Mice Produced Using Artificial Sperm 435
vasanth writes to tell us scientists have successfully grown mice from artificial sperm. The sperm was created from embryonic stem cells and implanted into female mice. There were a few problems, including that some of the mice showed abnormal patterns of growth and difficulty breathing. The hope here is to assist couples who are having difficulties with conception.
Artificial Sperm? (Score:5, Interesting)
People took'sperm seeds' from stem cells and grew them into mature sperm outside the gonads.
Regardless, it looks like males have one less reason for existance.
Re:Artificial Sperm? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Artificial Sperm? (Score:5, Funny)
Don't forget killing bugs...
Re:Artificial Sperm? (Score:2, Funny)
Killing bugs? You're lucky. My wife thinks killing them is cruel, so I have to safely and humanely escort them to the garden. And I'm actually not joking...
Re:Artificial Sperm? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Artificial Sperm? (Score:2)
As long as there are spiders in the world, you still have a purpose. But its precarious, I agree.
Re:Artificial Sperm? (Score:2)
Re:Artificial Sperm? (Score:5, Funny)
Ohhhhhh..I have a bad feeling you aren't going to like this:
http://www.blackanddeckerappliances.com/category-
Re:Artificial Sperm? (Score:5, Funny)
Don't sweat it -- you still need scientists to perform the procedure, and last I checked they weren't letting girls get into science.
Re:Artificial Sperm? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Artificial Sperm? (Score:5, Funny)
Oh really? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Oh really? (Score:2)
They don't need us (Score:3, Funny)
They don't need us and the human species will be better off without us. We (males) are just too aggressive and violent.
Of course, the reason males are aggressive is the same as the reason that male peacocks have such enormous plumes. You don't think that male peacocks actually *want* to have those ridiculous tales do you? Oh no. The reason they have those tales is that female peacocks like it that way. The same sort of thing happens with humans. Men
Re:They don't need us (Score:5, Informative)
Re:They don't need us (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:They don't need us (Score:2)
Hmmmm..... that's what she told YOU anyway......
Re:They don't need us (Score:3, Insightful)
This can't be emphasize enough. Often the most beautiful women (both outside and inside) are the ones that have problems. Some think they can overcome it by becoming sluts. Others just don't date, or date men that know how to exploit poor self-esteem.
I see this in my own (extended) family. My wife's cousin, 20 years old, very beautiful, blond, sweet and loving, has a hard time dating. Two of her recent boyfriends have ei
Re:They don't need us (Score:2)
If that were true, most human males would have 10-inch penises.
Unless, of co
Re:They don't need us (Score:3, Insightful)
In the 1950's hamburgers were a fraction of their current size, and most people were in the 5' range. 6' was considered tall back then. They slept in these "full" and "double" beds- king size was unneeded and queen size was enormous (my bedroom -built in the 1950's is built for a queen size in the master bedroom).
And both men *and* women have gotten much bigger over the last 100 years. A lot of "knights" armor and castles were clearly made for very small, short people. And then their are pigmi
Re:Oh really? (Score:3, Funny)
Think of the micelings! (Score:3, Funny)
Heather Has Two Mommies (Score:5, Interesting)
Given some time, eggs may also be made as well as sperm from stem cells, and homosexual male couples can also have biological children with the help of a woman to carry the fetus.
ObPython (Score:2, Funny)
"Glory Season" (Score:3, Interesting)
A few men were kept around to provide sperm for modification; there was also a small minority population of non-clone women produced the old fashioned way.
The protagonist was a young "mixed" woman trying to move up in the world.
Re:"Glory Season" (Score:3, Interesting)
This was the set-up for David Brin's novel Glory Season: The vast majority of the population of an isolated colony world were female, and most of those were clones of various ancestral mothers.
A good book (although the Conway's Game of Life obsession did strike me as rather odd).
Another good book is Lois McMaster Bujold's Ethan of Athos, which turns the scenario on its head: her colony world is inhabited solely by men. They use technological alternatives ('uterine replicators') to in utero gestation. T
Or perhaps Heather has one Parent. (Score:3, Interesting)
I suppose the real question would then be this: Since both Gametes are of the same genetic origin, would it then be a clone? If it was a clone, did we just solve all the aging problems previously associated with cloning.
