Tough Tradeoff: Beetle brains show how sex shortens life
By Susan Milius
Neurosurgery in beetles uncovers yet another way that having sex can make life shorter.
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Many insects and some other animals tend to die younger if they mate than if they don’t, says Michael Siva-Jothy of the University of Sheffield in England. After 200 or so organ transplants in mealworm beetles, he and Sheffield colleague Jens Rolff propose that a burst of so-called juvenile hormone triggered by mating revs up the insects’ reproductive system but with a dire cost: a weakened immune system.