The vast majority of plants are hermaphrodites, with both male and female reproductive parts. Oaks, some orchids, the potted spider plant in your office — they’re all capable of reproducing without a member of another sex nearby. “It makes sense if you are an organism that can’t run around and find mates,” said Deborah Charlesworth, a population geneticist at the …
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A tantalizing vision of a women-centric society has emerged from an ancient cemetery in the bucolic countryside of southwest England. Whereas women commonly left home to join their husbands’ families upon marriage, the Durotriges, a Celtic tribe that lived in Dorset 2,000 years ago, bucked the mold with a system called matrilocality, wherein women remained in their ancestral communities and …
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When Stephane Castel first met with a group of Māori people and other Pacific Islanders in New Zealand to talk about his drug company’s plans for genetic research, locals worried he might be seeking to profit from the genes of community members without much thought to them. Instead, Dr. Castel and his colleagues explained, they were aiming to strike an …
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