Sexual selection is a mode of natural selection in which members of one biological sex choose mates of the other sex to mate with, compete with members of the same sex for access to members of the opposite sex. These two forms of selection mean that some individuals have better reproductive success than others within a population, either because they are more attractive or prefer more attractive partners to produce offspring. For instance, in the breeding season, sexual selection in frogs occurs with the males first gathering at the water's edge and making their mating calls: croaking; the females arrive and choose the males with the deepest croaks and best territories. In general, males benefit from frequent mating and monopolizing access to a group of fertile females. Females can have a limited number of offspring and maximize the return on the energy they invest in reproduction; the concept was first articulated by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace who described it as driving species adaptations and that many organisms had evolved features whose function was deleterious to their individual survival, developed by Ronald Fisher in the early 20th century.

Sexual selection can lead males to extreme efforts to demonstrate their fitness to be chosen by females, producing sexual dimorphism in secondary sexual characteristics, such as the ornate plumage of birds such as birds of paradise and peafowl, or the antlers of deer, or the manes of lions, caused by a positive feedback mechanism known as a Fisherian runaway, where the passing-on of the desire for a trait in one sex is as important as having the trait in the other sex in producing the runaway effect. Although the sexy son hypothesis indicates that females would prefer male offspring, Fisher's principle explains why the sex ratio is 1:1 without exception. Sexual selection is found in plants and fungi; the maintenance of sexual reproduction in a competitive world is one of the major puzzles in biology given that asexual reproduction can reproduce much more as 50% of offspring are not males, unable to produce offspring themselves. Many non-exclusive hypotheses have been proposed, including the positive impact of an additional form of selection, sexual selection, on the probability of persistence of a species.

Sexual selection was first proposed by Charles Darwin in The Origin of Species and developed in The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, as he felt that natural selection alone was unable to account for certain types of non-survival adaptations. He once wrote to a colleague that "The sight of a feather in a peacock's tail, whenever I gaze at it, makes me sick!" His work divided sexual selection into male-male competition and female choice.... Depends, not on a struggle for existence, but on a struggle between the males for possession of the females; when the males and females of any animal have the same general habits... but differ in structure, colour, or ornament, such differences have been caused by sexual selection. These views were to some extent opposed by Alfred Russel Wallace after Darwin's death, he accepted that sexual selection could occur, but argued that it was a weak form of selection. He argued that male-male competitions were forms of natural selection, but that the "drab" peahen's coloration is itself adaptive as camouflage.

In his opinion, ascribing mate choice to females was attributing the ability to judge standards of beauty to animals far too cognitively undeveloped to be capable of aesthetic feeling. Ronald Fisher, the English statistician and evolutionary biologist developed a number of ideas about sexual selection in his 1930 book The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection including the sexy son hypothesis and Fisher's principle; the Fisherian runaway describes how sexual selection accelerates the preference for a specific ornament, causing the preferred trait and female preference for it to increase together in a positive feedback runaway cycle. In a remark, not understood for another 50 years he said:... plumage development in the male, sexual preference for such developments in the female, must thus advance together, so long as the process is unchecked by severe counterselection, will advance with ever-increasing speed. In the total absence of such checks, it is easy to see that the speed of development will be proportional to the development attained, which will therefore increase with time exponentially, or in geometric progression.

—Ronald Fisher, 1930 This causes a dramatic increase in both the male's conspicuous feature and in female preference for it, resulting in marked sexual dimorphism, until practical physical constraints halt further exaggeration. A positive feedback loop is created, producing extravagant physical structures in the non-limiting sex. A classic example of female choice and potential runaway selection is the long-tailed widowbird. While males have long tails that are selected for by female choice, female tastes in tail length are still more extreme with females being attracted to tails longer than those that occur. Fisher understood that female preference for long tails may be passed on genetically, in conjunction with genes for the long tail itself. Long-tailed widowbird offspring of both sexes inherit both sets of genes, with females expressing their genetic preference for long tails, males showing off the coveted long tail itself. Richard Dawkins presents a non-mathematical explanation of the runaway sexual selection process in his book The Blind Watchmaker.

