LONDON: The superiority of the sexual reproduction is now empirically established. Since the time of Darwin and maybe prior to that till now it has been “supposed” to be superior; there were firm belief in its favor but now it has decisively won, with the practical demonstration that the organisms proliferating through sexual reproduction are more resistant than those reproducing asexually.

The discovery is also expected to help to the theories against inbreeding practices. Although the human race could appreciate the harms of inbreeding long ago without any ‘scientifically demonstrable proof’ and most of the advanced cultures throughout the world have prohibited inbreeding i.e. close marriages; but this discovery would help the theories.

The study was conducted by the biologists of University of Indiana. According to these biologists, their discovery supports the evolutionary theory that mixing of genomes of parents leads to a new genetic code in offspring which makes it more resistant to the external parasitic and microbial attacks. They say they may have come up with the best evidence yet. They engineered two types of worms. One type of them reproduces sexually only i.e. only by mating while the other type reproduces asexually i.e. it could only clone itself.

The two types were exposed to a harmful bacterium. And the sexually reproducing ones were found to be resistant while the asexually reproducing ones died rapidly.

Mating, cross fertilization or sexual reproduction — whatever you may call it for the sake of simplification, the superiority lies in its enriched genome to make the living being better equipped to fight the external attackers.

Biologists describe it as “Running with the Red Queen” referring to the character in Lewis Carroll’s ‘Through the Looking-Glass’.

Study co-author Curtis Lively said: “The Red Queen Hypothesis predicts that sex should allow hosts to evade infection from their parasites, whereas self-fertilisation may increase the risk of infection.