Scientists Create Mice From 2 Fathers 435
An anonymous reader writes "Using stem cell technology, reproductive scientists in Texas, led by Dr. Richard R. Behringer at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, have produced male and female mice from two fathers. The study was posted Wednesday at the online site of the journal Biology of Reproduction. The achievement of two-father offspring in a species of mammal could be a step toward preserving endangered species, improving livestock breeds, and advancing human assisted reproductive technology. It also opens the provocative possibility of same-sex couples having their own genetic children, the researchers note."
Close, but no cigar (Score:4, Informative)
Yeah yeah yeah. Just two fathers. That's some trick there, getting a male to generate a fetus. What an age we live in.
Cut me a break, and at least report that a female was in some way required, OK? I know it does not have the same "zing" as a story not involving females at all, but still.
Life's a bitch and then you die (Score:5, Informative)
Well, then life's a bitch and then your zygote dies.
The Y chromosome is not a variant of the X chromosome. The X chromosome is one you actually need. The Y chromosome actually has very little information, and most of it related to testosterone production and sperm production. It doesn't even encode most of the differences between a male and a female body. Those are already taken care of by other proteins and testosterone.
In programming terms the Y chromosome is a little more than just a flag, but basically at an oversimplified level you can view it as a flag. The real important information is elsewhere.
So basically it's akin to, dunno, if you took out the .exe from the world of warcraft directory, but flagged it as Cataclysm compatible twice. It ain't gonna be very useful.
Re:Is YY possible? (Score:3, Informative)
75% of a person!
the Y is a Y because its an X missing a bit, and when creating a person the missing it on the Y just defaults to the bit on the X
Perhaps "bit" is an understatement: the Y have roughly 80 genes, while the X has around 2000; the Y is about 4 times smaller than the X.
Re:In b4 shitstorm (Score:5, Informative)
Or am I mistaken here?
Re:In b4 shitstorm (Score:2, Informative)
You are not mistaken. They use material that would of been discarded anyways.
If someone believes stem cell research in 'wrong', then they must also believe IVF is 'wrong'. Nothing stops the stem cell research 'debate' faster then pointing uot to a religious middle aged women wanting IVF that it's no different the stem cell research.
In my experience the womans view changes pretty damn quickly. Granted my experience is 'twice'.