In an unprecedented decision, an Argentine court has
ruled that the Sumatran orangutan 'Sandra', who has spent 20 years at
the zoo in Argentina's capital Buenos Aires, should be recognized as a
person with a right to freedom.
The ruling, signed by
the judges unanimously, would see Sandra freed from captivity and
transferred to a nature sanctuary in Brazil after a court
recognized the primate as a "non-human person" which has
some basic human rights. The Buenos Aires zoo has 10 working days
to seek an appeal.
The "habeas corpus" ruling in favor of the orangutan was
requested last November by the Association of Professional
Lawyers for Animal Rights (AFADA) alleging that Sandra suffered
"unjustified confinement of an animal with proven cognitive
ability."
Lawyers argued that just as a person, the ape is capable of
maintaining emotional ties and has the ability to reason, while
feeling frustrated with her confinement. Furthermore, the legal
team claimed that the 29-year old orangutan can make decisions,
has self-awareness and perception of time. And therefore, all
things considered, Sandra's presence at the Zoo constituted
illegal deprivation of liberty.
Habeas corpus is a fundamental legal term in human rights, dating
back to the early fourteenth century during the reign of Edward I
in England. At that time courts began requiring the monarchy to
report the reasons behind restricted freedom of a subject.
"This opens the way not only for other Great Apes, but also
for other sentient beings which are unfairly and arbitrarily
deprived of their liberty in zoos, circuses, water parks and
scientific laboratories," the daily La Nacion newspaper
quoted AFADA lawyer Paul Buompadre as saying.
Sandra who was born in 1986 in the German zoo of Rostock, arrived
in Buenos Aires in September 1994, where she’s spent 20 years
behind bars. The World Wildlife Foundation (WWF) claims Sumatran
orangutan to be the most endangered of the orangutan species.
Found only in the northern and western provinces of Sumatra,
Indonesia, the species is fast losing its natural habitat to
agriculture and human settlements.
Sandra's case is not the
first in which "habeas corpus" was invoked to secure the release
of wild animals in human captivity. However, in the US the two
recent cases failed. A New York court, earlier this month has
ruled that Tommy chimpanzee was not legally a person and is
therefore not entitled to human rights. And in 2011, a lawsuit
against SeaWorld to free five wild-captured orca whales was
dismissed by the San Diego court.
Magnifying light by a factor of 10,000, this liquid-filled,
sun-tracking, energy-harvesting glass sphere is so powerful that it can
not only harvest solar rays directly but is even able to draw power from
reflected lunar light. Its high efficiency comes from the motion of its
panning capture apparatus as well as the nearly-lossless concentration
of thermal energy.
Made to be mounted on buildings individually or in arrays, a
computerized control system passively tracks available illumination in
the day, but can also follow and be fueled by moonlight.
The balls can work both to generate power and as replacements to
traditional window apertures, creating a wide variety of potential
hybrid architectural applications as well.
Here is a link to a lovely little Vimeo vid on the subject as well; http://vimeo.com/82017460
The beauty of a woman is not in a facial mode but the true beauty of a woman is reflected in her soul. It is the caring that she lovingly gives, the passion that she shows. The beauty of a woman grows with the passing of years.
an idiosyncratic belief or impression that is firmly maintained
despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality or
rational argument, typically a symptom of mental disorder.
Yes, public access television was glorious- often awful, but equally brilliant in that it offered equal access to one and all. I never saw this particular clip when it originally aired, but I thank whoever had the presence of mind to record it. I have fond memories of my friends and I laughing until we cried as we watched unedited train-wreck after train-wreck.
Now if I could only find footage of the white trash cooking show that included Cool-Whip and Jello in all of their recipes;'Yer little ones will never know they's eatin' carrots!'
In Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft's
first encounter in the hotel room, Bancroft did not know that Hoffman
was going to grab her breast. Hoffman decided off-screen to do it,
because it reminded him of schoolboys trying to nonchalantly grab girls'
breasts in the hall by pretending to put their jackets on. When Hoffman
did it onscreen, director Mike Nichols
began laughing loudly off-screen. Hoffman began to laugh as well, so
rather than stop the scene, he turned away from the camera and walked to
the wall. Hoffman banged his head on the wall, trying to stop laughing,
and Nichols thought it was so funny, he left it in.
When Dustin Hoffman showed up at Joseph E. Levine's office for a casting interview, the producer mistook him for a window cleaner, so Hoffman, in character, cleaned a window.
