It's just a lot of copies of the same information. Not very efficient.
this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2025
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The dna sequence of each sperm is actually unique, and are thus not considered part of your body according to your immune system. This is why your testes are "immune-privileged", meaning your white blood cells are not allowed in there.
So not just inefficient but also insecure? Who designed this crap?
Sexual reproduction is designed for variation. You can reduce it with a large amount of inbreeding. Your family, for example.
jk
My mom, my dad, my aunt and my uncle are going to beat you up! The two of them are really strong!
😂
This is why your testes are “immune-privileged”, meaning your white blood cells are not allowed in there.
crazy. yeah it makes sense on second thought, i guess, like there's some fuckery with the immune system of the mother not entering a child in the womb or sth. yeah it makes sense that that applies for sperm too. then, i wonder, what keeps infections at bay?
I'm not sure. I'll have to look it up
They're just trying to get a point across.
Top Redundancy
It's not even. The data integrity algorithm is really kind of crap.
That's why I always call it a packet storm. "Girl, I'm about to DDOS that booty."
This calculation is off by an order of magnitude.
The human genome has about 3.1 billion base pairs. Each sperm has half of that. Ignoring epigenetics, each base pair has four options (A/T/C/G), so it can be represented by two bits each.
All told, that's 3.1 gigabits = 388 megabytes per gamete.
So what would the total amount of information in an average ejaculation be? Dumb it down for me, please? Lol
97,000 TB
... Jesús Cristo
Surely after some lossless compression this could be improved drastically
The data would compress well, true. However, the DNA in the cell doesn't have anything like data compression, and it makes the calculations more complex, so it's only fair to compare uncompressed sizes.
am i dumb or shouldn't it be 2 times 3.1 billion bits, so 6.2 gigabits according to what you said
The full genome is 3.1 billion base pairs (6.2 Gbit = 775 MByte). Each parent (i.e., one egg or one sperm) contributes half of that, 1.55 billion base pairs (3.1 Gbit = 388 MByte).
If you assume an average ejaculation distance of 9 inches and a nominal speed of 15 mph (this is apparently surprisingly well studied) - you get a data transfer rate of 46,500 TB/s.
I once joked I could jizz faster than my shitty internet connection. Guess I was right
Here's a 75mb joke:
There were 2 sperm, swimming along.
One says to the other one:
"We've been swimming for ages. How long until the egg yet?"
The other replies:
"The egg!? Oh. It's not for miles yet. We've only just passed the tonsils."
Edit:
This calculation is off by an order of magnitude.
The human genome has about 3.1 billion base pairs. Each sperm has half of that. Ignoring epigenetics, each base pair has four options (A/T/C/G), so it can be represented by two bits each.
All told, that’s 3.1 gigabits = 388 megabytes per gamete.
Oh, in that case then, I guess that's a 776mb joke.
"Egg? We're inside a raccoon's anus."
Down load.
This is why a big...hard...drive is important.
More buffer for the git pushin’
Doing a backup of some of my 18TB hard drive today.
This thread gets me thinking about that in new terms.
Not even enough space left on it for a tenth of a load.
And I thought 18TB was big when I bought it.
Crazy to imagine that some Tylenol can corrupt so much data.
Yep, literally crazy.
How do they calculate that?
Each DNA base can be represented in 4 bits because there's only 4 values: A, T, G or C. (This is a simplification because of epigenetic base modifications, but works for now). So just take the length of DNA and multiply by 4 for the amount of bits the data represents. You do have to add up the lengths of all the chromosomes considering that sperm only have one copy of each chromosome, not two. Also factor in that there is no mitochondria in sperm. Lastly, about half of the sperm will be carrying an X and half will be carrying a Y chromosome so just take the length of the (X + Y) / 2 for the sex chromosome. Now just multiply by the amount of sperm in an average ejaculation and you'll get a good estimate.
Each base-pair requires two bits, not four. Picking an arbitrary convention: 00 = A, 01 = T, 10 = G, 11 = C.
To represent 4 values, you only need 2 bits
- 00
- 01
- 10
- 11
How do they ejaculate that?
Morse code
There are websites to help with that.
Trump enters the chat
Does he have to? In every single thread?
Sorry but he’s got a thirst
I don't wanna think about where his sperm has been.
Oh I was thinking about bubbas sperm in his mouth. His has been in children and he should be in prison for that
So if I jerk off, I could use that to store porn, thus making me jerk off more, thus providing more porn storage…
Wouldn't quaternary storage need a different naming scheme?
Pff I'd be happy to reach a megabit at my age.
Wow, I didn't know I was better than a pigeon at transmitting information across long distances.
I'm here for your large data transfer needs, business fellows!
Not sure what you consider a long distance, but if it travels as far as a pigeon you might want to go see a medical professional.
Not that much information, but a lot of redundancy. Every sperm carries the same X or Y-Chromosome. So every sperm contains the same information as half of the other sperm. Or did I miss something?