While it is possible for some reptiles, amphibians, and fish to reproduce without two parents of the opposite sex, achieving this in mammals has proved challenging even with fertilization technology.... But for the CAS researchers, 210 embryos made from the DNA of two mothers yielded 29 live mice.
“We were interested in the question of why mammals can only undergo sexual reproduction,” co-senior author Zhou Qi was quoted as saying in the press release. “So we tried to find out whether more normal mice with two female parents, or even mice with two male parents, could be produced using haploid embryonic stem cells.”
October 11, 2018
"We are now one step closer to same-sex reproduction: Scientists in China have produced healthy offspring from two mother mice."
Reports Sixth Tone.
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45 comments:
There are some examples of parthenogenesis in nature.
The desert grassland whiptail lizards are an all-female species that reproduces by parthenogenesis. The eggs can reproduce without male fertilization. However, the ancient mating drive remains. Since there are no males, the females mount each other, which seems to facilitate ovulation.
Lesbian lizards.
You mean female-sex reproduction.
It's a step closer to same-sex reproduction for humans, but in the here and now it offers a way for same-sex mouse couples to experience the joy of raising children.
Call me a crazy, but I think Darwin is still good with inserting Tab A into slot B.
I'm skeptical that Chinese homosexual mice in a laboratory improve upon what nature has built.
When In-vitro fertilization became a thing some feminists proclaimed that women no longer needed men for reproduction. Men were superfluous and could safely be done away with. Now with increasingly sophisticated sexbots and crisper-like gene modification techniques women will also become superfluous,, both emotionally and for the purposes of reproduction. What will the world be like when men and women no longer need each other?
sinz52 said...
There are some examples of parthenogenesis in nature.
The desert grassland whiptail lizards are an all-female species that reproduces by parthenogenesis."
Are there any know cases in mammals?
Blogger D. B. Light said...
When In-vitro fertilization became a thing some feminists proclaimed that women no longer needed men for reproduction. Men were superfluous and could safely be done away with. Now with increasingly sophisticated sexbots and crisper-like gene modification techniques women will also become superfluous,, both emotionally and for the purposes of reproduction. What will the world be like when men and women no longer need each other?"
Its a bad idea and hopefully we will never find out.
There was a reason why evolution led to sexual reproduction.
Te feminists might eventually learn why but it might be too late.
It killed off a lot of European Royal Families. Why not feminists ?
What will the world be like when men and women no longer need each other?
We have talked about this before, but the backstory to Niven's A World Out Of Time.
Take away sex and it turns out boys & girls don't like each other very much.
Well, now, isn't that special?! :-(
Michael K said: "There was a reason why evolution led to sexual reproduction."
It did, but nothing in Nature is universal. There are exceptions.
Parthenogenesis is known to exist in certain species of invertebrates and amphibians, and at least one lizard species. (The movie "Jurassic Park" accurately alluded to this as a rationalization for how the all-female velociraptors--whose DNA was partly that of a frog--could reproduce in the wild.)
Feminists might like how some species of seahorses reproduce. The males inseminate the female's eggs, but then the female deposits the fertilized eggs in a pouch on the male's body. So the male, not the female, carries the eggs to term and gives birth to the offspring.
There are many transferable examples in Nature. A better example is the black widow, where the female cannibalizes the male for nourishment. In human societies, the female or an accessory can perform clinical cannibalism of her young. We are only limited by our imagination to identify correlations between human behaviors and lower forms of life.
Why aren’t those ChiCom scientists do something useful? Like invent drugs that people need? We are number one in pharma and biotech. I’m sure they are stealing our patents.
In engineering, there is a principle: just because you can, doesn't mean you should. Apparently, that ethical standard does not transfer to social sciences.
Someday, we will learn to allow animals to self-identify their own gender, and not be so close minded in thinking a lizard born with female parts who mounts other female lizards might think itself to be a male.
Some day. But today is not yet that day.
Not to be a jerk but the same-sex part of this story is by far the LEAST interesting part.
If you can turn a somatic cell into a reproductive cell then the gender of the person you get the somatic cell from isn't the big deal. The big deal is that this means one could, in theory, obtain any kind of DNA from anyone and impregnate yourself--or someone else--with that DNA.
It means anyone who leaves any DNA anywhere--up to and including a few stray hairs that fall to the floor--a form of what used in the scientific parlance be called a splooge stooge.
Unless you practice Gattaca-style cleanliness protocols 24/7 then certain former law professors are gonna say you're largely to blame when you get sued for paternity by some person you've never met!
n.n. observes: We are only limited by our imagination to identify correlations between human behaviors and lower forms of life.
Yes. Since when have we aspired to emulate mice and/or seahorses' behavior? Do these people ever step back from their bubble of idiocy to look at what they're suggesting? I think not. We've apparently reached a point in our culture where if, technologically, something can be accomplished, it must be good and should be implemented.
