We publish a paper:
On Monday a friend, Dr. Martin Lewis, and I got a paper published in African Entomology. The name of the paper is "Fluctuation of fertility with number in a real insect population and a virtual population." The paper itself of course is their intellectual property but I can give you the gist. Basically we raised fruit flies in a big cage for a few years and counted them every day. Their numbers fluctuated according to a specific pattern. We were able to construct a computer simulation that modeled infertility secondary to insufficient kinship using a pre-zygotic mechanism, a post-zygotic mechanism and a mixed mechanism. The fruit fly pattern was characteristic for a post-zygotic mechanism. Humans and mice have a population time course pattern that is characteristic for a mixed mechanism.
Our hope is that the insight gained from the study can be turned against such insects as the mosquitoes that carry malaria. There are many lives that could be saved. At the same time, of course, we hope that there will be further work done to elucidate the exact relationship between consanguinity and fertility.
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