If any of the above is true, then we just gained the ability to reproduce A-sexually
Re:Or perhaps Heather has one Parent. (Score:3, Interesting)
It would be sort of like the ultimate incest and have all the problems thereof, but not a clone.
The Mice? (Score:2, Funny)
Has anybody thought of the mice? Aren't we playing GOD with them? Shouldn't they have a right to live and roam free and not be subject to those humans obsessed with fertilizing them? Disgusting and definitely unethical.
Re:The Mice? (Score:4, Funny)
Gee, Brain, I guess I wasn't pondering what you were pondering. I was pondering more along the lines of me and Pippi Longstocking. I mean, what would the children look like? NARF!
Re:The Mice? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:The Mice? (Score:2)
Although I am feeling the urge to squeak a bit.
Re:The Mice? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The Mice? (Score:2)
The bill of small furry mammal rights? (Score:2)
-PETA (People for the Eating of Tasty Animals.)
Re:The bill of small furry mammal rights? (Score:2)
Re:The bill of small furry mammal rights? (Score:2)
"Difficulties with conception" (Score:4, Interesting)
Initial gut reaction (Score:4, Interesting)
Ew.
Re:Initial gut reaction (Score:2)
oh now THAT is just WRONG on SO MANY levels.
What abnormalities? (Score:2)
Re:What abnormalities? (Score:2)
I was thinking it sounds a lot like what goes wrong with "The Fly"
Just say no to Jeff Goldblum. Think of the children.
Re:What abnormalities? (Score:5, Funny)
Somebody call the Pope (Score:2)
Re:Somebody call the Pope (Score:2)
It's not like we don't have too many people already, and need every single possible way of creating more...
Welcome to the real-life "Amazon" (Score:5, Interesting)
With this technology, two women could generate a baby that has 23 chromosomes from each of them. Men would no longer be necessary to create a new human being that is genetically half of two different individuals.
And since both "halves" would be providing an X chromosome and never a Y, the resulting baby would be female... every time.
If enough women in a society opt for this form of male-unnecessary reproduction, over a few generations there will be no more males in that society.
I can see Gloria Steinem and others of similar political persuasion creating a female-only society somewhere with this technology. An estrogen utopia.
I, for one, welcome our Lesbian overlords.
Re:Welcome to the real-life "Amazon" (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Welcome to the real-life "Amazon" (Score:2)
That was damn funny.
Heh (Score:4, Informative)
When a news article about such research cropped up last year, I saw people on the internet worrying about a science-fiction type scenario where the development could lead to a world devoid of women.
People get really paranoid about science...
Re:Welcome to the real-life "Amazon" (Score:2)
Re:Welcome to the real-life "Amazon" (Score:2)
Are you daft man?!? THEY'LL CUT OFF YOUR BALLS!!!
With this technology, I won't need them anymore anyway. They just get in the way as it is.
Just kidding! I love my balls!
Not in THAT way...
Help With Conception?! (Score:3, Insightful)
So let me get this straight: you want to help a couple make a baby... by making a baby somewhere else, destroying it, harvesting its biological material, and using that material to make another baby, which you then give to the baby-challenged couple?
I guess the big advantages to working for the Department of Redundancy Department is, you get double funding for everything, and there's always someone else around to do your work for you. But it does seem kind of wasteful, sometimes.
Re:Help With Conception?! (Score:2)
Where did you see a 'baby' originally? We're talking about stem cells.
Re:Help With Conception?! (Score:2)
Re:Help With Conception?! (Score:3, Informative)
The whole point of this research is to allow men who have viable "permatogonial stem cells" but have something wrong further along in the
Re:Help With Conception?! (Score:2)
I also felt compelled to comment, on account of I find the essential creepiness of breeding our own kind for the purpose of harvesting them pretty fucking hilarious.
No. (Score:5, Informative)
They are using embryonic stem cells because of the benefits that embryonic stem cells offer over other stem cells when doing research. It is clear that once they can get the procedure working with embryonic stem cells in mice, the next step will be to get it working with non-embryonic stem cells.
Re:Help With Conception?! (Score:2, Insightful)
I was thinking the same thing. Wouldn't it make more sense to harvest ADULT stem cells from the father's body to create sperm for his offspring rather than some other already fully formed embryo?
This way the gentic material is his and not someone else's.
Furthermore...you then get rid of the whole embryonic stem cell debate......unless.....of course....the whole idea was to get private money to blow... *shrugs*
Re:Help With Conception?! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Help With Conception?! (Score:2)
"adult stem cells" is your boon companion on the research adventure you are about to undertake.
