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Earth Science

Scientists Discover Sawfish Escape Extinction Through "Virgin Births" 111

Posted by samzenpus from the I'll-do-it-myself dept.
An anonymous reader writes: The first known virgin births in smalltooth sawfish have been documented in the wild. Researchers from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission used DNA to show that three percent of a Florida sawfish population was created by female-only reproduction. Dr Warren Booth, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Tulsa, who previously discovered an instance of parthenogenesis in snakes, said: "This is basically a very extreme form of inbreeding. Most people think of inbreeding as bad, but it could be helpful in purging deleterious mutations from a population." The findings were published in the journal Current Biology.
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Scientists Discover Sawfish Escape Extinction Through "Virgin Births" More

Scientists Discover Sawfish Escape Extinction Through "Virgin Births"

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  • dear lord (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02, 2015 @02:10AM (#49820205)

    keep this away from the 4chan crowd

  • Life, uh, finds a way.

    • Life, uh, finds a way.

      God! God finds a way...
      note before down-mod: "Virgin Birth"!

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by meglon ( 1001833 )
        Yes, virgin birth... which in biblical times, in that area of the world, meant that the woman was a virgin when she MARRIED. Doesn't have dick to do with god, God, or gods, except in the eyes of someone ignorant of their own religion. Less dogmatic bullshit, more reality = better for everyone. It's not even all that uncommon of an event:

        http://www.encyclopedia.com/to... [encyclopedia.com]

        parthenogenesis is a type of asexual reproduction in which the offspring develops from unfertilized eggs. It is particularly common amongst arthropods and rotifers, can also be found in some species of fish, amphibians, birds, and reptiles, but not in mammals. Parthenogenetic development also occurs in some plants species, such as roses and orange trees.

        • Yes, virgin birth... which in biblical times, in that area of the world, meant that the woman was a virgin when she MARRIED. Doesn't have dick to do with god, God, or gods, except in the eyes of someone ignorant of their own religion.

          I am a (religious) Greek actually, reading the New Testament in its original Greek text - it is very clear that "Virgin (Greek:parthena) Birth (Greek:genesis)" means a birth from a virgin... NOT "a birth from someone who was a virgin at some time".... something that you don't even have to read in the original Greek to understand!
          You can write that you don't believe it, but let's not change what it is writen and its very clear meaning.

          Less dogmatic bullshit, more reality = better for everyone. It's not even all that uncommon of an event: http://www.encyclopedia.com/to... [encyclopedia.com]

          parthenogenesis is a type of asexual reproduction in which the offspring develops from unfertilized eggs. It is particularly common amongst arthropods and rotifers, can also be found in some species of fish, amphibians, birds, and reptiles, but not in mammals. Parthenogenetic development also occurs in some plants species, such as roses and orange trees.

          I just made a (not so off-topic) reference to God and the Virgin Birth my

          • Yes, virgin birth... which in biblical times, in that area of the world, meant that the woman was a virgin when she MARRIED. Doesn't have dick to do with god, God, or gods, except in the eyes of someone ignorant of their own religion.

            I am a (religious) Greek actually, reading the New Testament in its original Greek text - it is very clear that "Virgin (Greek:parthena) Birth (Greek:genesis)" means a birth from a virgin... NOT "a birth from someone who was a virgin at some time".... something that you don't even have to read in the original Greek to understand!
            You can write that you don't believe it, but let's not change what it is writen and its very clear meaning.

            Less dogmatic bullshit, more reality = better for everyone. It's not even all that uncommon of an event:
            http://www.encyclopedia.com/to... [encyclopedia.com]

            parthenogenesis is a type of asexual reproduction in which the offspring develops from unfertilized eggs. It is particularly common amongst arthropods and rotifers, can also be found in some species of fish, amphibians, birds, and reptiles, but not in mammals. Parthenogenetic development also occurs in some plants species, such as roses and orange trees.

            I just made a (not so off-topic) reference to God and the Virgin Birth my friend - we BOTH have science confirming reality: you have it for the parthenogenesis of what your link mentions, i have it for the parthenogenesis of Jesus Christ... no need to get upset, especially since my reality is confirmed from both SCIENCE and GOD!

