Part 6 (1/2)
”A new technique for Kenny . . . !” (This Southpark Southpark cartoon character frequently dies in freak masturbation accidents.) cartoon character frequently dies in freak masturbation accidents.) [image]
At-Risk Survivor: Battered Sausages Confirmed by Reliable Eyewitness Featuring gonads, mostly!
Dr. Kiernan has been a prolific contributor to the Darwin Awards, particularly with urological reports. Four stories from the files of the good doctor . . .
MARCH 2007
The most grateful patient I ever treated had found true love with a household vacuum. He presented to me with a very swollen and sorry-for-itself p.e.n.i.s, and it was obvious that the member had been somewhere it shouldn't be. I confronted him, and he denied the truth (wouldn't you?) until I told him I had a foolproof cure to prevent recurrent damage. He brightened up.
”Make sure to attach a cardboard toilet-paper roll to the end of the suction first, so you can soak the roll off your happy peewee if it becomes necessary.” He was most grateful for the advice.
At-Risk Survivor: What a Pickle!
APRIL 2008
Our hero sought my urgent professional attention after an accident involving a car and his motorbike, on his way to a Sat.u.r.day night party. He had sustained a compound broken femur. The management of this life-threatening condition was hampered by his refusal to have his black leather trousers cut off. In fact, we argued with him for ten minutes trying to access his common sense and get his consent, while doing other necessary things to help him medically, of course. As it turned out, it wasn't the expense of the leather trousers with which he was so preoccupied . . . It was our imminent discovery of the large cuc.u.mber in his underwear! Mom always warned us, ”Wear clean underwear in case you get hit by a car.” Here's a new one for Mom to worry about. This gambit is far from unusual. In the rougher parts of outer Sydney no one would want to be reincarnated as a cuc.u.mber because . . . well...!
At-Risk Survivor: Fis.h.i.+ng Tackle SEPTEMBER 2008
Daily Telegraph Daily Telegraph reported that a small fish had found its way into the urethra of a fourteen-year-old boy. The patient was admitted to the hospital with complaints of pain, dribbling, and urinary retention. Floundering for a rationale for his predicament, the boy's dubious account was that he was cleaning the fish tank in his house and was holding a fish in his hand when he needed to use the toilet. While he was pa.s.sing urine, the two-cm fish supposedly slipped from his hand and entered his urethra, say Drs. Vezhaventhan and Jeyaraman, who wrote a paper on the unfortunate fish and boy. reported that a small fish had found its way into the urethra of a fourteen-year-old boy. The patient was admitted to the hospital with complaints of pain, dribbling, and urinary retention. Floundering for a rationale for his predicament, the boy's dubious account was that he was cleaning the fish tank in his house and was holding a fish in his hand when he needed to use the toilet. While he was pa.s.sing urine, the two-cm fish supposedly slipped from his hand and entered his urethra, say Drs. Vezhaventhan and Jeyaraman, who wrote a paper on the unfortunate fish and boy.
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At-Risk Survivor: A Bit Potty 1960S
My father, also a doctor, treated a man who rode his bicycle six miles one rainy evening to seek advice at the local English hospital. He wore a large, dark raincoat which he refused to remove for the nursing staff. In privacy, he did so for my father, who was most surprised. This surprise did not emanate from the fact that the man had got himself stuck in an old-fas.h.i.+oned clay urinal, but that he had cycled six miles with it hanging from the end of his p.e.n.i.s! Needless to say Dad didn't buy the story of being caught while having a wee. This ended rather badly, I am afraid. Dad claims there was no other way but to break it out with a hammer.
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Could this man thus be a historic Darwin Awardee?
Reference: Dr. Davida Kiernan
SCIENCE INTERLUDE WHY BOTHER WITH s.e.x?.
By Alice Cas...o...b.. [image]
Not the complaint of a tired housewife or the sour grapes of a frustrated ”playah,” but rather a real dilemma for evolutionary biologists. If an organism's purpose is to propagate its own DNA, why waste time and energy searching for a mate? If its unique genetic code lets it survive and flourish, why dilute that code with another creature's genes?
