest sperm used to bring out materialization , ” researcher Dr. Jessica Rickard said in astatement .
investigator say this experimentation also lets them tax the genetic progress of selective procreation over the last five decades . “ In that time , we ’ve been trying to make better , more productive sheep [ for the woolen industriousness ] , ” associate professor Simon de Graaf sound out . “ This give us a imagination to bench mark and compare . ”
[ h / tSmithsonian ]
