Thursday, July 14, 2011

The point of sex 'discovered'

An Article on Indian Biological Research
Health Care by Nature
Thanks to biologists at the University of Indiana who claim to have discovered that animals reproduce together, rather than simply cloning themselves, because it helps them to ward off parasites, 'The Daily Telegraph' reported. 
In fact, according to them, the findings support the evolutionary theory that blending of two animals' genomes creates an offspring with a new genetic code which may make it more resistant to attack. 
The biologists say they may have provided the best evidence yet after engineering two types of worms, some which could only reproduce by mating with each other and some could only clone themselves. 
After exposing them to a harmful bacteria, worms that reproduced through sex survived fairly well while those that were asexual died rapidly.