VIRGIN BIRTH Run Amok! Unstoppable Parthenogenic Organisms
No muss, no sex, no fuss!
Today's show is ripped from the headlines. Science Magazine reports: "An aquarium accident may have given this crayfish the DNA to take over the world" By Elizabeth Pennisi.
And so, IFFed from the Headlines, we bring you, "What The IF people reproduced asexually?" Which means, ladies and gentlemen, that the ladies don't need the gentlemen anymore! And the offspring are clones of their mothers and this begins on a Thursday in a maternity ward somewhere in the world and then it's happening all over planet and then... WTIF?!!!!
This would make one heck of a movie. And it makes one hell of a podcast, enjoy your ride!
Yearning for more learning?
From WTIF Senior Researcher, Gaby Vardanega
Learn more about Parthenogenesis from Encyclopedia Britannica
Read more on Triploidy from ScienceDirect
Check out this Komodo Dragons and parthenogenesis piece in Scientific American
Learn more about Genomic Imprinting from this Scitable
AND, we have an exciting bonus!
Read our co-host Gaby Paniccia’s first published scientific paper as it appears in the open access, peer reviewed journal, PLOS ONE.
“RNA-guided gene editing of the murine gammaherpesvirus 68 genome reduces infectious virus production” by Hui-Chen Chang Foreman, Varvara Kirillov, Gabrielle Paniccia, Demetra Catalano, Trevor Andrunik, Swati Gupta, Laurie T. Krug , Yue Zhang
Congrats, Gaby,
From all of us at What The If!
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Keep On IFFin',
Philip, Matt, Gaby & Gabi