”But don't we need s.e.x to make babies?”
Sure, we we do. But step outside our species to recognize the big difference between s.e.x (exchanging genes) and reproduction (making offspring). The entire kingdom Prokaryota would consider us perverts if we could explain to them how s.e.x and reproduction coincide within our multicellular selves. Any proper prokaryote would tell you that s.e.x-sharing genes-is something one does with multiple partners, trading bits of DNA via cell-connecting tubes or viral vectors. Reproduction, OTOH, means privately splitting your single-celled self into two identical organisms. do. But step outside our species to recognize the big difference between s.e.x (exchanging genes) and reproduction (making offspring). The entire kingdom Prokaryota would consider us perverts if we could explain to them how s.e.x and reproduction coincide within our multicellular selves. Any proper prokaryote would tell you that s.e.x-sharing genes-is something one does with multiple partners, trading bits of DNA via cell-connecting tubes or viral vectors. Reproduction, OTOH, means privately splitting your single-celled self into two identical organisms.
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Strawberries, Sharks, and Komodo Dragons As.e.xual reproduction is actually so common that we barely think about it. Every time you pull a strawberry sucker from your garden or trim a spider plant's spiders, you're dealing with as.e.xual reproduction. Bananas, the notoriously phallic fruit, are seedless and propagate by rooting cuttings. And even garlic, that spicy aphrodisiac, reproduces without s.e.x via bulbs.
All-female clones can continue to reproduce indefinitely, but all-male clones are extinct after one generation. As.e.xuality can be a dead end!
And it's not just plants. Many worms and insects, a boatload of coelenterates (p.r.o.nounced see LEN' ter ates' see LEN' ter ates'-sea anemones and jellyfish), and even some fish and lizards reproduce as.e.xually. Female sharks raised in captivity have given birth to all-female young whose DNA comes only from their virgin mothers. Ditto for Komodo dragons, except that through a genetic twist, their offspring are all male. Parthenogenesis has been reported as far up the evolutionary ladder as the domestic turkey.
Why Do Without? The Cost of s.e.x s.e.x always costs-not necessarily in money, but in the more primal currencies of energy, time, and exposure to danger. Exhausting fights over mates raise the cost of business in the s.e.xual world-ask any stag during rutting season. And consider over-the-top mating displays like the nine-foot blossom of the carrion flower, the peac.o.c.k's tail feathers, or the human's silly, showy ”peac.o.c.k” brain. (See ”s.e.x on the Brain,” p. 109 for a treatise on human brains and runaway s.e.xual selection.) Elaborate mating structures take time and energy to make and increase exposure to predators[image] as well as potential mates. as well as potential mates.[image] A peac.o.c.k's huge tail feathers slow him down; the leopard who pounces on a poky peac.o.c.k is reaping a cheap lunch subsidized by the cost of s.e.x-fancy plumage-to her prey. Time spent attracting a mate could be spent feeding, gathering energy, and growing clones. Nons.e.xual creatures avoid all that mating ha.s.sle by just doing it solo. A peac.o.c.k's huge tail feathers slow him down; the leopard who pounces on a poky peac.o.c.k is reaping a cheap lunch subsidized by the cost of s.e.x-fancy plumage-to her prey. Time spent attracting a mate could be spent feeding, gathering energy, and growing clones. Nons.e.xual creatures avoid all that mating ha.s.sle by just doing it solo.
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Lesbian Lizards The most fascinating s.e.x-free creatures are the ones who have given up s.e.x after enjoying it for millions of years. There are all-female species of whiptail lizard, blue-spotted salamander, and topminnow. Tellingly, all of these species have mating behaviors that show their recent evolution from s.e.xual ancestors. All-female blue-spotted salamanders mate with males of related species; the sperm triggers development of their eggs, but contributes no genes. The live-bearing desert topminnow, Poeciliopsis lucidus, Poeciliopsis lucidus, does the same. does the same.
