sexual reproduction
grrlscientist | July 15, 2010tags: When Ideas Have Sex, imagination, innovation, group intelligence, exchange of ideas, cumulative ideas, evolution, sexual reproduction, technological specialization, free trade, Matt Ridley, TEDTalks, TED Talks, streaming video
At TEDGlobal 2010, author Matt Ridley shows how, throughout history, the engine of human progress has been the meeting and mating of ideas to make new ideas. It's not important how clever individuals are, he says; what really matters is how smart the collective brain is.
TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference…
scicurious | June 25, 2009We know that a lot of organisms, from humans to bacteria to birds to bees, have lots of sex. But what has mystified scientists for years is WHY. I mean, it's fun and all (unless you're a poor beetle girl stuck with this), but what purpose does it serve? On the face of it, in fact, sex seems to be pretty BAD for about half of the population: the women. For example, there's a lizard out there than can reproduce both asexually and sexually. When it reproduces asexually, it producing nothing but girls, all of whom can reproduce both asexually and sexually. Net win. But when it reproduces…