            Yes they were originally written in Greek. However they are stories written by Greeks about non-contemporaneous events in a part of the world that did not speak Greek and did not have Greek customs... in short you've done nothing to refute GP's point.

            • No known New Testament manuscripts are from before approximately 125 AD. The original authors had probably been dead at least 50 years, and the documents had been copied and edited several times before those oldest documents were written. Please try not to insist on perfect duplication and correct translation for documents being written in the midst of devout religious change, the language is quite likely to get revised in translation and transcription.

              • No known New Testament manuscripts are from before approximately 125 AD. The original authors had probably been dead at least 50 years, and the documents had been copied and edited several times before those oldest documents were written. Please try not to insist on perfect duplication and correct translation for documents being written in the midst of devout religious change, the language is quite likely to get revised in translation and transcription.

                What part of "non-contemporaneous" didn't you understand?

                • I didn't go into enough depth to make enough of the disparity clear. The first _Greek_ versions were apparently translations of older documents, such as the "Q" document of parables about Jesus, deduced from the extensive overlap among several of the "gospel" books of the New Testament. I've seen no reason to think that those Greek documents were original rather than being edited form older documents.

            • Yes, virgin birth... which in biblical times, in that area of the world, meant that the woman was a virgin when she MARRIED. Doesn't have dick to do with god, God, or gods, except in the eyes of someone ignorant of their own religion.

              I am a (religious) Greek actually, reading the New Testament in its original Greek text - it is very clear that "Virgin (Greek:parthena) Birth (Greek:genesis)" means a birth from a virgin... NOT "a birth from someone who was a virgin at some time".... something that you don't even have to read in the original Greek to understand! You can write that you don't believe it, but let's not change what it is writen and its very clear meaning.

              Less dogmatic bullshit, more reality = better for everyone. It's not even all that uncommon of an event: http://www.encyclopedia.com/to... [encyclopedia.com]

              parthenogenesis is a type of asexual reproduction in which the offspring develops from unfertilized eggs. It is particularly common amongst arthropods and rotifers, can also be found in some species of fish, amphibians, birds, and reptiles, but not in mammals. Parthenogenetic development also occurs in some plants species, such as roses and orange trees.

              I just made a (not so off-topic) reference to God and the Virgin Birth my friend - we BOTH have science confirming reality: you have it for the parthenogenesis of what your link mentions, i have it for the parthenogenesis of Jesus Christ... no need to get upset, especially since my reality is confirmed from both SCIENCE and GOD!

              Yes they were originally written in Greek. However they are stories written by Greeks about non-contemporaneous events in a part of the world that did not speak Greek and did not have Greek customs... in short you've done nothing to refute GP's point.

              Sir, my primary refute is not based on the language but on the fact that i read the text (in the original Greek, but this fact is not so important) and it is very clear for the events it describes - for example, from Matthew 1:18-25 (the "New International Version", which i just checked against the Greek text and i can confirm it is a good translation):
              " 18 This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about[a]: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was

              • Sir, my primary refute is not based on the language but on the fact that i read the text (in the original Greek, but this fact is not so important) and it is very clear for the events it describes - for example, from Matthew 1:18-25 (the "New International Version", which i just checked against the Greek text and i can confirm it is a good translation):

                OK, but here's the problem(s) with this:

                1) we have no idea if Matthew actually wrote it or not
                2) If he did, would Matthew actually have written it in Greek

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by jbengt ( 874751 )
                  What you are both missing is that in those times "virgin birth" was used as an acclamation of greatness for other people as well.

                  • I'm not missing anything ... I'm saying the expression is meaningless in terms of a discussion of parthenogenesis of sawfish and we don't give a damn.

                • Slashdot is not a good place for me (a religious person) to make a theological/biblical discussion - EVERY COMMENT THAT I WILL MAKE WILL BE MODED DOWN... and soon i will be a "stupid Christian" with a "terrible" /. karma... thank God the Colosseum is not open anymore!

                  I am not trying to convince anyone - i just mentioned the SCIENTIFIC "Virgin Birth" (parthenogenesis) and God's "Virgin Birth" (parthenogenesis) because it is related to the /. story, so... next time people here may think more before making fu

                • 1) we have no idea if Matthew actually wrote it or not

                  The idea that it wasn't written by Matthew started almost two millennia after it was written, by a person whose publicly announced aim was to completely discredit the Bible.

