Seahorse and pipefish have an unusual method of reproduction – males carry developing babies in a brood pouch and give birth to live young. Scientists at Sydney University have studied the process of how males gave birth. They originally thought it would be like the female birth process in other vertebrates that give birth to […]
A beautiful white orchid known as the white egret orchid Habenaria radiata has distinctive petals with long fringes on each side of the flower. These were thought to simply act as visual signals to attract their main pollinators, two species of nocturnal hawkmoths. Scientists in Japan have studied the interaction between moths and orchids and […]
A group of European researchers have studied a seaweed named Gracilaria gracilis that grows in the tidepools around Europe. This seaweed is in a class of red algae known as Florideophyceae, and has separate male and female forms. Unlike many marine organisms the females do not release their eggs into the water to be fertilised, […]
“Good coral parenting” for reef recovery found, according to reports in ScienceDaily 16 September 2019 and Scientific Reports 16 September 2019, doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-50045-y. Corals live in a symbiotic relationship with algae – single celled plants that provide the coral with a lot of nutrients, as well as giving the corals their colour. When the corals […]
Protein shield protects embryos, according to a report in Nature, vol 414, p xi, 8 November 2001. A protein named FasL on the surface of cells prevents white blood cells from killing the cells. Embryos need this protection because they have molecules on their surfaces that they inherited from their fathers as well as from […]
Pregnancy prevention programme fails, according to Science (AAAS) News and The Lancet 25 August 2016. A group of public health researchers in Australia have carried out a study of the Virtual Infant Parenting Programme (VIP), a course designed to discourage teenage schoolgirls from getting pregnant by giving them a life-size robot doll to care for. […]
“God is not in charge, we are” says test tube baby pioneer, Robert Edwards, according to a report in T2 Supplement, The Times, 24 July 2003, p.6. In an interview with Anjana Ahuja of the The Times (London, UK) Edwards explained his motive for fighting the Establishment 25 years ago to develop in vitro fertilisation. […]
A hundred million years of fossil sex revealed, according to BBC News 18 June 2009. A new technique for examining the internal structure of fossils has enabled scientists to examine the reproductive organs of ostracods (tiny shellfish) fossils from the Santana Formation in Brazil. The fossils were embedded in rocks that also contained well preserved […]