Two interesting camera techniques are used in the film. In the scene
where Benjamin is running, he is shown at some distance running straight
at the camera, an effect which makes him look as if he getting nowhere
as he's running. (This technique is accomplished with a very long
telephoto lens, which foreshortens distances in relation to the camera.)
In another scene, Benjamin is walking from the right side of the screen
to the left, while everyone else in the scene is moving from left to
right. In western culture, things that move left to right seem natural
(think of the direction you read words on a page), those that move right
to left seem to be going the wrong way. These two visual techniques
echo the themes of the film, Benjamin is going the wrong way, and
getting nowhere in life.
Apparently, Dustin Hoffman's screen test consisted of him fumbling his lines and awkwardly trying to grab Katharine Ross's behind, which angered her. As he left thinking he didn't get the role, his awkwardness was just what director Mike Nichols needed for Benjamin Braddock.
When Elaine tracks down Ben in his gloomy room and he causes her to
scream, a number of other tenants gather behind the landlord in the
doorway. One says, "Shall I get the cops? I'll get the cops..." It's Richard Dreyfuss.
In the famous promotional still for this film, Dustin Hoffman is seen in the background framed by Mrs. Robinson's shapely leg. The leg in that photo didn't belong to Anne Bancroft, however; it belonged to a then-unknown model, Linda Gray, who later played Mrs. Robinson in a London stage musical of The Graduate.
None of the older characters has their first name identified in the
film; only the younger characters of Benjamin, Elaine and Carl do,
increasing the sense of a generation gap.
Although Mrs. Robinson is supposed to be much older than Benjamin, Anne Bancroft and Dustin Hoffman
are just under six years apart in age. He looked naturally boyish, and
she was made up to look older. For the same reason, Bancroft was only 8
years older than her "daughter" Katharine Ross, William Daniels (Mr. Braddock) only 10 years older than his "son" Hoffman.
Robert Redford screen-tested with Candice Bergen for the part of Benjamin Braddock but was finally rejected by director Mike Nichols
because Nichols did not believe Redford could persuasively project the
underdog qualities necessary to the role. When he told this to Redford,
the actor asked Nichols what he meant. "Well, let's put it this way,"
said Nichols, "Have you ever struck out with a girl?" "What do you
mean?" asked Redford. "That's precisely my point," said Nichols.
Judy Garland was considered for the role of Mrs. Robinson
This movie marked the first time a director was paid a flat salary (not including points) of $1,000,000.00.
In the novel, Ben interrupted the wedding before Elaine said I do. However, Mike Nichols decided to have Ben arrive after Elaine had gotten married.
Dustin Hoffman was already set to play a role in Mel BrooksThe Producers
(1967) when the opportunity to audition for "The Graduate" came up.
Deferentially, Hoffman asked Brooks' permission to audition for the part
in the other film. Through his wife, Anne Bancroft,
(already cast) Brooks was familiar with the story of "The Graduate". He
allowed Hoffman to audition, blithely confident he'd be found
unsuitable for role of Mrs. Robinson's lover.
Jack Nicholson was considered for the part of Benjamin Braddock.
Paul Simon wrote two songs for the film that director Mike Nichols
rejected: "Punky's Dilemma" and "A Hazy Shade of Winter". Both appear
on the Simon and Garfunkel "Bookends" album. The song "Mrs. Robinson"
was not written for the movie; it was the working title of a song Simon
was then writing (originally called "Mrs. Roosvelt", and about Eleanor Roosevelt) and Nichols decided to include it. Simon and Art Garfunkel
only sing the chorus but none of the verses of the later hit song.
Additionally, the chorus portion sung contains some lyrics not featured
in the more popular "final" version of the song.
The movie's line "Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me. Aren't
you?" was voted as the #63 movie quote by the American Film Institute
(out of 100), as the #5 of Premiere's "100 Greatest Movie Lines" (2007).
Ronald Reagan was considered for the role of Mr. Braddock.
According to Dustin Hoffman at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts Graduation 2003, his friend and former roommate Gene Hackman was cast as Mr. Robinson but was fired after a few weeks of work.
Mike Nichols initially wanted French actress Jeanne Moreau
to play Mrs. Robinson. The idea behind this was that in the French
culture, the "older" women tended to "train" the younger men in sexual
matters. The producers for the movie, Joseph E. Levine and Lawrence Turman, were completely opposed to the idea. Mike Nichols
was even more set on having Simon and Garfunkel do the integrated
soundtrack for the film. Nichols agreed to switch actresses for Mrs.
