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Ancient Survivors Could Redefine Sex
- icodestuff 12y agoOne question that's not well-answered in this article is how new bdelloid individuals are created. Do they bud like yeast? Do they lay eggs? Do they just cleave in two?
- ars 12y agoThey lay unfertilized eggs. That's why they looked for a male that would fertilize the eggs, but didn't find one.
- oska 12y agoAdding slightly to ars' answer. The method of reproduction is called parthenogenesis. Here is the simple wiki entry: http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenogenesis http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenogenesis
- kijin 12y agoSo "traditional" sex is a PRNG that first generates a large number of random combinations of bits, picks two of them at random, returns those two, and discards the rest. Sounds rather inefficient, right? These bdelloids, on the other hand, just decided to shuffle the bits in place. A bit insecure (prone to errors and contamination), but very efficient in highly constrained (frequently dehydrated) environments.