Mother

[Hugh Rodwell <m-14970@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

How's this for a great piece of journalism?

	Mother Knows Best

	Once convinced that they should expend their precious parental
energy,
	mothers go to great lengths to rear their young. Most impressive is
the
	Australian social spider. As her spiderlings mature, she begins to
turn to
	mush. As she liquefies, her children suck her up. Sated from this

	sacrificial meal of mother, they exercise better manners and forgo
eating
	one another as well.



It's from a review by Helen Fisher of "Mother Nature" by Sarah B. Hrdy
(Scientific American, Dec 1999, p 98). The review is entitled "Mother
Nature is an Old Lady with Bad Habits".

Who needs Hollywood?

It also makes you wonder what "educational" institutions are really about...


Cheers,

Hugh

naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret.

You can drive her away with a pitchfork -- Nature runs right back!

Horace, ars poetica, x.