Fruit fly sperm study explains how giant cells avoid tangling (opens in new tab)

Scientists reported in Nature Physics that male Drosophila melanogaster fruit flies, whose bodies measure about 1.8 to 2 millimeters, produce sperm that can reach roughly the same length and are about 40 times longer than human sperm. The study examined how thousands of those cells fit inside reproductive storage organs, including a male seminal vesicle about 200 micrometers across and female organs shorter than a single sperm cell. The researchers found that the cells avoid knotting by movin...