Stem Cells That May Make Eggs Found In Women 142
sciencehabit writes "Men typically produce working sperm as long as they live, but most textbooks say female mammals are born with all the egg cells, or oocytes, they will ever have. Since 2004, however, reproductive biologist Jonathan Tilly of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston has challenged that conventional wisdom, arguing that in mice—and perhaps also in humans—there must be an ongoing source of new eggs. Today, Tilly and his colleagues report isolating rare cells in ovarian tissue from adult women that can grow in lab dishes and form immature oocytes. The potential egg stem cells could help scientists devise new ways to help rescue the fertility of women who have to undergo cancer treatments or who suffer from premature menopause."
humans reproduce plenty (Score:5, Interesting)
While interesting from a scientific point of view, why are we obsessed with fertility when some people have more children than they can take care of? Perhaps we can address fertility issues caused by rare events like cancer, or the fertility of women as they get older as a solution to a shortage of orphans.
Re:Not safe (Score:4, Interesting)
"population control is inherently racist,"
This must mean the chinese are racist? Or is it that they realize that a finite planet can only sustain a certain amount of people without doing long-term harm to their own interests as a nation?
Even more so for the infant (Score:4, Interesting)
Pregnancy in forty-five-year-old women is a dangerous proposition.
If it's dangerous for the mother, think of the child in the womb
Babies born by older mothers have much higher chances of having being born with many types of defects
Down syndrome is just one of them.