Men...what's that?

Who among us has not pondered the reasons that attract us to the object of our affections?

Most of us come up with stuff like intelligence, looks, humour, etc etc. Some of us scratch our little heads, wonder for a while, and then brush off such unnecessarily complicated thoughts to return to channel surfing on the TV at 1:30 a.m.(that's me!).

Science has a different answer to this question, though. One of the primary reasons for love or attraction to the opposite sex (I'm sorry folks, for now we shall tackle only heterosexuals - someone keeps telling me that I'm terrible at multitasking), is propagation of the species. In fact, this could well be the sole reason, scientifically speaking. In other words, all our traits - physical, intellectual etc are geared towards finding the best potential mate (ewww...rotten term), with the optimum combination of genes, who will ensure that our species continues to thrive.

Given that this scientific mumbo-jumbo has been drilled into our brains since our first biology classes in school, imagine my surprise when I discovered that males as a sex, can one day become totally redundant!!

A lot of women will now snicker and think, 'Hey, we always knew that guys were useless, we didn't need science to tell us THAT'! Dolly the sheep and cloning probably put this idea in our heads first, but now with parthenogenesis being spotted even more commonly in the animal kingdom, guys, you sure have another reason to worry!

Simply put, parthenogenesis is a form of reproduction by females (only) of various species without any inputs from the male of the species. This is sometimes spotted in aphids, bees, reptiles (the komodo dragon) and even birds and sharks ( hammerheads, white spotted bamboo sharks. It can also be induced in other species under laboratory conditions. Human embryos have been produced using parthenogenesis (i.e. without any sperm at all), but these are so far used only for stem cell research.

The natural progression of thought says that with the advances in science that we see everyday, the day is not far when human parthenogenesis for reproduction and 'propogation of the species' becomes a reality.

So all you women out there who are driven up the wall by the men in their lives, despair not. It's only a matter of time till men gain the distinction of having become totally useless in every sense of the term :)and we women would then have the option of having a male, human version of Sony's Aibo to amuse ourselves with!

P.S.: We would then always have the option of pulling the plug or simply taking out it's batteries when it starts leaving dirty clothes on the floor and wet towels on the bed!