For most living things, sexual reproduction has proven the best overall strategy to perpetuate a species in the rough-and-tumble, unpredictable fray of natural selection. With two partners combining ...

Why are most organisms sexual? The question of why most species reproduce sexually and others reproduce asexually has stymied biologists for years (particularly since asexual reproduction has many ...

When the female gametes in plants become fertilized, a signal from the sperm activates cell division, leading to the formation of new plant seeds. This activation can also be deliberately triggered ...

Studying a species of beetle mite, an international research team has demonstrated for the first time that animals can survive over very long periods of time (possibly millions of years) entirely ...

The California condor is one of the rarest birds in the world, but now it seems that nature is giving it an unexpected leg-up. Scientists have discovered two condor chicks that were born from ...

This story appears in the November 2016 issue of National Geographic magazine. In sexual reproduction—the way most life-forms procreate—each parent provides half an offspring’s chromosomes. Over ...

For years scientists have known that some species of sharks, fish and lizards are capable of "virgin births," asexual reproduction known as parthenogenesis that occurs when unfertilized eggs develop.

Parthenogenesis -- a natural form of asexual reproduction -- is something that's common amongst plant species, insects, amphibians and many other life forms. Meaning "virgin creation" in Greek, it ...