Two scorned womyn producing an off-spring!?
What could go wrong??
Why aren’t those ChiCom scientists do something useful?
This is a turd in the punch bowl. Can you imagine how much unrest this will create in liberal, same-sex tolerant society?
Not only will they want government sponsored abortion, but government sponsored babies as well!!!.....cuz Women's rights!!!!
I misspoke......GAYbies not babies.
Huh. So now mice don't need bicycles...
Does this count as Immaculate Conception?
Glad to not be around for it. Life is short for good reason sometimes
Michael K said...
There was a reason why evolution led to sexual reproduction
That's actually one of the biggest mysteries and science. It makes no sense evolutionarily speaking.
Blogger sinz52 said...
Michael K said: "There was a reason why evolution led to sexual reproduction."
It did, but nothing in Nature is universal. There are exceptions.
Of course there are exceptions ! The question is why evolution made them exceptions.
That's actually one of the biggest mysteries and science. It makes no sense evolutionarily speaking.
Ever wondered about the "Habsburg Lip?"
Heard of mutations ?
Soooo - are the Chinese going to go all eugenic on their own population (again) or is that just me thinking poorly of the Communist party apparatchiks who run things there?
Blogger Michael K said...
There was a reason why evolution led to sexual reproduction.
Te feminists might eventually learn why but it might be too late.
It killed off a lot of European Royal Families. Why not feminists ?
---
I would love to hear the hilarious lecture you'd give on reasons and evolution. I bet it would even share some sounds with actual science on evolution.
Blogger n.n said...
In engineering, there is a principle: just because you can, doesn't mean you should. Apparently, that ethical standard does not transfer to social sciences.
10/11/18, 7:22 PM
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To be fair, it doesn't seem to much apply in engineering either. Mostly just lip service.
The funny part will be when two lesbians merge their DNA and produce a child who is straight.
To be fair, it doesn't seem to much apply in engineering either. Mostly just lip service.
It probably depends on the application. There is clearly a demand for human engineering at any cost.
There was a reason why evolution led to sexual reproduction.
Distribution of roles and division of labor correlated with sex and gender (i.e. physical and mental attributes). Politically engineered societies have enjoyed some measure of success deprecating these natural orientations with social constructs, accompanied with unprecedented first-order and collateral damage.
The question is why evolution made them exceptions.
Maximum A posteriori Probability. Evolution is a chaotic (i.e. nonlinear, incompletely or insufficiently characterized, and unwieldy) process, so MAP may only be the best that human perception can realize, but it is consistent with observable, reproducible outcomes.
Craig: Is that the Cuck 45 talking? The deal with enginerding is that boys won't take no for an answer. You suggest they lay off and let someone else take their lunch money. Very European of you.
Every one of those mice is lisping and nobody knows it.
"Why aren’t those ChiCom scientists do something useful? Like invent drugs that people need? We are number one in pharma and biotech. I’m sure they are stealing our patents"
From a legal point of view, this isn't how you steal patents. It mostly involves lying to a patent office about inventorship. What I think you meant was the theft of patented technology, and not of the patent itself. But this gets into the concept of intellectual property, and why infringement isn't theft.
As for inventing drugs, the first problem blemish is that we invent more drugs, because we are the country where a drug inventor can recoup his evelopment costs, and the rest of the world free rides on that. Also, inventing new drugs, and doing pathogenesis are different skill sets.
There was a reason why evolution led to sexual reproduction.
Te feminists might eventually learn why but it might be too late.
It killed off a lot of European Royal Families. Why not feminists ?
What they're doing is effectively sexual reproduction, just with two females or two males instead of the normal way. There's no reason this would end up producing Hapsburg jaws in humans, assuming the cells they started with came from people with sufficiently low consanguinity.
On the other hand, I suspect sex roles are a lot more fundamental to the survival of the human species than they are to mice. I doubt same-sex feminist communes would be long-term viable even if they solved the reproduction problem.
There's no reason this would end up producing Hapsburg jaws in humans, assuming the cells they started with came from people with sufficiently low consanguinity.
"The question is why evolution made them exceptions."
No reason. Just random "throwing things at the wall and see what sticks" activity, figuratively speaking.
Like a fish needs a bicycle.
-sw
The shakers will be making a comeback!
The shakers will be making a comeback!
Albeit a limited one.
sinz52: There are some examples of parthenogenesis in nature.
The desert grassland whiptail lizards...
Didn't even read the first sentence of Althouse's post before you commented, did you? :)
The biggest problem they face is that there are genes that are disabled in the mother's gametes and enabled in the father's or vice versa.
Having two working copies of those genes leads to birth defects, and so does having zero.
Eventually, that should be a fixable problem.
But "live offspring" != "good and functional offspring"
Just what we need. More people.
What happens when females no longer have a monopoly on reproduction. Ask the buggy whip makers.
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