Robinson as long as he could still use Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel.
Sources vary on precisely what the truth is about the possibility of Doris Day playing Mrs. Robinson. One rumor says the property was acquired with her in mind as Mrs. Robinson, and producer Lawrence Turman sent the novel to her manager/husband, Martin Melcher,
wanting to know their opinion of Day in the role, but Melcher was so
disgusted by the thought that he refused to even mention it to her. Doris Day
wrote in her 1975 memoir, which is probably more accurate, that she was
actually offered the role, but "I could not see myself rolling around
in the sheets with a young man half my age whom I'd seduced".
Patty Duke was offered the part of Elaine Robinson, but turned it down because she did not want to work at the time.
Other actresses considered for the part of Elaine were Natalie Wood (who turned it down) and Candice Bergen (who auditioned but did not get the part).
Mike Nichols realized
one reason why he had so much difficulty casting for Benjamin Braddock
when he read the Mad Magazine parody of his film. One of the jokes was
Benjamin asking his parents why he was Jewish and they were not, and
Nichols, who is Jewish himself, realized that his film had an
subconsciously autobiographical element about being an ethnic outsider
in a privileged WASPish society.
In 2007, the American Film Institute ranked this as the #17 Greatest Movie of All Time.
Within a year of the movie's release, plastic manufacturing companies
became enormously successful. Many people attribute this to Walter Brooke's
quote about "plastics". Brooke himself once told his nephew that he
would have invested in plastics, if he had known that the remark would
lead to such success.
Charles Grodin was asked to audition as Benjamin, but was never screen tested. Mike Nichols still offered him a part in Catch-22 (1970), which he was already scheduled to direct.
According to Susan Hayward's biographers, Mike Nichols
originally wanted her for the role of Mrs Robinson but she declined
because she wanted to avoid modifying her screen image. After Doris Day and Patricia Neal also turned it down Nichols eventually offered it to Anne Bancroft.
Burt Ward had to turn down the role of Benjamin Braddock due to his commitment to Batman (1966) and the studio (20th Century Fox) wouldn't lend him.
The red, Italian sports car which Benjamin drives throughout the movie
is a 1966 Alfa Romeo Spider 1600 also known as the Duetto.
Although Calder Willingham and Buck Henry
share screen writing credit, Buck Henry wrote the shooting version of
the screenplay without assistance, and Henry was not even aware of
Willingham's draft. Henry was the fourth screenwriter asked to try to
adapt Charles Webb's
novel, however, and Willingham filed a challenge with the Writer's Guild
for screen credit after the movie was completed. Because Webb's novel
consists of large passages of dialogue, and both writers lifted various
lines that appeared in each version, Willingham's challenge was
successful.
Some of the scenes of Benjamin in "Berkeley" were actually filmed at the
UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) and USC (University of
Southern California).
The movie is full of womb imagery. From Benjamin's constant desire to
stay immersed in his parent's swimming pool, to the slow close-up shot
of the hips of Katherine's roommate as she brings the "Dear John" letter
to Benjamin, to returning to the actual womb of the elder and maternal
Mrs. Robinson.
At the AFI tribute to Mike Nichols, Dustin Hoffman
recounted that when he was first called to discuss auditioning for the
role of Benjamin, he told Nichols that he thought he was being made fun
of a little, considering how "wrong" he seemed for the character
described in the source novel. "'It [the book] says he's
five-foot-eleven or something, and he's a track star, and he's head of
the debating club, and he's from Boston or something, he's a WASP, and
I... it feels like this is a dirty trick, sir.' And in his inimitable
way, he says, 'You mean, you're Jewish'. And I said, 'Yes'. 'And that's
why you don't think you're right.' I said, 'Yes'. And he said, 'Well
maybe he's Jewish inside'. And I then got the part, after a screen
test."
Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft were the not quickly chosen for the leads of this film. Warren Beatty was originally going to be the lead, but after he did not get the role, Robert Redford was selected. Patricia Neal was considered, but reportedly declined because she was uneasy about playing a lead role so soon after having a stroke.
Grayson Hall was considered for the role of Mrs. Robinson.
The name plate on the hotel desk reads "Mr. Kranze". Don Kranze was the film's assistant director.
One version of the song Macarena by Los del RĂo samples one of Bancroft's lines ("I am not trying to seduce you!").
The leg in the poster for "The Graduate" belongs to Linda Gray.