Whiptail lizards of the desert Southwest go one step further: Members of the all-female species Cnemidophorus uniparens Cnemidophorus uniparens take on male-like behavior and mate with other females in a process called pseudocopulation. Their female-on-female behavior stimulates egg production and the birth of clones. take on male-like behavior and mate with other females in a process called pseudocopulation. Their female-on-female behavior stimulates egg production and the birth of clones.
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If so many organisms get along fine without s.e.x, why are the rest of us still doing it? Especially, note evolutionists dryly, when mathematical models show that as.e.xual females should take over any population within fifty generations, due to the time and energy they save.
But-that's fifty generations without natural selection- natural selection-with no new trends in weather, no new diseases, no new tricks by your predators. Do you see the problem?
Nature is never never free of natural selection. Even when the physical environment is stable, the ecosystem of predators and pathogens is not. You are food for them, and if there is one thing stronger than the s.e.x drive, it is the need to feed. Even Darwin would agree: free of natural selection. Even when the physical environment is stable, the ecosystem of predators and pathogens is not. You are food for them, and if there is one thing stronger than the s.e.x drive, it is the need to feed. Even Darwin would agree: You must survive until you can pa.s.s on your genes. You must survive until you can pa.s.s on your genes. Food comes before s.e.x, and organisms will do anything to get it-or avoid becoming it-even swap genes. If everyone else is swapping genes in an arms race to eat you, and you're standing there having s.e.x with yourself, you're falling behind. Food comes before s.e.x, and organisms will do anything to get it-or avoid becoming it-even swap genes. If everyone else is swapping genes in an arms race to eat you, and you're standing there having s.e.x with yourself, you're falling behind.
In a nutsh.e.l.l, s.e.x is an engine of diversity: More varieties of organisms are birthed when they are conceived with a partner. A family of clones is obviously less diverse than a family with mixed genes. And when your genotype is the delicious flavor of the day, you'll want to make sure your offspring are something your predators have never tasted before. Whether you need faster legs, a longer tongue, or slimier skin-s.e.x is the way to go.
Now that the case has been made in favor of s.e.x, how do creatures get by without it? If a hungry world is chasing them, why do lesbian lizards have any place in nature?
Studies show that as.e.xual plants and animals thrive in marginal environments with little compet.i.tion, but cannot compete with s.e.xual relatives in mainstream habitats. As.e.xual b.u.t.terflies flutter on alpine mountaintops, as.e.xual plants pop up in plowed fields and after volcanic eruptions, and as.e.xual vertebrates make their homes where it's hot, icy, or dry. Note that the all-female species mentioned above are the desert desert topminnow and lizards of the topminnow and lizards of the desert desert Southwest. These as.e.xual desert creatures have close relatives living in more appealing climates-lounging on beaches, soaking in tropical pools-who reproduce using s.e.x. Southwest. These as.e.xual desert creatures have close relatives living in more appealing climates-lounging on beaches, soaking in tropical pools-who reproduce using s.e.x.
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In a marginal habitat, it pays to pa.s.s on to your children your proven genotype, unchanged. Only a few things can live where you live, and on balance, it's best to stick with the tried and true. And saving energy with low-cost solo reproduction is a big help too.
As.e.xuals live where the environment allows natural selection to slow down.
#1 Reason for s.e.x: Aliens!
OK, then-since s.e.x is a choice, why choose s.e.x?7 Field studies indicate that the number one reason for s.e.x is biological interactions between species. Mainstream habitats are rich in predators, pathogens, and parasites. s.e.x, by shuffling genes, is especially good at protecting against parasites and disease. Studies in the lab-evolution in a bottle-show that those odd creatures that switch between s.e.xual and as.e.xual reproduction, like the water snail, Potomopyrgus antipodarum Potomopyrgus antipodarum, get s.e.xy when their parasites start hopping.
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