Women need men like female sharks need - well, male sharks.

"Birds do it, bees do it, and now there is evidence that female sharks are able to do it on their own -- without the contribution of male DNA. A recent report from a team of American and Irish researchers has concluded that the mysterious appearance in 2001 of an infant female bonnethead shark at Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo in a tank that held only two adult female sharks was the result of parthenogenesis (Gr. virgin birth.) Parthenogenic reproduction takes place without fertilization by a male through the process of cell division, when the mother’s egg fuses with a degenerative cell called a polar body, producing a new individual.

What does this mean for lonely-heart sharks on a Saturday night, or for that matter, the evolution of the species? “Parthenogenesis appears to be a rare phenomenon in sharks, and it is unlikely to have an impact on the evolution of a particular lineage,” said Saint Joseph’s University Professor of Biology Eileen Grogan, Ph.D., a noted expert in shark evolution and research associate at both the Academy of Natural Sciences and the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. “However, one might conceive that this mode of reproduction could have a significant impact on small populations because there is less genetic diversity in small, isolated populations.”

While parthenogenesis can ensure the short-term survival of the species, for the long term it is advantageous to keep male DNA in the mix. “The newborn shark derived from this phenomenon would have only half the genetic diversity of the sexually reproduced form because it is based entirely on the mother’s genome,” said Dr. Grogan. “In terms of evolution, it is preferable to have a greater diversity of genes, because that offspring is more likely to have ‘what it takes’ to survive.” "

Is it just me or is there a note of panic here, requiring the explicit justification of why we still need males? And is this the reason that while billions of dollars has been poured into IVF for heterosexuals, there has been next to no attention paid to parthenogenesis as a form of human reproduction? Just askin' . . . .