                  2) If he did, would Matthew actually have written it in Greek? I suspect not, because ... well, he wasn't Greek.

                  And if you knew anything about NT history, you'd know that Matthew was originally written in Hebrew, and then translated into Greek. Something even the staunchest Greek Supr

              • It's pointless (I'm certain) to point this out to you, but you are confusing your translations. You need to be reading Isaiah 7:

                http://www.skepticsannotatedbi... [skepticsan...dbible.com]

                Note well that the translation in question is from the hebrew old testament, not the Greek new. Isaiah did not prophecy that Jesus would be born of a virgin in the first place. The verse in question does not refer to Jesus. Jesus was never called "Emmanuel".

                And last (and my favorite part of the whole thing) Isaiah's entire prophecy was to Ahaz,

                • I am afraid that "it is pointless" Sir, for many reasons (i hope not because i am an unreasonable person) - i quoted something from the New Testament to prove something about what virginity was supposed to mean...
                  I must repeat that -for many reasons- Slashdot in not the place for me to discuss theological/biblical matters - i don't expect to convince anyone about my religion but i also have problems to be convinced by people who write "whoever wrote Matthew obviously found one to repurpose according to his

            • >However they are stories written by Greeks about non-contemporaneous events in a part of the world that did not speak Greek and did not have Greek customs

              And yet another ignoramus proves their complete, utter, and absolute lack of knowledge about the Roman Empire in general, and the Middle East in specific, between 100 BCE and 100 CE.

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Dr. Malcolm, please.
      If there's one thing I've learned from my short time on this planet, it's that humans can make ANYTHING go extinct. Possibly even ourselves.
      Just wait for that ocean to get nice and acidic. See how they deal with that.

      • humans can make ANYTHING go extinct

        You greatly overestimate your species.

        • I disagree.
          Give us enough time and a monetary incentive. Anything can be purged from the Earth if powerful people will benefit from it. Even the planet itself can be... reduced, though I can't imagine how that would be worth whatever money you offer a person.

          • Ants.
            Water bears.
            Grass.
            Mold.

            We've tried and failed with several things, such as mosquitoes and rats.

            • True, these things haven't been killed off... yet.
              We are already working on wiping out mosquito populations by either making the larvae die too fast or making the males infertile or something of that nature.

              And I think you MAY have me on things like rats and roaches (maybe ants?), who can basically adjust to any environment that humans can, even concrete jungles. Those guys are flexible and that is their most powerful trait IMO. But in the event we DO start moving to a new planet, we will probably decontami

    • This whole study is just a promotion for Jurassic World.

  • Jesus (Score:5, Funny)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Tuesday June 02, 2015 @02:24AM (#49820231)

    Sawfish must be a lot smarter than humans since they didn't form a nonsensical religion around it.

    • You have evidently never hung out with sawfish. It's all they talk about.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Poorcku ( 831174 )
      And this is exactly why I don't enjoy being around some atheists. Just the same old proselytism, and vitriolic attacks on religion started by some interesting nature fact. You are just on the opposite part of the fundamentalist scale, with both being bat-shit crazy. You must be the soul of the party wherever you go....

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by N1AK ( 864906 )

        You must be the soul of the party wherever you go....

        Says the person who went off on one because of a single sentence comment on an online forum.

      • Atheists are believers (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        And this is exactly why I don't enjoy being around some atheists. Just the same old proselytism, and vitriolic attacks on religion started by some interesting nature fact. You are just on the opposite part of the fundamentalist scale, with both being bat-shit crazy. You must be the soul of the party wherever you go....

        Well, yeah. The religious and the atheists are quite similar. In the absence of evidence they both draw a conclusion, one god exists, the other god does not exist. They both have articles of faith, merely opposite articles of faith. Agnostics are far easier to be around. They are more like: there's no evidence one way or the other, it can't be proven, why don't we talk about something more useful.

      • Re:Jesus (Score:4, Interesting)

        by 140Mandak262Jamuna ( 970587 ) on Tuesday June 02, 2015 @07:12AM (#49820821) Journal
        The title needlessly brought in "virgin birth". There are other scientific terms, like asexual reproduction, parthenogenesis etc. So take your beef to the editors needlessly adding a religious color to some innocuous scientific observation.