Lee Stanley screen tested for the role of Benjamin and was seriously considered for the part.
The model frogman in the aquarium is toppled over when Mrs. Robinson tosses in the keys.
On Inside the Actors Studio (1994), director Mike Nichols
claims that the final "sobering" emotion that Benjamin and Elaine go
through was due to the fact that he had just been shouting at the two of
them to laugh in the scene. The actors were so scared that after
laughing they stopped, scared. Nichols liked it so much, he kept it.
When Benjamin is shown banging on the church window with his arms raised
and extended, many reviewers felt he was portrayed as a Christ-like
image. In actuality, this was a compromise with the minister of the
church. The minister had threatened to throw everyone out when the scene
was rehearsed with Benjamin pounding his fists on the fragile window,
which had been a gift to the church.
If I am ever lucky enough to be a passenger while traveling in a car on a rainy day (I somehow always end up driving...) it will be a very quiet journey. I will be silent and spellbound by the changing shapes of the wet world and tail lights distorted by the sheeting water on the windows of the car. I will be savoring the warmth and dryness of my vantage point, but for the most part, lost in a limbo of speculation as I mentally flip through the pages of my life wondering if I will ever land on the right page.
Until
now 2010 oil on linen 36 x 48 inches
Complete
Stop 2008 oil on canvas 36 x 48
inches
Vortex 2008 oil
on canvas 48 x 68 inches
Above
and below 2008 oil on panel 24 x
24 inches
Reasonable
doubt 2008 oil on panel 24 x 24
inches
Trace 2008 oil
on panel 11 x 14 inches
Division 2008 oil
on panel 11 x 14 inches
Under
Mountain Road 2007 oil on canvas 36
x 48 inches McGrath
Highway 2006 oil on canvas 36 x
48 inches
Low
road 2006 oil on canvas 36 x 48
inches
Suspension 2007 oil
on canvas 30 x 40 inches
Route
7 2006 oil on canvas 36 x 48 inches
Cash
only 2005 oil on canvas 30 x 48
inches
Logan
ramp 2005 oil on canvas 22 x 24
inches
From the artist;
UNDER
THE UNMINDING SKY
These
paintings reflect my interest in the way that the road delineates and
controls how we experience landscape. From the roadway perspective, we
not only travel from one place to another, we see landscape in a varied
and complex manner. I use water on the windshield to create a shifting
lens for the way we see the environment: it both highlights and obscures
our viewing. Perspectives slip and compress, while shapes and colors merge
into one another. I also work with relationships between surface and depth,
between flatness and illusion. These images are born out of real experience
and have a close relationship with the medium of painting: its fluidity,
transparency, and capacity for layering, mixing, and blending.
Columbia, SC (April 18, 1929) -- Courtesy of the
USC Newsfilm Library - Railroad Gandydancers construction on the world's
largest earthen dam. Sandwiched in between
shots of steam shovels and industrial cranes is this crew of
African-American railroad gandydancers repairing and moving large
sections of railroad track to the intricate raps and rhythms of an
expert caller.
So. Much. Beauty.
Link courtesy of Greenpa- https://www.blogger.com/profile/17224906349154302210
On this day (perhaps every day...), you have dressed solely for your own comfort and pleasure and you look amazing! Well worn western snap front chambray shirt tucked into black, red and white plaid cargo dickies (where did you even find those?!), black dress crew socks worn 'homie style' (you switched it up from the ubiquitous white athletic crew- good job with that twist!), black work boots (at
first I thought they were Cat's, but upon closer inspection I do
believe they are simply some beloved, functional, well-worn Brogan's
that have served you well) and topped it all off with a bright red web belt (that hold up your pants AND your tape measure!), eye glasses on a neoprene tether and (best of all...) a confident, warm smile.
...my friend Pete and I had a band. We called it, 'In Vitro'. So. Much. Fun.
These are potato quality videos of that moment in time. Pete miraculously fished them out of the archives, transferred them from analogue to digital and sent them along (thank you, beloved friend!).
As ever, the tumescent, unbroken, incontestable armor of flaming youth made us blind to fear. We created accidental perfection from our incomplete understanding of the world and found ourselves soaring on a thermal of undiluted will when we attempted to fly.
Here's to running head-first toward whatever moves you. Cheers...
