Female sharks fertilize own eggs

[kate.lin]

Female sharks can fertilize their own eggs and give birth without sperm from males, according to a new study of the asexual reproduction of a hammerhead in a U.S. zoo.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070523/ap_on_sc/virgin_births_sharks;_ylt=AgGXuMHPkh_wB6xBzJaqKMYPLBIF

I am thinking if scientific tech develop into a stage that single male or female human being can have child on their own, how many single male or female would choose to have child by themself?

[kate.lin]

I would if I am rich!

[Big_Fluffy_Matthew]

They didn’t fertilise themselves, that story is wrong, the egg just started dividing by itself. Worms can though, they are male and female at the same time.

[Tyc00n]

How can the egg start dividing by itself if it only has a single set of chromosomes?

[Big_Fluffy_Matthew]

[quote=“Tyc00n”]How can the egg start dividing by itself if it only has a single set of chromosomes?[/quote]Miosis, or something, the offspring does have 2 identical set of chromosomes, I think.

[kate.lin]

I still don’t get the machanism! How does it happen?

[Tyc00n]

Look, thats a secret. As if any male scientist would ever teach a woman how to do that. It would be the end of sex for all of us!

[Buttercup]

Most of us are actively trying not to conceive…

[Tyc00n]

So its the swimming pools then!!!

[Buttercup]

Oh, no! NO! That’s so gross, I am never going in a swimming pool again!

[whitetiger]

Parthenogenesis occurs in some fishes, several kinds of insects, and a few species of frogs and lizards. It does not normally occur in mammals because of their imprinted genes. However, using special manipulations to circumvent imprinting, laboratory mice have been produced by parthenogenesis.

This is one form of Asexual reproduction. The kids would look excatly like mom or dad. Chip off the old block. Sex could be solely for pleasure :beatnik:

http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/A/AsexualReproduction.html

[Big_Fluffy_Matthew]

[quote=“whitetiger”]This is one form of Asexual reproduction. The kids would look excatly like mom or dad. Chip off the old block.[/quote]No they wouldn’t, if I understand it right. You have 2 sets of chromosomes with different genes that combined determine how you look. When a gamete is formed (egg or sperm, which only contain one set of chromosomes), it has one set of genes, randomly taken from both sets of chromosomes. All eggs have different genes from the mother, no 2 eggs are the same (very unlikely anyway). And this egg starting dividing by itself producing the second set of chromosomes identical to the first. That’s if it’s working the way I guess it does.

But they are bound to be female because they can only have YY chromosomes. Depending how the sex determination chromosomes work in that animal, it does vary, it could be all male.