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Parthenogenesis – Sci-advent…

 

Parthenogenesis

I know that strictly speaking there should not be an entry for December 25th in the Sci-advent, but to tell you the truth I could not help myself and decided to do one more. This time it is about parthenogenesis: Parthenos  (παρθένος), meaning virgin in Greek and Genesis (γένεσις), meaning birth. The name Parthenos appears for instance in Greek mythology in the story of the daughter of Apollo and Chrysothemis , who died a maiden and was placed among the stars as the constellation of Virgo (fittingly enough…).

Almost all animal species reproduce sexually, by mixing the genes of two different individuals from meiosis. About 1% of animal species reproduce by parthenogenesis, while an even smaller fraction switch between sexual and asexual reproduction (known as cyclical parthenogenesis). One method of parthenogenesis involves sex cell division and recombination, while another just produces an egg with a full complement of DNA. Parthenogenesis is known to happen in some species of fish, amphibians and reptiles… but not in humans…

 

 

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