Word: sperm
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...virgin births possible in nature? In guppies, yes, because the female may be a hermaphrodite and, by producing sperm as well as ova, fertilize herself. In rabbits, fatherless reproduction has been observed after the doe's ovaries are chilled. But in humans? Maybe, says the Lancet of London, and last week doctors went to work to see whether there are living proofs in England today...
...gave at University College in London. Among humans, she declared, virgin birth could not happen in the case of a hermaphrodite, who would not be self-fertile. However, parthenogenesis* might occur. This is the process by which an ovum begins to divide spontaneously, without having been fertilized by a sperm-perhaps after it has made up for the missing male chromosomes by a form of doubling. It is almost certain that the offspring of parthenogenesis would be a female, since the ovum contains only female chromosomes...
...Museum of Comparative Zoology (top right) an undergraduate peers up at the skeleton of a 50-foot sperm whale, while a young resident of Boston (top left) looks with some uneasiness at the worldly remains of a gorilla. At the left are two Peruvian mummies photographed in the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. Below are samples of the ruins at Copan, Honduras-probably the best known example of Mayan culture at its palmiest...
Bombs & Bullets. Onassis' 1954-55 whaling expedition sailed from Hamburg last August to hunt sperm whales off Peru for a few months before steaming south for the rich January-May bluefin whaling in the antarctic. The factory-ship and its 15 catchers were barely through the Panama Canal when Peru menacingly announced that she was prepared to defend her "ichthyological richnesses" from the "pirate armada" with force. An Onassis lawyer hurried to Lima to "fix things up"; at the same time Onassis took out a $15 million anti-confiscation insurance policy through Lloyd's of London. A mysterious...
...operation in their own offices, other general practitioners send the patient to a urologist or general surgeon. With a local anesthetic, it takes about 20 minutes (and costs from $25 to $100). It does not change the man's sexual functioning in any way, except that the normally sperm-carrying fluid is free of sperm. Because the legal status of such operations is clouded in grave doubt, the doctor usually demands a statement, signed by both husband and wife, that they know what they are doing...