        Also I have been around enough theists who would take a random scientific fact and argue it was predicted in scriptures. "Koran has referenced this fact of embryology" "Bible has always known the world was round" "The Manduk Upanishad has a verse describing the Schrodinger's Equation" "The fundamental particles electron, proton and neutron represent the Holy Trinity" "The Shaivaite philosophy that holds the dance of Shiva permeates the universe and is the fundamental cosmic energy is same as molecular vibrations providing temperature/heat energy in thermodynamics".

        Score card?

        The atheists are woefully outclassed by theists when it comes to linking random collection of (often inconsistent) scientific facts to religious principles to bolster their point of view.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by xvan ( 2935999 )
          There are some species that store sperm and later reuse it. So the Virgin Birth title immediately conveyed the meaning to me.

      • You must be the soul of the party

        I didn't think atheists believed in souls...

        No the one that annoys me is Scientology, the name makes you think they would believe only in provable science but... it's misleading

    • Jesus was not a sawfish? How do you explain all those Jesus Fish [google.com] graphics?

    • Re:Jesus (Score:5, Interesting)

      by argStyopa ( 232550 ) on Tuesday June 02, 2015 @07:38AM (#49820933) Journal

      And you know this how?

      On a serious note, I'm not even a particularly religious person, but there's not a single human society in existence (or even historically documented) that didn't develop religion of some sort. To me that would suggest that there's some long-term survival advantage.

      Further, there are still boundaries to what science knows and always will be. The WHY questions, as opposed to the HOWs. As a mechanism of cultural psychology, I don't see a problem with religion attempting to give people a method to approach those questions.

      Of course, as a postmodern western American, I find that religion that becomes pre- and proscriptive is oppressive and frankly obnoxious. But to throw out the baby with the bathwater by flat-out criticizing faith is overstepping pretty far.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by znrt ( 2424692 )

        with religion attempting to give people a method to approach those questions.

        the problem is no religion (except zen, afaik) provides a method to approach those questions, but random invented answers so you stop asking.

        we humans are indeed religious beings, but most human religions are bullshit. keyword: crowd control.

        ancient japanese got it right, they were utterly tolerant about religion which was considered a private affair (as it should). this could only be so because their society was already so strictly classed and the authority so indisputable that they didn't need to use reli

        • the problem is no religion (except zen, afaik) provides a method to approach those questions, but random invented answers so you stop asking.

          I think one of the issues is that - way back in the past - humans didn't have any effective way to explain why things happened. What was that loud booming noise that took place when the rain fell sometimes? Why were there flashes of light coming down from the sky? It was all very scary and we instinctively need to know WHY something is happening. At the time, nobod

        • >Yes, they did slaughter some Christians at some point. but only after realizing how they were creeping for influence and power. nobody had invited them, after all.

          a) That massacre happened after Catholic missionaries went to Japan. Something that happened between ten and fifteen centuries after Christianity was established in Japan. (The most plausible theory has Christianity established circa 300 AD. A second theory has that date at circa 600 AD. A third theory has that date as circa AD 70.)

          b) At its

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dfghjk ( 711126 )

        "To me that would suggest that there's some long-term survival advantage."

        It does not suggest any such thing, though "to you" it might.

        "I don't see a problem with religion attempting to give people a method to approach those questions."

        If you sincerely thought about it you would.

        "But to throw out the baby with the bathwater by flat-out criticizing faith is overstepping pretty far."

        It's not stepping far enough.

        • Of course it does.
          It's a truism of evolutionary theory that evident characteristics - particularly if they persist through thousands of generations, and PARTICULARLY if they're universal to a species, *strongly* implies some sort of survival advantage.

          Your irrational hatred of religion doesn't change that.

          I'm not saying religion HAS those answers, I'm just saying that it's an organized structure attempting to (that has in *many* instances been co-opted by people seeking power and control like in every other

  • Dear lord... (Score:4, Funny)

    by SeaFox ( 739806 ) on Tuesday June 02, 2015 @02:53AM (#49820293)

    I read that headline as "Scientists Discover Swedish Escape Extinction Through 'Virgin Births'" and thought I was about to read something truly interesting about pre-historic Nordic humans surviving during the Ice Age.

