"The Gamete Games"

In trying to find a new angle on Father's Day, the New York Times decided to do a story on sperm. How they're produced, what they look like, how they work. Just a straight-up, detailed account of the inner workings of the male reproductive system.

It starts like this:

We are fast approaching Father’s Day, the festive occasion on which we plague
Dad with yet another necktie or collect phone call and just generally strive to
remind the big guy of the central verity of paternity — that it’s a lot more fun
to become a father than to be one. “I won’t lie to you,” said the great Homer
Simpson. “Fatherhood isn’t easy like motherhood.” Yet in our insistence that men
are more than elaborately engineered gamete vectors, we neglect the marvels of
their elaborately engineered gametes. As the scientists who study male germ
cells will readily attest, sperm are some of the most extraordinary cells of the
body, a triumph of efficient packaging, sleek design and superspecialization.
Human sperm are extremely compact, and they’ve been stripped of a normal cell’s
protein-making machinery; but when cast into the forbidding environment of the
female reproductive tract, they will learn on the job and change their search
strategies and swim strokes as needed.

Sperm are also fast and as cute as tadpoles. They have chubby teardrop heads and stylish, tapering tails, and they glide, slither, bumble and do figure-eights. So while a father may not be entitled to take the same pride in his sperm as he does in his kids, it’s fair to celebrate the single-minded cellular commas that helped give those children their start.

And then proceeds to turn into a science textbook. Not judging the writer here... I would have no idea how to write an article about sperm with no news hook beyond Father's Day. But... well... sperm.