This is now old news that the male entity is not necessary at all for the reproduction process even among diploid species. About one year back, a team of Japanese scientists led by Tomohiro Kono, a biologist at the Tokyo University of Agriculture, created baby mice without the introduction of sperm. They combined the genetic contents of two mouse eggs, —one of which had been genetically altered —to produce a live mouse that reached adulthood and reproduced. (link) Combine this discovery with DNA altering and humans will have a technique in their hand to control how to breed, whom to give birth to & when to breed. Various insect species exhibit this kind of structure. This phenomenon is known as Eusociality. The most familiar examples are insects such as ants, bees, and wasps, with reproductive queens and sterile workers. Eusociality is also known among mammals: the naked mole rat is a clear case. It is very crucial to note that almost all of such species are known to be matriarchal in nature.
Let's examine the case of ants first. In every ant colony, eggs are laid by one or sometimes more queens. Queens are different in structure, they are the largest ones among all ants, especially their abdomens and thorax which are bigger than most ants. Their tasks are to lay eggs and produce more offspring. Most of the eggs that are laid by the queens grow up to become wingless, sterile females called workers. Periodically swarms of new queens and males called alates are produced, usually winged, which leave to mate. The males die shortly thereafter, while the surviving queens either found new colonies or occasionally return to their old one. The male-females ratios are found to be as skewed as 1:3 in such systems.
Even in mammalian species like Lions, males are significant only for the purpose of mating. In a typical setting, 3-5 females acquire a piece of land along with a male. All of them share the burden of hunting & contributing for the pack. At the time of mating, usually another male approaches the pack & forced by the instinctive possessivenessss both the males fight for the lionesses & the area. Whoever loses leaves. This ensures that only the best genes are carried forward to the next generation. After breeding the males are least responsible towards the cubs & often end up killing them. Hence, it's mainly females who bear the burden of carrying forward the genes.
Now, with the invention of our Japanese geniuses, the Human race has the chance to move to eusocial societies. With no important need of males in sight, it might happen that they will be produced in a limited number, just to suffice for menial jobs (as workers) or as soldiers. Females are anyway more than comfortable handing nearly all jobs in today's world. If males aren't required for reproduction, who might ever need them?! Now I know, this is a very far-stretched imagination, but I feel females will rule this planet one day, with males scuttling for their lives. Not very different from the movie -- Planet of the Apes. They'll probably call it -- Planet of the Eves (That time the traffic will certainly be all time worst ;-) ).
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The sine wave. It's believed that everything follows this pattern.)
Quite interestingly, this theory finds some support in theosophy. There is one widely known idea in theosophy called
cyclic law - it simply states that there is a periodical return or cycling back of something from some place once more. Cyclic law prevails everywhere. It prevails in every kingdom of nature, in the animal, mineral and human world; in history, in the sky, on the earth. Is says that about everything in this universe keeps oscillating just like a
sine wave. The human race started with
primitive communist system - everyone was considered equal, irrespective of sex. But atleast for last 3000 years, females are considered the weaker sex & are oppresseded by the males in the society. We live in the times where the present generations are awaking towards the notion of equal rights for males & females. These three points can be located in the graph give above -- x-axis is the time line, +ve y-axis is pro-males era & -ve y-axis is female dominated time. We started with zero bias and went into +ve y side. Right now we are approaching the x-axis from the +ve y side. This new discovery about reproduction might very well push the entire humanity into an era of female dominance.
Just imagine
Planet of the Apes with apes replaced by beautiful lasses. If nothing else this theory can make one hell of an interesting movie! After exhausting all sorts of extinct, existent & noexistentnt species, probably Hollywood can make a movie over this. With some budding sci-fi writers (like
Vivek), this idea should atleast get me some royalty money.
"Saare jahan se accha, Hindustan hamara" - The second most popular utterance of these famous words of Iqbal was done from outer space, by Rakesh Sharma. Squadron Leader Rakesh Sharma (later retired as Wing Commander) was the first Indian (We've had only Kalapna Chawla after him. She was American citizen though) to go into space. In 1984 he became the first citizen of India to go into space when he flew aboard the Russian rocket Soyuz T-11. During the flight, Squadron Leader Sharma conducted multi-spectral photography of northern India in anticipation of the construction of hydroelectric power stations in the Himalayas. Sqn Ldr Rakesh Sharma was awarded the Ashoka Chakra, for the successful completion of the Space Mission. As were his Russian companions Malyshev and Strekalov. This is the first and the only time, the Ashoka Chakra was awarded to foreigners.
This boy from Patna was making headlines in various newspapers across the nation during the late 90's. Tathagat can boast of being the youngest post-graduate in the world! But the path to this success wasn't an easy one. He had to move to the Supreme Court to get special permission to appear in class 10th exams at the age of 9 years. He completed B.Sc. Physics Honors at the age of 10 years & 6 months! He finished his master's degree in Physics in 1999 at the age of 12 years. India Government sent him to Nobel Prize winners' meeting held in Germany during Jun.25-29, 2001.