  • It's hard to find a Lisp programmer that's NOT a virgin...

    • I'm reminded of writers who called Snowden a coward for not facing trial in the US. I'm just glad he did what he did, courageously or not. But now I have the "Sir Robin's minstrals" song stuck in my head:
      Brave Sir Robin ran away.
      ("No!")
      Bravely ran away away.
      ("I didn't!")
      When danger reared it's ugly head,
      He bravely turned his tail and fled.
      ("no!")
      Yes, brave Sir Robin turned about
      ("I didn't!")
      And gallantly he chickened out.

      ****Bravely**** taking ("I never did!") to his feet,
      He beat a very brave retreat.
      ("al

  • inbreeding beneficial? (Score:4, Informative)

    by binarstu ( 720435 ) on Tuesday June 02, 2015 @04:10AM (#49820437)

    From TFA summary:

    Dr Warren Booth, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Tulsa, who previously discovered an instance of parthenogenesis in snakes, said: "This is basically a very extreme form of inbreeding. Most people think of inbreeding as bad, but it could be helpful in purging deleterious mutations from a population."

    Most people think of inbreeding as bad, because it almost always is bad. Inbreeding depression [berkeley.edu] is a very well documented, and well understood, phenomenon that can increase the extinction risk of critically endangered species. The idea that inbreeding can somehow be "helpful in purging deleterious mutations" has been discussed before, but a recent study [nature.com] found that even if small (e.g., endangered) populations are actively managed to control both inbreeding and outbreeding, the negative effects of inbreeding depression generally outweigh the benefits of removing harmful alleles. And that is a best case scenario, with reproduction carefully controlled to produce an optimal genetic outcome, which obviously does not happen naturally.

    For these sawfish, asexual reproduction is most likely a desperation strategy used when the population has gotten so small that it is difficult or impossible to find mates. It is extremely unlikely that it will somehow improve the population's genetic fitness; more likely, it will lead to further decreases in genetic diversity and a corresponding loss of overall fitness.

    • Re:inbreeding beneficial? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Trailer Trash ( 60756 ) on Tuesday June 02, 2015 @09:29AM (#49821523) Homepage

      For these sawfish, asexual reproduction is most likely a desperation strategy used when the population has gotten so small that it is difficult or impossible to find mates. It is extremely unlikely that it will somehow improve the population's genetic fitness; more likely, it will lead to further decreases in genetic diversity and a corresponding loss of overall fitness.

      I would point out furthermore that inbreeding and asexual reproduction have nothing to do with each other. It's unrelated. The problem with inbreeding is that you can get two copies of a single chromosome quite easily, and rare genetic diseases that appear only when the same gene is present on both chromosomes in a pair suddenly start popping up more often.

      That's not an issue with asexual reproduction. It might at some point become an issue if the genetic diversity of the group becomes lesser, but that would be down the road somewhere.

      • All good points. I would suggest a few language corrections to make your statement a bit more precise, though (my changes in bold):

        The problem with inbreeding is that you can get two copies of a single deleterious, recessive allele quite easily, and rare genetic diseases that appear only when the same allele is present on both chromosomes in a pair suddenly start popping up more often.

        The issue with inbreeding depression is not getting two identical copies of a chromosome (which, because of chromosomal crossover during meiosis, is extremely unlikely to happen), it's getting two copies of an allele (or set of alleles) that causes a recessive genetic disease to be expressed.

  • So? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    About 1% of human pregnancies are attributed to (self reported) virgins.
    http://www.cbsnews.com/news/virgin-births-claimed-by-1-percent-of-us-moms-study/

    • While obviously the conclusion is a bit tongue-in-cheek, the study is pretty nifty. The actual study attempted to show how environmental factors may influence self-reporting on sensitive data. Amazingly, people with stronger religious convictions or who had signed chastity pledges were more likely to maintain that they were still virgins, even on anonymous surveys, while simultaneously (on anonymous surveys) reporting accurate pregnancy history.

      Here's a link to the original study: http://www.bmj.com/conte [bmj.com]

  • Looks like I will have to replace my Jesus fish with a sawfish. Suppose I'll also switch my window manager just in case.

  • Another stride forward for Womens Rights!1

    *starts playing feminist anthem*

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