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VIRGIN BIRTH. "The phenomenon of virgin birth has long fascinated scientists and laymen alike. The first account of parthenogenesis in the literature is the prophecy of Jesus Christ’s birth in Isaiah 7:14: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel”. This reference to parthenogenesis is unusual in two ways: first, it is the only account of ‘natural parthenogenesis’ in a mammal." http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982215007824 View in LinkedIn

FRAGMENTERS. "Other organisms using fragmentation include annelid worms, filamentous cyanobacteria and some multicellular metazoans, including mitochondrial eukaryotes." https://www.reference.com/science/organisms-can-reproduce-fragmentation-1ef1450618cbf65b View in LinkedIn

LACK OF MAMMALIAN PARTHENOGENESIS. "Mammals are believed to be completely unable to reproduce via parthenogenesis because of a number of developmental and genetic constraints." http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982215007824 View in LinkedIn

SO ENDS this first weekend Fragment from Nature exploring how plants recognize kin versus non-kin. As we become increasingly urbanized and disconnected from nature, our views of the natural world become increasingly distanced, and plants assume the identity of plastic cut-outs, bearing little or no sense of being. On the contrary, increasingly science is illustrating the intensely related and feeling nature of plants. The salad breathes. View in LinkedIn

INTERESTING QUESTION. "Parthenogenesis — the ability to produce offspring from unfertilized eggs — is widespread among invertebrates and now increasingly found in normally sexual vertebrates. Are these cases reproductive errors or could they be a first step in the emergence of new parthenogenetic lineages?" https://lnkd.in/gvZ8CFZ View in LinkedIn

"VOLATILE CUES from close kin may be more easily perceived by kin or may provide more reliable information about probable risk. The ability to differentially communicate based on relatedness makes possible a wide variety of social behaviours for plants that have previously been thought to be solely within the repertoire of animals." http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/280/1756/20123062.short View in LinkedIn

OPTIONAL VIRGIN BIRTHS. "Facultatively parthenogenetic species of animals do exist and such organisms could provide tests of hypotheses related to constraints on asexual reproduction." https://lnkd.in/gGTTSzx View in LinkedIn

"THE EVOLUTIONARY ORIGIN of sex can differ from the evolutionary maintenance of sex and different factors may help maintain sex than lead to its evolution. The evolutionary return to asexual reproduction from a sexual ancestor requires a number of simultaneous changes: eggs may not mature until stimulated by mating, eggs may not develop without stimulation by sperm, and diploidy must be restored unless meiosis is suppressed." https://lnkd.in/gGTTSzx View in LinkedIn

DIPLOID EGGS. "Only females that have a high level of heterozygosity are capable of parthenogenetic reproduction and there is a strong familial influence on the ability to reproduce parthenogenetically. Although the mechanism by which genetic variation facilitates asexual reproduction is unknown, we suggest that heterosis may facilitate the switch from producing haploid meiotic eggs to diploid, essentially mitotic, eggs." https://lnkd.in/gGTTSzx View in LinkedIn

COCKROACH CLONES. "We investigate the role of genetic factors in limiting asexual reproduction in Nauphoeta cinerea, an African cockroach with facultative parthenogenesis that nearly always reproduces sexually. We show that when N. cinerea females do reproduce asexually, offspring are genetically identical to their mothers. However, asexual reproduction is limited to a nonrandom subset of the genotypes in the population." https://lnkd.in/gGTTSzx View in LinkedIn