Organism Survives 100 Million Years Without Sex

zyl0x writes "The Times has an interesting article online on the discovery of a 100-million-year-old micro-organism which has survived its entire lifespan without sex." From the article "A tiny creature that has not had sex for 100 million years has overturned the theory that animals need to mate to create variety. Analysis of the jaw shapes of bdelloid rotifers, combined with genetic data, revealed that the animals have diversified under pressure of natural selection. Researchers say that their study "refutes the idea that sex is necessary for diversification into evolutionary species".

Nothing to see here...

[Veroxii (51114)]

This happens on Slashdot all the time.

Move along...

About the title...

[oOo Shiva oOo (582339)]

I would have found "Organism Survives Without Orgasm" at least a hundred times more entertaining :)

Re:About the title...

[Fordiman (689627)]

Funny, I initially read it as 'Orgasm Survives 100 Million Years Without Sex'.

Indeed

[Goldberg's Pants (139800)]

Sounds a lot like my marriage...

Re:Yeah...

[rhyder128k (1051042)]

Females that haven't had sex in millions of years. I moving there. I could get laid.

Welcome to slashdot

[Harmonious Botch (921977)]

It should be right at home here.

Re:Welcome to slashdot

[yintercept (517362)]

"It should be right at home here."

The article says that all of the bdelloid rotifers are females.

Your point is refuted.

Re:Welcome to slashdot

[ari_j (90255)]

Am I the only slashdotter who gets laid on a regular basis? Feels like it sometimes.

But - 100 million years without sex. That's gotta suck... or NOT!

Presumably, it's not your original sense of humor that you rely on in these matters.

Re:Welcome to slashdot

[jfengel (409917)]

At this point it's more of an in-joke than an actual lamenting of our lonely state. There's a canonical geek out there we all think of fondly, and perhaps we even were that guy at some point, even if we've grown out of it now. Slashdot is much more diversified than it used to be.

Re:Welcome to slashdot

[AbRASiON (589899)]

Yeah I used to think how awesome it is to not be one of those lonely slashdot guys who has a redundant penis.

Then I hit the 3'rd year of being with my girlfriend, anyone want a redundant penis?

Re:Welcome to slashdot

[UncleTogie (1004853)]

The optimal situation is to get the sex and not have the girlfriend.

I wouldn't call masturbation optimal...

Re:Welcome to slashdot

[ArsenneLupin (766289)]

The optimal situation is to get the sex and not have the girlfriend.

I wouldn't call masturbation optimal...

Well, how about a boyfriend?

Blue Balliticus

[madhatter256 (443326)]

Is that what you would name this micro-organism?

Is it only me...

[bky1701 (979071)]

...who read this as a single organism living for 100 million years without having sex? First part said "wow", second part made me feel like I had been out-geeked...

Nerd trifecta

[Hal_Porter (817932)]

Front page stories

* Dungeons & Dragons and IT
* Organism Survives 100 Million Years Without Sex
* Gifted Children Find Heavy Metal Comforting

Did anyone see suck's parody of slashdot?

http://www.suck.com/daily/99/12/13/daily.html [suck.com]

Doesn't seem so funny now, does it?

Re:Nerd trifecta

[Deathbane27 (884594)]

That's not a very good parody of Slashdot. There's no dupe on the front page!

Orgasm vs. Organism

[Fastball (91927)]

Did anyone else read that headline as "Orgasm Survives 100 Million Years Without Sex?" That'd be a pretty impressive feat!

Silly reporter, sex is not required

[CCW (125740)]

This discovery doesn't refute anything. Sex has never been a requirement for diversification. That's just silly. Single celled organisms reproduce clonally, and there are millions of species. (they do utilize gene transfer, but that isn't the same as sexual reproduction)

Inheritable differences and selection are sufficient. Mutation is a fine source of inheritable differences. Sex allows greater rates of diversity and retention in the population of undesirable traits that are not dominant for longer, allowing them time to mutate into something useful or show up when environmental factors make them useful. Sexual reproduction is far and away the most common mode in multicellular organisms, probably because it helps the species be resilient to environmental changes. But it isn't required.

Trust me

[edwardpickman (965122)]

it just seemed like a 100 million years.

Horribly misreported

[warm sushi (168223)]

Researchers say that their study "refutes the idea that sex is necessary for diversification into evolutionary species".

I have never even heard the idea (during a degree in genetics) that sex is necessary for diversification into species. Bacteria do not have sex (although they can share DNA through other means, such as plasmids) and yet that are incrediably diverse and continue to evolve rapidly (e.g. antibiotic resistance). Therefore, if sex were necessary for speciation we would only have one species of bacteria.

The term "evolutionary species" is also strange. All "species" are by definition "evolutionary", since that is the process by which individual species arise.

Living Louse

[malia8888 (646496)]

Two sister species were found to be living together on the body of a water louse. One of them specialised in living around the louse's legs and the other stayed close to the chest.

And I thought I had a crappy dorm room.

Re:Slashdotters

[niloroth (462586)]

actually, the main point of the story is that it has changed, has evolved. There is no reason to believe that evolution stops if there is no sex, natural selection is quite happy to use mutation as a tool for evolution, just as it does sex. The difference being that sex tends to speed the process up with different combinations of genes with most offspring.

Re:Slashdotters

[Rimbo (139781)]

Well, clearly sex isn't the only way to achieve diversification.

It's just more fun that way.

Re:About time they got around to this study!

[mollog (841386)]

Maybe it only seems like 100 million years. Either way, I can sympathize. I, too, tell myself that I have evolved.

Re:Scientific name

[by Anonymous Coward]

Do you even know what murder means?

How on earth can you kill someone who hasn't even been born yet?
Next you'll be saying woman who have periods are murderers. ...that's another embryo aborted. In your opinion we are all genocidal maniacs, since we could have all reproduced millions of times but have not (something to do with rape laws) and so millions of embryo's have been effectively aborted via periods which could have otherwise formed children.