Eli5: How come sperm can survive being frozen?
In: Biology
Freezing cells pretty much stops all chemical reactions. Therefore the cell doesn’t degrade or use up any energy.
If you warm the cell up quickly the reactions start up again and the cell works again.
First off not all sperm will necessarily survive, its not the end of the world if 10% or even 50% of the cells die (I don’t know exact numbers). In a complete organism, even a small proportion of dead cells would be bad.
Secondly the size of a cell means you can freeze and thaw it extremely quickly. Quick freezing ensures no large ice crystals form (which rip cells apart). This is very difficult in multicellular organisms.
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