Slanted Science

When there’s so much serious, life-changing scientific research being done in the world, people often accuse SlantedScience of being obsessed with sex and genitals, like a horny fifteen-year old boy. Partly that’s because we give the majority of stories to local high school kids to write (they’re really cheap), but mostly it’s because when scientists study these subjects they tend to come up with some really bizarre shit.

And after all, it ’s important that science’s less-exposed areas (such as bats having oral sex and slow-motion video of ehajculating duck penises`) get an airing now and again.

So we come to this: biologists at UC Berkley have just published the results of their work, which show that when a laser is used to shave the tiny spikes off a fruit fly’s penis, the fly was left almost unable to service its female counterparts.

Curing cancer can wait: let’s have more of this, please.

The boffins responsible for this seminal work are Michal Polak and Arash Rashed. They are evolutionary biologists, and begin their report (available for free here): by restating this hoary old thinking point:

The mechanisms responsible for the remarkable diversification of genital morphology in animal species with internal fertilization remain unresolved.

Well of course: who amongst us hasn’t spent many sleepless nights tossing and turning as we struggle to reconcile potential mechanisms driving morphogenic changes – bearing in mind both classical Darwinian principles and the associated cost/benefit balances – with the varied shapes of animal cocks.

Here’s the deal: fruit fly penises are covered in tiny, spiky projections. When the male gets himself inside a female, these spikes don’t go in with him; it has been shown previously that they grab onto the external female sex organs (stop us if we’re being overly romantic here). So tight is their grip that they actually pierce the female’s body, leading scientists to postulate that they exist to allow sperm to enter the female by a route other than the sex organs. Their charming name for this theory: traumatic insemination.

Which sounds like a wonderful name for a death metal band.

Anyway, these guys decided to test the traumatic insemination theory (we just coughed up a bit of acid typing those words again). They did this by using an extremely well-focused laser to slice the spikes off male fruit fly penises. You can see the end results below, in an image from their university’s website.

The scientists found that flies with “ablated” penile spikes were significantly less successful at mating with females. However, when they did manage it, their levels of fertility were not reduced. Thus, they conclude, their work proves one of Darwin’s theories on why some species have such complex genitals: they assist the male – to use Darwin’s charming turn of phrase – in “holding her securely“.

But the boffins aren’t done yet. They describe their ideas for future research in this area:

We are using the laser for a variety of projects, including to surgically excise other genital traits and the tiny but elaborate male sex ‘combs’ used in courtship, and to study their adaptive function in sexual selection.

Perverts.

Don’t Hold Your Breath, But This May Lead To: a total worldwide ban on genetic modification (GM). Why? Well, just imagine the consequences if the fruit fly’s spiky-cock genes find their way into humans…