The Origin of Sex: Cosmic Solution to Ancient Mystery
http://www.space.com/scienceastronom...ex_010710.html
Comets and asteroids have been blamed for a lot of things before. Shaping Earth. Jumpstarting life. Wiping out dinosaurs. Even possibly altering human evolution.
But never sex.
Roughly 1 billion years after the first organisms romped in the hay, the origin of sex remains one of biology's greatest mysteries. Scientists can't say exactly why we do it, or what triggered those initial terrestrial flirtations. Before sex, life seemed to manage fine by employing asexual reproduction -- the cloning of offspring without the help of a partner.
Now a new study out of Caltech and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has used digital organisms to simulate life before sex and yielded a possible mechanism for instigating Earth's first courtship.
But never sex.
Roughly 1 billion years after the first organisms romped in the hay, the origin of sex remains one of biology's greatest mysteries. Scientists can't say exactly why we do it, or what triggered those initial terrestrial flirtations. Before sex, life seemed to manage fine by employing asexual reproduction -- the cloning of offspring without the help of a partner.
Now a new study out of Caltech and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has used digital organisms to simulate life before sex and yielded a possible mechanism for instigating Earth's first courtship.
**RIP TD** 
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