Testicles, balls, nuts, cojones, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnsons; regardless of what you call
them, you wouldn’t be alive today without this sex organ.
That being said, testicles are pretty odd.
They are vital organs outside of the male body, one almost always hangs lower than the
other, and they contain terabytes of genetic information.
Let’s start with a really weird testicle fact.
All male animals have some form of testes.
But the bush cricket may have the weirdest sized testicles in the entire animal kingdom.
The bush cricket’s testicles account for 14 percent of their entire body weight.
Imagine if a 150 pound human had testes that were 14 percent of their body weight.
That would mean their testicles would be almost 24 pounds.
Those are some big balls.
Sticking with the animal kingdom, male right whales have the largest testicles of any organism.
On average, the right whale testicle weighs around one ton and can produce a gallon of
semen.
And if you thought having a one ton testicle was weird, humans decided to take whale testicles
to a whole new level.
The Icelandic brewing company Stedji has produced a beer for the country’s mid-winter festival.
The festival is called Thorri, and the beer they created for it is the Hvalur 2 beer.
You may be wondering what an Icelandic beer and testicles have in common, well prepare
to get weird.
The beer itself is brewed with the testicles of fin whales.
The fin whale testes are smoked in dried sheep dung, added to the batch of beer, and brewed
to infuse their flavor in the alcohol.
So it would seem the weirdest thing about whale testicles is what humans do with them.
And fin whale testicles are not the only reproductive organs that humans have made into a drink.
In the 16th through 18th century women in Canada would put beaver testicles in their
tea or moonshine.
It was believed that the beaver testicles acted as a contraceptive.
They didn't.
All that people got from drinking the beverage was the weird taste of beaver in their mouth.
Although we use the word testicles which has Latin roots, other languages use the term
for the male reproductive organ in different ways.
For example, the word avocado is derived from the Aztec word for testicles.
This is also true of the word orchid, which is derived from the Greek word for testicles.
Humans have probably been comparing their testes to nature since the beginning of time.
This brings us to a unique, yet weird, term that is sometimes used for testicles: blue
balls.
The colorful name is given to the sensation that occurs when a male gets sexually aroused,
but then does not have a release.
This can lead to an uncomfortable throbbing sensation in the testicles.
At no point in time do the testes turn blue, and if for some reason they did, that person
should immediately go seek medical attention, because they have much bigger problems than
just a little discomfort.
The scientific term for blue balls is epididymal hypertension.
The biological reason this occurs is because the blood vessels of the testes expand to
make room for increased blood flow in preparation for sex.
This is how males get erections.
However, the penis is not the only thing that can increase in size in preparation for intercourse.
The testicles of human males can actually double in size when they are aroused.
Think about how crazy that is.
During sex the testes can grow twice as large to accommodate all of the blood flowing to
the genitalia.
No wonder someone can sometimes feel light headed after sex.
If you thought testicles growing twice their normal size was weird this next fact will
really surprise you.
Sometimes the testicles can be hidden within the body.
When a human male is developing in the womb his testicles normally drop down from the
abdomen, and form in the scrotum outside of the body.
However, sometimes human males are born with both testicles still inside their body.
Basically they appear to be born with no testes at all.
Of course the testicles are still there, they just haven’t descended yet.
Sometimes when this happens the testicles eventually descend on their own after a few
months, sometimes they don’t.
If the testes do remain hidden in the body they oftentimes need to be taken out through
surgery.
This normally resolves the problem and allows the testicles to hang freely, but like with
any surgery, there are risks.
A risk of having undescended testicles is that the person has a 40 percent higher chance
of developing testicular cancer, even after they have been operated on.
But why do the testicles sit outside of the body?
They are incredibly sensitive and vital to the reproduction of our species, so why aren’t
they more protected?
The answer is both surprising and weird.
The main purpose of the testes is to produce sperm.
They actually serve no other purpose but to produce sperm and secrete hormones.
In fact, the average human testicles produces around 200 million sperm every day.
But why is the organ that ensures the continuation of our species so exposed?
Why aren’t they inside of the body where they can be protected?
The reason is because of temperature regulation.
Sperm survives best around 93 degrees Fahrenheit.
This is about five degrees cooler than the internal temperature of the body, which is
98.6 degrees.
By having the testicles sitting just outside of the body their temperature can be regulated.
This is done by the scrotum tightening or loosening.
When it shrinks the testes are pulled closer to the body, and therefore, their temperature
rises.
When the scrotum stretches the testicles descend away from the body and their temperature lowers.
It is a balancing act of the testes to ensure they stay at a viable temperature for sperm
production and storage.
This dance of the testicles isn’t just specific to humans.
Every animal is slightly different.
For example, elephant testicles are tucked up inside the body near their kidneys.
So the thermoregulation process and temperature of the testicles is different from animal
to animal.
Sperm for all intents and purposes is a data storage device.
It holds half of the genetic information to make an offspring in the form of DNA.
This means that the average male ejaculation releases around 15.8 terabytes of data in
DNA code, which makes the testes one of the largest data storage devices in the world.
And if having two organs that act like computer hard drives between the legs isn’t weird
enough, most testicles hang at different heights.
For most males the left testicle hangs a little lower than the right.
The reason for this is so that the temperature of one testicle can be adjusted without affecting
the other.
If both testes were at the same exact height they would be constantly touching one another,
and there would be no way to make slight temperature adjustments to either side without affecting
the other.
Scientists have no idea why it is the left testicle that hangs lower for most males,
it may be by random chance, or a yet to be discovered reason that will be just another
weird fact to add to the list.
It is important we continue to learn about the world around us and this includes learning
more about testicles.
If we don't, some terrible mistakes could be made.
For example, in the Middle Ages men who wanted sons sometimes had their left testicles chopped
off.
It was thought that the right testicle held the sperm to create a male and the left testicle
held the sperm that created a female.
It was believed that by cutting off the left testicle, they were all but ensured to have
a male offspring.
As science advanced we discovered that the Y chromosome that determines whether an offspring
will be male or female can be found in the sperm of both testicles.
Meiosis, which is the process of cell division to create sex cells such as sperm, occurs
the exact same way in both testicles.
Therefore, regardless which testicle the sperm that fertilizes the egg comes from, there
is a 50/50 chance that it carries the Y chromosome and that the baby will be a boy.
You also have to wonder how awkward it must have been if a man in the Middle Ages cut
off his left testicle and his next baby was a female.
He must have felt really silly for treating his testes in such a horrible way.
Like all organs in your body, testicles make proteins for different functions within your
cells.
Interestingly, testicles have the most diverse proteins out of any organ in the body.
It has been estimated that around 77% of all human proteins can be created in the testicles.
Around 1,000 of those proteins are unique to the testes alone.
This is interesting because the human brain only creates around 300 unique proteins.
So, it would seem that the testicles are sometimes more impressive than even the human brain,
which might not come as a surprise for some of you when thinking about the males of our
species.
On a more serious note, a unique form of cancer that develops in the testicles can be incredibly
dangerous for men.
Testicular cancer occurs most frequently in men who are between 15 and 35 years old.
This is a younger age group than most other cancers.
Testicular cancer can be dangerous and even fatal.
It is estimated that around 8,700 new cases of testicular cancer are diagnosed every year
in the United States alone.
Of these 8,700 hundred men around 380 will die.
So, testicular cancer is not something to be taken lightly.
The testicles are truly unique organs, and if nothing else, they are definitely weird.
Whether it is their unique size and shape, or the crazy things we do with them, who knows
what discoveries the future holds for these male reproductive organs.
Now check out “Weird Facts about Male Body.”
Or watch “Weird Facts About Female Body.”