Like a virgin: how science is redesigning the rules of sex Prasad, Aarathi

Table of Content:

Part I. The myth of the natural birth : Planting the seed
1. The story of safe sex
2. Desperately seeking a virgin birth
3. The concert in the egg
4. Secrets of the womb

Part II. A new way of making babies : Out of the test tube
5. Out of time
6. Real men bear children
7. Going solo

Most cultures tell the tale of a maiden who gives birth untouched by a man, and in the wild there are plenty of creatures – turkeys, Komodo ‘dragons’, and the ‘Jesus Christ’ lizard (which even walks on water) – that take various approaches to making babies without having sex. Soon, humans will have that option, too. In Like a Virgin, biologist and science writer Aarathi Prasad examines inconceivable ideas about conception, from a Renaissance recipe for creating a child (bury semen in manure for forty days) to the search for a real-life virgin mother in the 1950s. She then takes us to maverick, cutting-edge labs that are today inventing sex-less reproduction, from manufactured eggs to artificial wombs and beyond. Like a Virgin delivers an astonishing exploration of the mysteries of sex and evolution – past, present, and future.

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