While looking at the way "Bdelloid rotifers", a small specie of invertebrates living in freshwater without having sex while still maintaining a good set of gens, researchers from Harvard University in Cambridge reached at the conclusion that those animals have resorted to stealing foreign DNA.

Those organisms can reach up to 0.4 inch and they reproduce by laying eggs. However, all of them are female since Bdelloid rotifers have given up sex as reported by 40 million years ago.

At a closer look those microorganisms seems to have outstanding abilities: they can resist in radiation or even in the absence of water and they own gens belonging to bacteria, fungi and plant.

Sex is the best part of an evolution, helping the specie to develop new gens in order to cope with the changing climate and discard of the useless of harmful ones. Those organisms however have managed to do all that by stealing DNA from other species. However, the question of how this specie was able to incorporate, use foreign genetic material and more importantly select the good and useful gens from a multitude of options still remains.

If those issues could be solved, scientists hopes that this study will have serious implications in medicine by preventing genetic mutations and treating various diseases.