Female/Female Reproduction (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Female/Female Reproduction (Score:4, Interesting)
An interesting meta-question is what might that (female-only reproduction) do to evolution? If we don't move into directed evolution (via DNA tinkering or selective abortion), how would having only female gametes change the rate of evolution? The reason that I ask is that male gametes are created at a fantastic rate, creating trillions of possible chromosomal mutations over the lifespan of a male. Female gametes, in contrast, are created at a very deliberate pace (either early on in the development of the ovaries, or, according to some more recent research, on-demand once a month from ovarian stem cells) - far fewer opportunities to screw up the copying and create a mutation.
Look at the one chromosome that is male-only - the Y chromosome, the most stunted, bizarrely mutated one of the bunch. Lots and lots of changes occurred on that branch, and without female evolutionary "brakes", it nearly mutated itself out of existence.
Would female-only reproduction cause a slowdown in genetic drift and mutation? Combined with the technological ability to modify our environment to minimize evolutionary pressures, this could keep humanity percolating at the homo sapiens sapiens level for a long time. An interesting point to ponder...
Re:Female/Female Reproduction (Score:5, Informative)
Hey mods, look down here! (Score:3, Interesting)
Money Talks, God + Common Sense Walk (Score:4, Insightful)
Damn.
I don't see the use (Score:5, Funny)
How many couples really want to conceive a mouse, anyway?
Re:I don't see the use (Score:2)
Havent you seen Stuart Little? (too lazy to include a link to imdb.com)
finally, salvation for the spermless! (Score:2)
The real question. . . (Score:2)
This will be the death of... (Score:2)
The Super Bowl
Bowling Alleys
Fart Jokes
Fantasy Baseball
Not to mention the drastic reduction in demand for the four "P's":
Porn
Poker
Prostitution
Power Tools
Also, the third Sunday in June would henceforth become "My Other Mother's Day".
Re:This will be the death of... (Score:3, Funny)
What use is this? (Score:3, Funny)
Are all the computer companies having trouble keeping up with the demand for new mice? Seems like a damned inefficient way to manufacture 'em if you ask me.
OK, I'll be the party pooper here (Score:5, Interesting)
I mean, is it so far fetched to believe that several million years of trial and error have produced a system of conception that is fairly fault-tolerant but will self-abort if a certain minimum level of viability is not achieved? And that short-circuiting this might not be in anyone's best interest - the parents', the child's, society's?
So then we come in with near-godlike medical technology, and FORCE certain sets of gametes together which would otherwise fail? Am I the only one that has a moral problem with that?
Personally, I'm a HUGE fan of the 'conventional' method of fertilization; if it works, great. If it doesn't, maybe there's a very good reason it doesn't.
Re:OK, I'll be the party pooper here (Score:2)
Furthermore, how much do you want to bet that children produced this way will have difficulty conceiving themselves someday?
Not to mention the fact that we already have enough children with breathing problems...
fun party! (Score:2)
But would you want to turn back the clock and live in a world with out the internet since it can cause identity theft? Live without calculus because it can lead to missles? Live without pennecilin because it can lead to resistant bacteria?
Sure this technology will be abused like all others, but hopefully the ammoral yuppies that rely on it will also be bankrolling research that has benefits that far outweigh the problems and moral dil
Re:OK, I'll be the party pooper here (Score:3, Insightful)
[I]s everyone ENTITLED to have children?
Is anyone entitled to tell anyone else NOT to???
Teriatary effects (Score:4, Insightful)
It's also a survival method. What if some new nasty disease or bacteria, etc, rendered a large portion of the human race largely incapable of reproducing naturally. It's always a good idea to have a backup plan... it's just a matter of not abusing the ability.
Re:OK, I'll be the party pooper here (Score:3, Insightful)
So, either you create a society where women can have kids young and still lead a fulfilling life (i.e. do what they want to do, either work or not) OR you create the technology to allow a higher percentage of women to have kids when they're older.
Re:OK, I'll be the party pooper here (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not convinced that 'helping infertile couples have children' is the ultimate rationale - is everyone ENTITLED to have children?
Some people [bbc.co.uk] are random and prolific producers of offspring while others can't produce a single child while trying purposefully for years.
Who are you to make a moral judgement on who should not be helped?
