Does That Mean I Don't Need To Clean My Apartment Now?

A joint Irish-U.S study has revealed that female sharks have the capability to reproduce asexually.

Having the ability to fertilize their own eggs and give birth without male sperm is the result drawn from a 2001 case where a baby hammerhead shark was born in a tank to one of three potential mothers -- and none had been in contact with a male hammerhead for three years. Analysis of its DNA found no trace of any chromosomal contribution from a male partner leading experts to tout the first confirmed case in a shark of parthenogenesis -- the fancy Greek world for "virgin birth".

Asexual reproduction is common with insect species, but rarer in reptiles and fish, and has never been documented in mammals -- except, of course, for that one little time it happened to a kid named Jesus. With more animals being raised in captivity, the number of documented cases of the feat has grown. Before the study, shark experts had presumed that the Nebraska birth involved a female shark's well-documented ability to store sperm for months, much like teenage girls who grow up in trailer parks, but the absence of any paternal DNA in the baby shark ruled out this possibility.

The baby shark was killed a few hours after birth by a stingray. It's motives were unchallenged and no connection has been made to link it with the one that x'ed Steve Irwin, but we have to wonder...

Meanwhile, some scientists fear that, lacking a suitable male mate, other females of various species will do the same. But not this scientist.

I guess that would be a good thing for all the Sex In The City loving, and more importantly, living ladies out there who want it all but end up turning into desperate hags who have squandered their youth as they over-empower themselves to emulate men sexually and socially. That ticking uterine clock is a real killer, as women get more and more irrational as they race to mate before they lose out to younger, less damaged models. But if evolution veers in that direction, I'll be in my cave, watching my stories and eating takeout in my underwear...right now it's just for practice.