Science: Pandaring

Aiding nature

"In all the encounters, it was obvious that the male and female were excited and sexually interested in each other. She was willing and he was anxious, but they just couldn 't coordinate their efforts."

No, this is not an excerpt from the latest report on human sexual inadequacy by Masters and Johnson. It is the director of Washington's National Zoo, Theodore Reed, explaining why the capital's popular pair from Peking, the giant pandas Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing, have failed to produce offspring in three years of bumbling attempts.

Last week the zoo took matters into its own hands. Her bleating and scent...

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