What Did I Do Last Summer? Oh, I Discovered How To Make Babies Without Sex. And You?
Ah, if only all summers could be like June, July and August 1740 — when three young guys (and a 6-year-old and a 3-year-old) did a science experiment that startled the world. In those days, you could do biology without a fancy diploma. More people could play.
That spring, the hot book — the one everyone was reading — was a gorgeously illustrated volume about insects by the French naturalist Ren Antoine Ferchault de Raumur. It was called Mmoires pour servir a l'histoire des Insects and in it, Raumur mentioned that in all his years looking at bugs — and he was a very good looker — he had never seen a male aphid.
Charles Bonnet then sent these notes, his findings and a cover letter on to Raumur in Paris, who, enormously pleased with the discovery, read Bonnet's letter in July to the assembled members of the French Academy of Sciences in Paris. The next step, clearly, was to repeat the experiment, to see if another virgin would produce another batch of babies.
Enlarge image i