To recap recent Times animal sex crazinesses: First horse sex, then duck dicks, then frogs going bump in the night. We suppose no one should have been surprised, then, to open the Science section to today's article about Lonesome George , a tortoise, and the zoologist tasked with masturbating him.

By coating her hands in the genital secretions of female tortoises and gently stroking him, she managed to demonstrate a couple of times (in the course of several months' work) that George was capable of an erection. But whereas her touch could induce other male tortoises to reach orgasm within a few minutes, with George she never managed to collect any sperm.

And so we once more found ourselves wondering what is up with this stuff? Then Josh and I had a serious conversation in which we got to the bottom of it once and for all.

Earlier: Is Meatpacking Mating Being Metaphorized?