Origin of a controversy :The Scientist [2007-01-01]


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	By Brendan Borrell

Origin of a controversy When Anders Pape M?ller published his now-infamous 1992 Nature paper on barn swallows, 1 it was a leap of faith to test whether females might choose males based on asymmetry between the left and right sides of the body. Such asymmetry had been known to correlate with stress and other environmental factors, but not to mate selection.