Females that prefer long tailed males tend to have mothers. As a result, they carry both sets of g

Walter Scott Lenox was the American businessman who established Lenox china, supplying the first complete American-made bone china table service for Woodrow Wilson's White House. Lenox resolved to become a potter early in his boyhood. Starting in 1875 at the age of sixteen he first worked for a number of Trenton potteries. By his early twenties he had developed an excellent reputation, based on this he was hired by Ott and Brewer Pottery Company of Trenton Willetts Manufacturing, as its art design director, he focused on ceramic design and decoration. When Lenox was thirty he had saved enough money to enter a partnership with Jonathan Coxon, they started. Lenox wanted to be an expert in bone china. In the nineteenth century American pottery was inferior to European products. Lenox had three goals to accomplish for his goal to produce good quality bone china: master the difficult bone china manufacturing techniques obtain sufficient financial backing for his factory operations overcome the wealthy’s prejudices against American bone chinaCeramic Art Company struggled financially in its early years, with the material and labor costs exceeded their income.

Lenox bought out Coxon’s interests in 1894, subsequently he operated it on his own as Lenox's Ceramic Art Company. He concentrated on manufacturing Belleek style pottery, Parian ware produced in Belleek, Northern Ireland. Lenox hired two expert Belleck potters to help him master the technique. However, the troubled company went further in debt with the lack of profits, he had to consent to a new factory building being designed to allow it to be converted into an apartment building if the company failed. In the early 1900s Lenox's health began to decline, he became paralyzed and blind. However, Lenox continued to work at the factory daily, his chauffeur carried him to his office where he began to monitor the production of porcelain with his hands. He relied on trusting his assistant and secretary Harry Brown, a long-time employee. In 1906 Lenox established Inc.. Lenox’s company received a large order from a retailer and Company. Soon after the delivery, the retailer’s store was leveled in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and everything destroyed, except for an undamaged single Lenox bone china plate.

This plate became the cornerstone of Lenox's marketing campaign. Lenox made the first complete set American-made White House china table service, for President Woodrow Wilson

Ahearn Field House is one of the athletic buildings on the campus of Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas. It was the former home of the Wildcats men's basketball team, is home to the K-State volleyball team and indoor track and field squad, houses facilities for the Department of Kinesiology and the Department of Intercollegiate Athletics; the facility was named in honor of Michael F. "Mike" Ahearn. In 42 years at K-State, Ahearn served in a variety of roles, including as a coach, Head of the Department of Physical Education, Director of Athletics. Kansas State's men's basketball team posted an all-time record in Ahearn Field House of 369-96, including six undefeated seasons. By the late 1940s, it was obvious that Kansas State's 30-year-old gym, Nichols Hall, was inadequate for the popular basketball team. After the Wildcats advanced to the Final Four in 1948, it was not unheard of for students to climb into the rafters in order to watch the game. Not only was this situation uncomfortable, it was unsafe.

In the late-1940s, the Kansas State Legislature approved the construction of a new and much larger basketball facility, designed to overcome the capacity and safety shortcomings of Nichols Hall. Opened in 1950 with a seating capacity of more than 14,000, Ahearn Field House was one of the first and largest purpose-built basketball arenas in the country, it was the largest arena in the state of Kansas until the construction of Allen Fieldhouse at the University of Kansas in 1955. Changing fire codes over the years forced changes to the seating arrangements that reduced seating capacity to 12,220 for the 1987-1988 season, the final season of men's basketball at Ahearn. Ahearn Field House hosted the men's NCAA basketball tournament regional finals six times, it hosted the national championship match for the 1974 AIAW Women's Basketball Tournament, as well as a quarterfinal game in the 1976 NIT. Ahearn Field House provided a legendary homecourt advantage for K-State. Former Kansas State coach Tex Winter said in his biography Trial By Basketball: "Kansas State won a lot of ballgames because of that crowd.

Many times during timeouts you couldn't hear yourself talk. All I could do was scribble a play on the floor; the crowd there never died in one of our lulls – the crowd would come alive and pick us up." The total men's basketball attendance from 1950 to 1988 was over 4,839,796. By the mid-1970s, it was obvious that the basketball team had outgrown Ahearn, KSU administration decided that the basketball teams needed a new home. In 1979, KSU began raising money for what would become Bramlage Coliseum, which became the new home of the basketball teams in 1988. Over the years Ahearn has been modified to accommodate a variety of other activities, ranging from additional classroom space to providing venues for other intercollegiate sports such as indoor track and field and volleyball. Ahearn has hosted NCAA volleyball tournament games four times since 1996. David Smale, The Ahearn Tradition Mark Bender, Trial By Basketball: The Life and Times of Tex Winter ISBN 1-886110-90-5 Official website