"Eighty Million Years Without Sex.".

"Eighty Million Years Without Sex." Yes, it got our attention, too. That headline on the BBC News website does not, however, refer to some hapless husband's exceptionally long exile to the doghouse, but to the generative activities of a tiny freshwater invertebrate called the bdelloid rotifer. Genetic evidence tells us that these little critters gave up sexual reproduction back in the Mesozoic Era, 80 million years ago. Scientists have long been puzzled to understand how the species has kept itself going all this time. A team of scientists has now solved the mystery. A neat genetic trick lets the rotifers fake the business of having two copies of each gene, which is the main point of sexual reproduction. Says Dr. Alan Tunnacliffe of Cambridge University, the lead researcher on the project: "Evolution of gene function in this way can't happen in sexual organisms, which means there could be some benefit to millions of years without sex after all." Well, yes. For one thing, you get more sleep.