HIS Quote : "I asked a Burmese why women, after centuries of following their men, now walk ahead. He said there were many unexploded land mines since the war." ~Robert Mueller
HER Quote : "In passing, also, I would like to say that the first time Adam had a chance he laid the blame on a woman." —Nancy Astor (British Politician)
jy
Monday, May 7, 2007
Sunday, May 6, 2007
A game of ducks and drakes
Taken from The Economist :
The evolutionary battle of the sexes has some curious consequences
SEX, in most species of bird, is a consensual activity. It has to be. Males have no penises and are armed with a genital opening which looks little different from that of a female. Intercourse happens when these two openings are brought together in what ornithologists refer to as a cloacal kiss. In these circumstances, rape is a difficult option.
Drakes, however, are notorious rapists—forcing their attentions on ducks indiscriminately—and it is surely no coincidence that they are among the 3% of male birds that do have a penis. In fact, drake penises come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes that are thought by students of the subject to be part of an arms race to ensure that it is the owner's sperm that fertilise the next generation of ducklings, rather than anybody else's.
The question is, an arms race against whom? The males of many species of insect have similarly elaborate genitalia. These seem designed to compete directly against other males—for example by scraping out the sperm of previous suitors or breaking off and blocking the female's genital opening. But Patricia Brennan, of Yale University, and her colleagues suspected that in ducks and drakes the arms race might be between the sexes rather than between members of the same sex. Females, in other words, would rather choose which males inseminate them. And if rape is inevitable, evolution might provide them with other ways of making this choice.
Surprisingly (or perhaps not, given the male-dominated nature of science) the elaborate cataloguing of drake genitalia had not been extended to ducks. So Dr Brennan got out her scalpel and started looking. As she reports in the Public Library of Science, she discovered that the sexual passages of ducks are every bit as elaborate as the penises of drakes are. Indeed, for every species, the more elaborate the latter were, the more elaborate were the former. In particular, duck vaginas are often equipped with additional passages that have blind endings, and frequently corkscrew in a clockwise direction, in contradistinction to the anticlockwise thread of a drake's penis.
Dr Brennan interprets these anatomical flourishes as anti-insemination mechanisms. The contrary threads of the genitalia make successful penetration much harder if the female is not co-operating. The blind passages make it likely that sperm will be ejaculated into the wrong place and thus fail to fertilise the duck's eggs. Conversely, a willing female should be more easily inseminated.
That interpretation is backed up by the fact that ducks with the most elaborate genitalia are those from species where the drakes have the largest penises. These species are also the ones where rape is most often observed. In ducks and drakes, it seems, size matters. But not in a way that is good for females.
Copyright © 2007 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.
The evolutionary battle of the sexes has some curious consequences
SEX, in most species of bird, is a consensual activity. It has to be. Males have no penises and are armed with a genital opening which looks little different from that of a female. Intercourse happens when these two openings are brought together in what ornithologists refer to as a cloacal kiss. In these circumstances, rape is a difficult option.
Drakes, however, are notorious rapists—forcing their attentions on ducks indiscriminately—and it is surely no coincidence that they are among the 3% of male birds that do have a penis. In fact, drake penises come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes that are thought by students of the subject to be part of an arms race to ensure that it is the owner's sperm that fertilise the next generation of ducklings, rather than anybody else's.
The question is, an arms race against whom? The males of many species of insect have similarly elaborate genitalia. These seem designed to compete directly against other males—for example by scraping out the sperm of previous suitors or breaking off and blocking the female's genital opening. But Patricia Brennan, of Yale University, and her colleagues suspected that in ducks and drakes the arms race might be between the sexes rather than between members of the same sex. Females, in other words, would rather choose which males inseminate them. And if rape is inevitable, evolution might provide them with other ways of making this choice.
Surprisingly (or perhaps not, given the male-dominated nature of science) the elaborate cataloguing of drake genitalia had not been extended to ducks. So Dr Brennan got out her scalpel and started looking. As she reports in the Public Library of Science, she discovered that the sexual passages of ducks are every bit as elaborate as the penises of drakes are. Indeed, for every species, the more elaborate the latter were, the more elaborate were the former. In particular, duck vaginas are often equipped with additional passages that have blind endings, and frequently corkscrew in a clockwise direction, in contradistinction to the anticlockwise thread of a drake's penis.
Dr Brennan interprets these anatomical flourishes as anti-insemination mechanisms. The contrary threads of the genitalia make successful penetration much harder if the female is not co-operating. The blind passages make it likely that sperm will be ejaculated into the wrong place and thus fail to fertilise the duck's eggs. Conversely, a willing female should be more easily inseminated.
That interpretation is backed up by the fact that ducks with the most elaborate genitalia are those from species where the drakes have the largest penises. These species are also the ones where rape is most often observed. In ducks and drakes, it seems, size matters. But not in a way that is good for females.
Copyright © 2007 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.
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