Animals and Virgin Birth: No Daddy Needed

Virgin birth or asexual reproduction, which is otherwise known as Parthenogenesis, is not as rare as you might think. Recently, virgin birth has been observed in certain types of snakes, but other animals like chickens, sharks, lizards and plenty of species of bees and insects can do it.

There are different mechanisms involved in creating offspring in this way. However, basically, full clones have all their mother's genetic material and half-clones, which can occur due to terminal fusion, have a little over half the mother's genetic material.

The fearsome and let's face it, ugly, Komodo dragon, is the largest living species of lizard and this monster, believe it or not, can replicate itself without the need of a daddy. Offspring are not exact clones, as genetic material gets shuffled about. Generally, however, Komodo dragons do form pair bonds and have a once a year mating period. Males, as usual, fight over desirable females and often, vomit or defecate when getting ready for a brawl.

Komodo dragon

Certain types of sharks are also capable of virgin birth like the odd-looking hammerhead shark. Hammerheads, too, usually have a once a year mating period and the mating process usually involves the male shark aggressively biting the female, until she will mate with him. Female sharks, however, can fertilise their own eggs (sounds preferable), by parthenogenesis, but usually, there will be only one offspring produced.

The hammerhead shark

The humble chicken and turkey can also clone themselves, if there is no male to oblige. However what about us humans? Hwang Woo-suk, a former professor at Seoul National University claimed that he had successfully cloned a human embryo. However. rather than a story of pioneering science, this case turned into a tale of fraud, scandal and shame.


Books To Read

The Prestige, is a novel by British writer Christopher Priest. The events of the past are revealed through the diaries of magicians Rupert Angier and Alfred Borden. The diaries read by their great-grandchildren, Kate Angier and Andrew Westley (born Nicholas Borden) in the present day, and diary entries are interspersed with events of Kate's and Andrew's lives throughout the novel.

Isaac Newton: A singular Fellow and Genius

Isaac Newton is widely considered to have been a genius. He was an astronomer, mathematician and physicist, whose ideas laid down some of the most important scientific foundations. However, he was also a very odd fellow.

Godfrey Kneller's 1689 portrait of Isaac Newton (age 46)

Newton did not get on too well with others, he was very private and extremely introverted. He seems to have had a bit of a temper and was known to resort to violence, by giving out a beating to those he believed deserved it. Newton also tried to destroy the reputation of Gottfried Leibniz, who had discovered calculus at around the same time as Newton. At university, Newton was generally considered a poor scholar, as he mostly disregarded the subjects that he was supposed to be studying. Luckily, his mathematical genius was noticed. 

When he was young he actually made up a list of sins that he had committed and one of them was "Beating Arthur Storer". Another sin was making a mousetrap on Sunday and another was "squirting water" on the Sabbath. Woopie-do!

Woolsthorpe Manor, Lincolnshire, birthplace of Sir Isaac Newton

Newton was also a religious zealot, but he had his own set of radical ideas. He was a Catholic but did not believe in the Trinity. He also believed that worshipping Jesus as God was a sin. Newton did, however, end a friendship with an acquaintance who made a joke about a nun. On his death bed, Newton refused to receive the sacrament and he also said that his greatest achievement in life was that he would die a virgin. 


Books To Read

All Cats Have Asperger Syndrome, by Kathy Hoopmann