Do animals need to sex to create variety?

The Times Online has an interesting article about an organism which survived 100 million years without sex.

Researchers say that their study "refutes the idea that sex is necessary for diversification into evolutionary species".

 

From the article:

 
"A tiny creature that has not had sex for 100 million years has overturned the theory that animals need to mate to create variety. Analysis of the jaw shapes of bdelloid rotifers, combined with genetic data, revealed that the animals have diversified under pressure of natural selection. Researchers say that their study "refutes the idea that sex is necessary for diversification into evolutionary species".

 
 

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Creature that has not had sex for 100m years

By:  Lewis Smith, Environment Reporter

(From The Times, March 20, 2007)

Going on a 'mental time travel' ?!

If you thought memory was all about making a record of the past, think again!

Your brain is equipped with a time machine that can take you forwards and backwards at will.

 

Without paying a penny you can travel backwards or forwards in time in your mind's eye - what is known as "mental time travel". One of these visions - the backward travel - is about really happened things and the other -  the backward travel - is about fantasizing things.....but that too will have a time-line assigned by your mind which makes it both the instances very similar. In simple terms, you are able to 'recall' your future as you would normally do about your past!

 

You can recall what happened yesterday, like where you have been, what you ate, whom you have talked to in the morning, what you did in the evening. Same way you 'recall' your tomorrow like where you will be, what you will be eating, to whom all you will be talking in the morning, what you will be doing in the evening. That's what 'mental time travel' is all about. Now experiment with yourself, travel to the newer meadows of your future on your 'mental time machine', explore the future!

 

Happy journey!

Want to postpone your pregnancy?.....Egg freezing comes to your rescue!

Now women around the world can hopefully stop their biological clock for a decade or more by putting their eggs on ice. Recent advances in freezing techniques (cryo-preservation) suggest that egg survival and fertilisation success rates for once-frozen eggs may be as good as for fresh ones. Egg-freezing is still a comparatively untested technology, but now it is possible that women can 'bank' their healthy eggs for a while - till they feel its time - can have her eggs thawed and use routine IVF procedures to get pregnant.

 
"A woman is more likely to get pregnant at 40 with one of her eggs frozen in her early 30s than with her 40-year-old eggs" says Gillian Lockwood, medical director of Midland Fertility Services in Aldridge, West Midlands, in the UK.

 
Egg freezing: A reproductive revolution

By: Rachel Nowak

(21 March 2007, NewScientist.com news service)

 

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