One of the favorite topics of speculative fiction is a society composed entirely of women. From the Greek legends of the Amazons, to the modern novels of Sheri Tepper and Joanna Russ, we have asked ourselves a series of questions. What would such a society look like? How would its members behave? And most importantly – how would they reproduce?
The answers to the question of reproduction have been as varied as the speculated societies. Most involve men in some form or another – whether captured and enslaved, or merely kept out of the society except for reproduction. Only a few have gone so far as to remove the men – because then the question of how women reproduce on their own comes into play.
Parthenogenesis – the production of offspring from an unfertilized egg – is a frequent contender, but parthenogenesis is unheard of in mammals. Also, it’s a form of asexual reproduction with all the disadvantages that entails. Trying to preserve a form of sexual reproduction with only one sex seems a little odd, but to preserve the genetic variety of the species, it would be necessary. Using two eggs rather than an egg and a sperm would seem a logical solution, but that scenario is never found in nature, and all attempts to produce offspring this way, in any animal, have failed – producing embryos which died early in gestation, if they even survived that long.
At least until recently. Then came Tomohiro Kono, a biologist at the Tokyo University of Agriculture. He and his team of researchers set out to produce a mouse from two eggs. In 2004, he succeeded, producing a mouse named Kaguya, that not only lived to be born, but grew to adulthood, and produced offspring of her own in the more usual manner.
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The Rose Bowl is arguably the most famous annual college football game there is, often referred to as “The Granddaddy of Them All.” Every year, it is attended by tens of thousands of fans, and watched on television by millions. This was also true forty-four years ago, in 1961. 
During times of economic hardship, people turn to the road to see if they can make their luck somewhere else. As such, back in the days of the Great Depression, the U.S. saw an increase in the hobo population. Walking along long roads or hitching rides on trains, these hobos would travel about, looking for a place where they could get lucky and find a better home. Of course, such a life of wanderlust was difficult, especially since one has to travel without knowing anything of the landscape or local populace.
It is a technique used all over the world, and training in it is widely offered. Many employers, especially in France, rely on it heavily to evaluate contenders for high positions. Specialists are called upon to share their views in court and even for the Secret Service. Which technique is this? Graphology, or the analysis of handwriting to reveal character traits.
In Britain, there is a very small car company called Ariel, and they make a very small car called the Atom 2. Ariel has been building cars for since 1898– over 100 years– yet today they have fewer than 10 employees, and work out of a barn. But as small as the company (and their product) may be, this car has the horsepower and handling to make any grown man weep openly.