Right away, the book stimulated a useful discussion on embryogenesis, haploidy, diploidy, gastrulation, and neurulation.    From Wordnik.com.  [Late night variety pak] Reference

Ants, bees, and wasps (but not termites) have a peculiar genetic system called haplo-diploidy, in which females are produced sexually and have two sets of genes but males are produced asexually and have one set of genes.    From Wordnik.com.  [David Sloan Wilson: Truth and Reconciliation for Group Selection IV: The Great Reckoning] Reference

A consequence of haplo-diploidy is that, when a female mates with a single male, her daughters have a 75% chance of sharing the same genes (because they all get the same genes from their father) rather than a 50% chance for diploid species.    From Wordnik.com.  [ScienceBlogs Channel : Life Science] Reference

What about lateral gene transfer then? does that break the magic line of how much genetic difference constitutes a ‘new’ organism? diploidy? single point mutation? it’s all arbitrary. we can put labels on it for convenience’s sake; but really - we are all really, really, really old.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Earth’s Elder] Reference