"Kutiman" harvests bits and pieces from random YouTube videos from
all over the interwebs and sews them together into cohesive, artful
and lush aural landscapes. This one is a favorite
Last May, after the proudly independent U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III struck down Pennsylvania’s gay marriage ban, I wrote
that the many judges slaying such bans seemed to be in subtle
competition to write the one marriage equality opinion that history will
remember. Since then, that competition has only grown fiercer, as an
expanding roster of judges reaches new heights of eloquence and reason
in their pro-equality opinions.
But Thursday’s ruling by 7th Circuit Judge Richard Posner,
which struck down Indiana’s and Wisconsin’s gay marriage bans, is a
different beast altogether. In his opinion,
Posner does not sound like a man aiming to have his words etched in the
history books or praised by future generations. Rather, he sounds like a
man who has listened to all the arguments against gay marriage,
analyzed them cautiously and thoroughly, and found himself absolutely
disgusted by their sophistry and rank bigotry. The opinion is a
masterpiece of wit and logic that doesn’t call attention to—indeed,
doesn’t seem to care about—its own brilliance. Posner is not writing for
Justice Anthony Kennedy, or for judges of the future, or even for gay
people of the present. He is writing, very clearly, for himself.
Ironically, by writing an opinion so fixated on the facts at hand,
Posner may have actually written the one gay marriage ruling that the
Supreme Court takes to heart. Other, more legacy-minded judges
have attempted to sketch out a revised framework for constitutional
marriage equality, granting gay people heightened judicial scrutiny and declaring marriage a fundamental right.
But Posner isn’t interested in making new law: The statutes before him
are so irrational, so senseless and unreasonable, that they’re noxious
to the U.S. Constitution under almost any interpretation of the equal protection clause.
Posner’s opinion largely follows the points he made during his forceful, trenchant, deeply empathetic questioning
at oral arguments. To his mind, there’s no question that gays
constitute a “suspect class”—that is, a group of people with an
immutable characteristic who have historically faced discrimination.
Refreshingly, Posner performs a review of “the leading scientific
theories” about homosexuality to illustrate that being gay isn’t a
choice. (Compare this with Justice Antonin Scalia’s gay rights dissents,
in which he suggests that there’s no such thing as a gay orientation at
all and that “gay” people are just disturbed individuals performing
debauched sex acts.)
This review is actually unnecessary, since both Indiana and Wisconsin
conceded that gay people are born that way. But it serves to reinforce
Posner’s analytical framework—basically, that a state can’t disadvantage
a suspect class of people without a rational basis. Note that low bar:
Not a compelling interest, or even a substantial one. If the states
could only prove a rational interest in excluding gay people from marriage, their laws would pass constitutional muster.
And what are the states’ allegedly rational bases? At oral argument,
the states repeatedly pressed the “responsible procreation” argument.
Here’s Posner’s (quite accurate) summary of that defense:
[The] government thinks that straight couples tend to be
sexually irresponsible, producing unwanted children by the carload, and
so must be pressured (in the form of government encouragement of
marriage through a combination of sticks and carrots) to marry, but that
gay couples, unable as they are to produce children wanted or unwanted,
are model parents—model citizens really—so have no need for marriage.
And here’s his own take on the argument:
Heterosexuals get drunk and pregnant, producing unwanted
children; their reward is to be allowed to marry. Homosexual couples do
not produce unwanted children; their reward is to be denied the right to
marry. Go figure.
This is all very amusing. But Posner has a serious moral and legal
point to make. The states’ arguments against gay marriage aren’t just
irrational: They’re insulting, degrading, and downright cruel to the
adopted children of gay couples. Posner describes this case as being,
“at a deeper level,” about “the welfare of American children.” Two
hundred thousand children are being raised by gay couples in America,
including several thousand in Indiana and Wisconsin. Both states admit
that children benefit psychologically and economically from having
married parents. These facts would seem to suggest a compelling interest
in support of gay marriage, since banning it actively, demonstrably harms children.
At oral argument, Posner pressed this point—one Justice Kennedy has made as well—and the state was unable to muster an intelligible retort.
He also asked whether the states cared at all that their laws harmed children. Their answer: Not really.
Posner acknowledges that a law that harms a suspect class (and their
children) might still be rational if it has “offsetting benefits.” But
who could gay marriage bans possibly benefit? Once again, Posner asked
this question at oral argument and received an evasive response.
