NOVA - Official Website Life's Greatest Miracle. Life's Greatest Miracle. PBS Airdate: November 2. NARRATOR: People do all sorts of things to get attention. And why? It. may be the last thing on his mind, but this man's body is working toward. Whether we're thinking about it or not, our bodies want to make babies.

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Nathan Silver’s romantic drama “Thirst Street” follows a flight attendant’s spiraling amour fou towards a Parisian bartender, but while that’s an.

Life's Greatest Miracle. Trace human development from embryo to newborn through the stunning microimagery of photographer Lennart Nilsson. Airing November 20.

And. our bodies are very good at it. Around the world about 3. But as ordinary as it seems, creating a new human being is no simple feat. Watch Atomic Rulers Full Movie. Just think of it.

No matter who you are, once upon a time you looked like this. From a single cell you built a body that has one hundred trillion cells.

You. made hundreds of different kinds of tissues and dozens of organs, including a. How did you do it? Today, we can look closer than ever before: into the womb, into a cell, into. Not only can we see what's happening, but now we're. We're uncovering the most intimate.

NARRATOR: You might think all the people on this beach are just working. But beneath all that sunscreen, under the skin, there's a.

Without even thinking about it, almost all the adults here. They can't help themselves. The urge to procreate. Why is this urge so universal? At least some blame can probably go to this. DNA—the molecule that carries our genes, the chemical instructions for. DNA has run the show for more than four billion years for one main reason.

The copies can get passed to a new. If you're a bacterium, you might be into cloning—making exact replicas of. All your descendents have the same DNA and, except for an occasional. It's simple. It works. And genetically it's. It can also be dangerous.

If humans were all clones, everyone would have the exact same immune system. Fortunately, there's sex, the method of choice for 9. Earth more complex than bacteria. With sexual reproduction, two. DNA. Most animals put it into sperm or eggs. If. the two can get together, a new being will be created, one that's different.

Where there's sex, there's variety. And when it comes to survival of the. All this comes at a price. Sexual reproduction may be popular, but it's also. To get an idea of how tricky, just take a peek inside a man's.

It's packed with tiny tubes coiled into bundles. Stretched out they could. Inside all this tubing, the average man is churning out a.

That's about a hundred million new sperm every. And here's the tricky part. How is this possible?

How can one person produce so many different. The answer lies in the very special way we make sperm.

In almost every cell of your body you have thirty thousand or more different. DNA called "chromosomes." Most cells.

Exactly half of. those, 2. They come in pairs. The only time they.

Here's how it works inside a testicle that's making sperm. First, each. chromosome makes an exact copy of itself, keeping it attached at one point. They condense, creating an X- shape. Now the chromosome partners get together. They cling so closely, big chunks. The cell. then divides twice, each time pulling the pairs apart.

The final result is a. By itself, the cell is incomplete. But it still holds incredible promise.

All this gene shuffling means that within a single species, there can be an. And the more diversity, the better the odds are. MELINDA TATE IRUEGAS: This is my mom and dad and your mom and. SERGIO IRUEGUS: And my mom and dad on their wedding day. You definitely. have your mom's eyes. And you can see I definitely have my dad's. MELINDA TATE IRUEGAS: You do have your dad's eyebrows.

NARRATOR: Melinda Tate Iruegas and her husband, Sergio, are. SERGIO IRUEGUS: Here's Mom and Dad with me and my brother. MELINDA TATE IRUEGAS: Yeah.

SERGIO IRUEGUS: My sister hadn't come along yet. But this is what our. That's me. NARRATOR: Their unborn child carries a mixture of genes not just. SERGIO IRUEGAS: That's like the spitting image. You look so much like. NARRATOR: But which genes got passed on from whom right now is.

SERGIO IRUEGAS: Because here you are and this is what our little girl. I wonder if the baby will have the characteristic eyebrows.

We call them the Iruegas. MELINDA TATE IRUEGAS: Or that it won't have my dad's nose.

SERGIO IRUEGAS: Your nose. MELINDA TATE IRUEGAS: We talked about having children a lot. He would. say, "Five, six." I was like, "Well, let's start with one.

Two, maybe. three."NARRATOR: In their efforts to pass on their genes, Melinda and. Sergio pursued dramatically different strategies.

Like most men, Sergio has. But Melinda created all her eggs when she looked like this, a fetus in her. Within a couple of months, she created several million eggs. And. then, the eggs began to die. At the age of 3. 1, Melinda may only have a few. But that's okay, because inside an ovary, as opposed to a. Every month, one of a woman's two ovaries selects an immature egg cell to.

Hundreds of support cells tend the egg, feeding it until. When it's ready, the whole entourage—the egg along with its. Waiting for them is the open end of the Fallopian tube, which leads to the. Its tentacles capture the egg and pull it inside. The egg is swept. The egg has everything it needs to start a new life, except for one. DNA from a sperm.

And it has to get it fast. If the egg is not. With sex, there will always be pressure to meet and impress a mate. When it. comes to actually choosing a partner, there's a lot to consider. For us, it. might be somewhat more complicated than picking the one that smells best, but. When love is in the air, the body can undergo some dramatic changes. Signals. from the brain speed up the metabolism of glucose.

As a result, body. In a man. hormones cue blood vessels to relax, allowing the spongy tissue in the penis to. At the height of sexual excitement, millions of sperm are. The flood carries them into a fifteen- inch- long tube. It's only about a. They are immediately in peril.

The vagina is acidic, so the sperm must escape. They start to swim, at least some of them. Even in a healthy man, 6. Like this one with two tails.

For these guys, the journey is over. But what about the rest?

What are the chances that one tiny sperm will reach. Sperm are often portrayed as brave little warriors. Nothing could be. For every challenge the sperm face, success is, to a great extent, controlled. Take the sperm's first obstacle, the cervix, passageway to the uterus. Most of. the time, it's locked shut, plugged with mucous that keeps bacteria and sperm. But for just a few days a month, around ovulation, the mucous becomes.

Arriving inside the uterus, the sperm are still about six inches away from. But undulations of the uterine. Even a sperm that reaches the tube in record time has no guarantee of. There may be no egg there. Ovulation could still be days.

It's the slowpokes, caught up in the cilia lining the tube, who may have a. It's probably here that chemicals in the woman's body alter the. Only those sperm that are altered can get a date with. The sperm are released gradually, over the course of a few days, so at. If all goes well, then farther up the tube they'll find the egg.

But it's. heavily chaperoned by support cells. And the chaperones are picky. Only some of. the sperm are let through.

Those who make it will face yet another challenge. Underneath the cloud of. To fertilize the egg, the sperm must break through the zona. But even the. strongest can't do it by brute force alone. The egg demands a proper.

Proteins protruding from the sperm's cap must hook up precisely. If they match, the sperm is held. It sheds its outer coating.

The final hurdle passed, the sperm still does not thrust its way into the egg. Rather, the membranes of the two cells fuse, and the egg draws the.

MELINDA TATE IRUEGAS: I don't know. We weren't being as careful as we.

And October came around and I was a day late. And actually I. was having some other problems with my wrist. And we went to the doctor and the. Well, are you pregnant?" You know, because he. SERGIO IRUEGAS: Yeah.

MELINDA TATE IRUEGAS: And I said, "No." And then I thought about it and. I was like, "Well, I don't know." I decided that I better check this out. And. sure enough, it was positive. And when he came home, I was like..

Kotaku. Those who prefer Total War’s historical games to its Warhammer outing should keep an eye on Total War Saga, a new series of “standalone spin- off titles focusing on exciting pivotal moments in history.”.