NF RR

                         This article The Joy of Fungal Sex: Penicillin Mold Can Reproduce Sexually, Which Could Lead to Better Antibiotics by Marissa Fessenden talks about how penicillin which was thought to only reproduce asexually can now reproduce sexually. Scientists think that these new variations can lead to break throughs with antibiotics. The purpose of penicillin is to kill any bacterias that tries to live where the fungi grows. Scientists have though for a very long time that penicillin reproduces asexually even after many years of study, but knew studies show it reproduces it can also reproduce sexually.

                       One thing I find really interesting in the article is "Paul Dyer, a fungal biologist at the University of Nottingham in England, suspected that P. chrysogenum would reproduce sexually if given the right encouragement"(Fessenden 1).You would think that if people thought this could be true they would have tested it sooner. "After five weeks in the dark, the fungi produced special structures called cleistothecia and ascospores, which only occur after sexual reproduction. Genetic analysis confirmed that genes had been sexually recombined"(Fessenden 1).  After extensive studies the scientist  found that penicillin still had genes needed for mating. Therefore, it could sexually reproduce. A study also showed that a gene that controls the fungi’s sexual reproduction controls the amount of penicillin it creates. This means that the penicillin which are having sex are creating more penicillin. The same scientist who made the discovery about penicillin also discovered that aspergillus fumigatus also sexually reproduces. 

I think that its really interesting that scientists can be studying something so closely for so long and not realize that it can sexually reproduce. I think that there studies would be able to show something as simple as that. This really shows the complicated side of science, there are so many details about things its hard to figure them all out. I think scientists have did an amazing job with this and I hope it leads to break throughs in antibiotics.

 Works Cited

Fessenden, Marissa. "The Joy of Fungal Sex: Penicillin Mold Can Reproduce Sexually, Which Could    Lead to Better Antibiotics: Scientific American." The Joy of Fungal Sex: Penicillin Mold Can    Reproduce Sexually, Which Could Lead to Better Antibiotics: Scientific American. N.p., 8 Feb. 2013. Web. 13 Feb. 2013. <http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-joy-of-fungal-sex>.