It’s clear from his opinion that Posner has rifled through the
states’ extensive briefs to find an answer to this question—and come up
short. There is simply no harm, Posner writes, “tangible, secular,
material—physical or financial, or … focused and direct” done to anybody by
permitting gay marriage. Conservative Christians may be offended, but
“there is no way they are going to be hurt by it in a way that the law
would take cognizance of.” A lot of people, after all, objected to
interracial marriage in 1967—but that didn’t stop the court from
invalidating anti-miscegenation laws in Loving v. Virginia.
In his opinion, Posner makes these points with trenchant humor. But
beneath his droll wit lies a moral seriousness that gay marriage
opponents, even those on the high court, will be unable to shrug off.
The modern arguments against gay marriage may be breathtakingly silly—but
by mocking them, we ignore the profound harms that marriage bans
inflict on gay people and their families. By placing these families at
the center of his analysis, Posner restores the equal protection clause
to its rightful place as the safeguard for all whom the state seeks to
harm unjustly. His message for those who hope to demean gay people and
their children is clear: Not on my watch.
and you will be shooting on location in downtown L.A.
Photo;Shandra Beri
and you will be feeling very sorry for yourself because your Friday is now closing in on becoming Fraturday and you are woozy from your 13th hour of inhaling a poisonous mixture of diesel fumes and bum urine and you will receive a photo and text that says, 'We made one for you, come over!'. Sadly you will answer, 'Sorry, can't. Shooting till after midnight.'
Then you will receive another text that says, 'Don't worry, we're hanging out by the pool and we'll be awake when you get home. Come over! And then they will text you another picture...
Photo;Shandra Beri
...which you share with your fellow crew members who all respond with, 'mmmmm's' and 'yum's!'
And you will drive home at o'dark thirty exhausted, park your car, walk next door and feel human again as you draw closer to the bell-like sound of relaxed, tipsy laughter.
PETER BAUMANN
Since the 1960s scientists have known that some species of whiptail
lizards need a male even less than a fish needs a bicycle. These
all-lady lizard species (of the Aspidoscelis genus) from Mexico and the U.S. Southwest manage to produce well-bred offspring without the aid of male fertilization.
But how do they—and the other 70 species of vertebrates that propagate
this way—do it without the genetic monotony and disease vulnerability
that often results from asexual reproduction? "It has remained unclear"
and "has been the topic of much speculation," report a team of
researchers who aimed to answer just that question. Their results were
published online February 21 in the journal Nature. (Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group.)
These lizards and other "parthenogenetic species are genetically isolated," explains Peter Baumann,
an associate investigator at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research
in Kansas City, Mo., and co-author of the study. Species as diverse as Komodo dragons and hammerhead sharks
do it asexually if necessary, but some species, like these little
lizards, don't have a choice. "They can't exchange genetic material, and
this loss of genetic exchange is a major disadvantage to them in a
changing environment," he says. Unless an animal can recombine the DNA
they already have, they will produce an offspring with an identical set
of chromosomes, in which any genetic weakness, such as disease
susceptibility or physical mutation, would have no chance to be
overridden by outside genetic material from a mate.
The new research by Baumann and his team reveal that these lizards maintain genetic richness
by starting the reproductive process with twice the number of
chromosomes as their sexually reproducing cousins. These celibate
species resulted from the hybridization of different sexual species,
a process that instills the parthenogenetic lizards with a great amount
of genetic diversity at the outset. And the researchers found that
these species could maintain the diversity by never pairing their
homologous chromosomes (as sexual species do by taking one set of
chromosomes from each parent) but rather by combining their sister
chromosomes instead. "Recombination between pairs of sister chromosomes
maintains heterozygosity" throughout the chromosome, noted the authors
of the study, which was led by Aracely Lutes, a postdoctoral researcher
in Baumann's lab.
This discovery, which had until now been unconfirmed in the reptile
world, means that "these lizards have a way of distinguishing sister
from homologous chromosomes," Baumann says. How do they do it? That's
something the group is now investigating.
Another big unknown is precisely how the lizards end up with double the
amount of chromosomes in the first place. Baumann suspects that it could
happen over two rounds of replication or if two sex cells combine
forces before the division process starts.
Although asexual reproduction
might seem like a bore—and one that can have questionable genetic
outcomes unless done right—it has its benefits, too, Baumann notes.
"You're greatly increasing the chances of populating a new habitat if it
only takes one individual," he says, citing the example of the brahminy
blind snake (Ramphotyphlops braminus), another parthenogenetic
species. "If she has a way of reproducing without the help of a male,
that's an extreme advantage." Indeed it is—the brahminy has already
colonized six continents. VIA; http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/asexual-lizards/
