Dr Ann Jones

I imagine this like two bank guards that both need to turn the key at the same time to unlock the Vault of Life.

But nature doesn't seem to ever be held back by rules.

And I know you're all wondering about it, so I've spent some time trawling through scientific literature about parthenogenesis in humans.

If a human female does have a miraculous event in her reproductive tract, it might manifest as a teratoma, a sort of tumour, which can sometimes be organised to have body fat, hair, limbs and even teeth.

But without the male contribution, skeletal muscle doesn't develop and this doesn't become a viable human baby.

There are other cases of genetics being combined into what are called chimeras, like the mythical beasts that are made up of multiple animals.

There was this boy who had two full sets of DNA expressed in different tissues in his body.

He was mostly his mum and dad, but his blood had no father.

It was only his mother's genetic

This sort of discovery has led to a controversial hypothesis that there might be mammalian parthenogenesis happening because if females are engaging in sexual intercourse, she may have no reason to raise the alarm about a virgin birth.

So perhaps parthenogenic individuals go unnoticed.

Maybe we will never know until there is much more comprehensive genetic testing of each individual human across Earth.

Or we could all stop having sex, eh?

And just see if anyone gets born.

Sex is so weird, right?

And you're listening to a series all about it produced by me, Anne Jones and the What The Duck team at ABC Radio National.

Stopping having sex is actually something that I'll be delving into in the next episode.

Does all this rumpy-pumpy really have a future?

Remember, if you've got some sort of issue going on in your relationships, you should drop me a line at whattheduck at abc.net.au.

Are you perpetually single?