 So, as a biologist, I am very interested in the unique behaviors of the human animal. Humans tend to think of ourselves as being quite distinct from the rest of the animal kingdom. However, I like to play around with some of the basic biology behind our behaviors. The father of modern biology, Charles Darwin, gave us the mantra of survival of the fittest. We assume that all animals are acting to either maximize their ability to survive or to reproduce, and one certainly doesn't mean much without the other. Now, are humans doing this all the time? I think you probably know where I'm heading with this. This is a food pyramid, and this is something that my young son brought home from kindergarten last year, and it's a nifty little diagram that gives us the kinds of food we should be including in our diet and the relative proportions of which we should be eating. Now, this got me thinking, we're probably the only species that requires a diagram to tell us what to eat, not to mention that despite the fact that we have this lovely little diagram, many of us choose not to follow it on a fairly frequent basis. Something that we humans don't tend to give a lot of credit to is the lowly cockroach. Cockroaches are kicking our butts when it comes to being able to maintain their nutritional status. Biologists have thrown all sorts of nutritional deficiencies at cockroaches, whether it's protein or carbohydrate, and they have been shown to correct with a high level of sophistication any imbalances that are thrown their way. They are basically doing this much better than we are. Somewhere where we're getting it a little bit better is with the advent of modern medicine. Let's face it, parasites happen whether you are a human, a bird, any kind of animal, and we are very lucky to be able to take a pill or some potion to get these invaders out of our bodies. Our closest primate relatives don't have this luxury, and instead they are forced to take large bristly leaves, fold them up very tightly, and swallow them whole. And this has the effect of scouring out the gut and bringing a lot of these parasites out with them. This is extremely difficult to do, and they do this up to 50 times a day. And because of that, I'm very happy to be human on this one. What about when we all get it wrong? There are about 20 million women worldwide currently taking the contraceptive pill and effectively obliterating their chances at reproducing for the majority of their reproductive lives. Now, this from a biological standpoint is, of course, completely wrong. However, we aren't the only ladies doing it. This is an olive baboon. And when the African black plum comes into season in Nigeria, female olive baboons dig right in. And the high progesterone content of the plums actually has the same effect on their bodies as the contraceptive pill. They are completely shut down. Now, this is very perplexing to biologists, of course, because this is certainly not maximizing their reproductive output. And to take that a step further, it's recently been discovered that some species of chimpanzee and gorillas are doing the same thing. We are both going to get zero for that one. What else can I say? So what is prostitution really? Prostitution is the trading of sex for material goods. And in the case of the human female, she is trading a powerful thing, sex for cash, which she can then use to purchase things she needs to survive. Now, when the reproductive angle has been taken care of, we see that there's a lot of ladies in the animal kingdom who are using sex as a very powerful tool. These are female seed beetles. And during copulation, males provide females with an up-sual gift of either food or water. These ladies have been shown to abstain from sex altogether if they are not thirsty or hungry. Taking that a step further is the female humpback cricket. She actually feeds on the fleshy hindwings of her male partner during copulation. This is a very nutritious snack. And experimentally, she has been shown to abstain from sex if she is not hungry. So when the reproductive capacities have been taken care of, ladies can use sex for something to survive. And we'll both get a point for this one. So all in all, you can see that we are sort of tied here. And I hope I've just been able to open your eyes to the fact that we may not be as far removed from the rest of the animal kingdom as we would like to think. Thank you.