Re:OK, I'll be the party pooper here (Score:3, Insightful)
That is NOT a moral judgement, it's common sense (or if you'd prefer - impersonally technical). No conception -> something's biologically wrong, possibly something with body plan/genetics -> even if conception is forced, there's a nonignorable chance that the children will have the same problem. Do YOU want to inflict that problems upon the children?
It's not strictly related to TFA, but these days, it's hard to tell if corrective
Baby mice (Score:2)
So the race is on, will women replaced men with test-tubes, or will men replace women with robots?
http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/200605/kt200605041 7203910160.htm [hankooki.com]
After two divorces from two unfaithful wives, and 20 years of raising two children who might or might not be my genetic progeny, I say - lets just clone ourselves and convert to Stepford wives.
Sad (Score:4, Insightful)
It is also degrading to babies.
Such technology is degrading to human beings.
It treats procreation as being nothing more then a biological process.
It makes something that should be held as a honor and a privilege ( being a parent )
into a commodity bought and sold in the laboratory.
When you reduce procreation to a commodity you reduce people to being a commodity.
Honestly this kind of technology is evil for the same reason slavery is evil.
people are not a commodity.
Re:If god doesn't want you to to have kids... (Score:4, Interesting)
He didn't say "no", he said "try harder." You'd know God's "no" if you saw it, it doesn't look like what you're seeing. There's more flaming corpses.
Re:If god doesn't want you to to have kids... (Score:3, Insightful)
Regards,
Steve
If god doesn't want you to wear clothes... (Score:5, Funny)
Become nudist. There are tons of guys waiting for women who actually want to show off their body.
Just because we can, doesn't mean its right. Or smart.
Re:If god doesn't want you to to have kids... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:If god doesn't want you to to have kids... (Score:2)
What i am trying to say is that an all powerfull being could choose to allow something to happen that he would not like to happen.
Think about it. It is certainly in your power to never eat spinach (if you dont like it) but if someone served you spinach in their house, you might choose to eat it anyway -- even though you don't lik it.
Free will is central to ma
Re:If god doesn't want you to to have kids... (Score:2)
omnipotence implies omniscience. For if he was truly omnipotent, he could give himselves the ability to be omniscient.
Re:If god doesn't want you to to have kids... (Score:2)
Could, but doesn't have to.
Unless He liked the idea of a world where spinach was allowed to exist more than He disliked the spinach itself.
Re:If god doesn't want you to to have kids... (Score:2)
If your answer is "he told me so", then you probably need psychiatric help, as this condition is called "delusional".
Re:If god doesn't want you to to have kids... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:If god doesn't want you to to have kids... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:If god doesn't want you to to have kids... (Score:2)
Careful not to confuse 'allowed' with 'entitled'. Of course they should be allowed...
I'm not suggesting we stop any of this type of research or the current practices, because people should be free to do as they wish, but I think the best thing we can do for people who feel they *must* have a biological offspring dispite some physical inablity is to get them some counciling. We, and they would be better off dealing with their selfish fixation than helping them procreate and pass thei
Re:wtf? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Cold Shiver Down The Spine (Score:2)
um, if your partner enjoys sex, then she'll be willing to have sex. If she doesn't enjoy sex, then guess what, that is *your* fault. If you take some time to remove some stress from her life (often as simple as cleaning the house) then run a bubble bath for her, light a few candles, burn some incense, but on some soft music, and then afterwards do oral sex on her - I promise you, she'll be more receptive.
But you except to just jump o
Re:difficulties with conception? (Score:2)
That's right: whether or not the child had a father around.
Actually.. the single most significatn factor in determining the likelihood of a child ending up in prison is whether the child is male or not.
More that 3/4 of our prison population is male. Eliminating males is a definite, if not desireable, way of reducing crime drastically.
Re:Not to get all sciency and stuff but... (Score:2)
Re:Men are still needed (Score:2)
That's why Goddess invented strap-ons.
Re:Seems like trying to do double the work (Score:2)
also, any embryos used for stem cell harvesting are usually dead already
Re:couples don't need help conceiving (Score:2)
Don't get me wrong, I was an adoptee too. But it seems like most of the kids available for adoption aren't kids that people want to raise: kids addicted to cocaine, fetal alcohol syndrome, down's syndrome, etc. Not many people want to adopt a "special needs" child. And there don't seem to be man