Inner Nature: Virgin Births
By Vidya Rajan, Columnist, The Times
December seems a good time of year to bring up the topic of virgin births. Religion aside, this is actually an interesting and significant biological topic. Curiously, virgin births have been documented in all vertebrates with jaws with the exception of mammals. To be clear, the majority of organisms on this planet – single celled bacteria and protists – normally...
Inner Nature: Eggs and Seeds
By Vidya Rajan, Columnist, The Times
I was working in my garden, doing the regular maintenance tasks of weeding and planning my fall plantings. I was planning on gathering seeds from some of my favorite flowers to replant. As I worked, I’d disturb a rock or something (a military joke) and find a germinating weed seed, or a cluster of ants eggs. They were everywhere. Seeds and eggs. Then it struck...
Inner Nature: The science of reproduction
By Vidya Rajan, Columnist, The Times
Reproduction is the process by which cells make new cells and organisms make babies. No surprises there. But underlying the banality of that observation is a profound question that had thinkers from Aristotle to Darwin scratching their heads: How does reproduction work? How is it that cats have baby cats nearly, but not exactly, like themselves? And if cats make...
