16 December 2008

From the shallows

Zooillogix is finally living up to the 'x' in our namesake. We have discovered a microscopic animal that engages in lesbian sex with its dead female friends in order to obtain DNA and thus survive to reproduce.
Zx. has humourously repackaged for Xmas a paper by Gladyshev et al. that actually dates from May 08, and was reported at the time. Calling what is involved 'sex' is a real stretch. Anyway, the findings do seem to shed light on the apparent conundrum that bdelloid rotifers have survived more than 80 million years without sex.

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