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A Mouse With Two Mothers
jabberjaw writes "Both the BBC and Nature are reporting that scientists at Tokyo University of Agriculture have used two sets of chromosomes belonging to a female mouse to create what are essentially fatherless mice. The process by which this was accomplished (parthenogenesis) does not naturally occur in mammals. The mouse used lacked a gene known as H19 which in turn activated the Igf2 which allowed this process to occur."
Go ahead and mod me down as a troll, but why do I have this feeling we'll see a religiously-based backlash against this? Given the furor over stem cell research, cloning, etc., I'd imagine social conservatives would see this as yet another threat of some kind. After all, this is the holy grail in separating sex from reproduction. Hell, I could easily imagine them complaining about "them thar homo-shex-u-als" now being able to reproduce.
-- Fugacity: Confusing chemists since 1908
They only got a couple of eggs to work out of hundreds, and we still don't know the hidden impacts of such an abnormal mammalian progenation. What happens when this mouse breeds sexually? How long does it live? The whole thing could foreseeably collapse in less than two generations, or give rise to whole new genetic failures and degrading mutations in inobvious parts of the genome. I know this sort of research is promising, but it also scares me silly, because some whack-job is probably dying to try it on humans, no matter how risky.
Windows XP SP2 told me to install third-party software that prevents viruses and protects stability... I chose Ubuntu
IIRC, parthenogenesis is what's known in laymen's terms as a 'virgin birth' phenomenon, in which an egg fertilizes itself after being tricked into believing that it has received DNA from another parent. There is only one contributor of genetic material, making the offspring a clone of the parent.
In this experiment, DNA was received from two sources, both of them just happened to be female. This difference is profound, because it produced the effects of traditional genetics, (hold on to those Punnett squares!) without the need for males.
-R
Then again, maybe it is just a myth. Just like all the virgin births from pagan mythology (Krishna, Perseus, Heracles, Romulus, Dionysus, Attis...) that christianity gets many of its concepts from.
Technoli
Right.
When someone is ill, it's his time to go too. No need to cure anyone.
When uneducated/greedy/stupid people will have destroyed all animals and vegetables with all the expected side-effects, humans will be next.
But who cares ? It will be their time to go too
Insightful indeed
sigh
Irrelevant news and morons using moderation to mod down what they disagree on. 2018 resolution: so long.
Any of the four combinations of parents should be possible then. Its been known for some time that parental chromosomes retain parental markers. The two mother experiement made female chromosomes look male.
The recent book "The X Chromosome" has several interesting chapters about the slight differences between the parental chromosomes. The cells in a female body mostly disable the second X chromosome. The disabled chromosome actaully separates into a chunk called a Barr body. Most of the time, only one parental X is turned off. But in some cases a female is a genetic mosaic with the mother-X turned on in some tissues, and the father in the other. It is thought this might partly explain why females have a much higher incidence of auto-immune diseases like lupus: Some have two different genomes expressed and each side attacks the other.
A small fraction of children may have the wrong number of X chromosomes- from 1 to 4, plus maybe a Y. There may be some gender anomalies. But because the extra X's are mostly turned off, it is not fatal.
corroborating witnesses
Corroborating witnesses whose stories weren't written down for the first time until several decades after the events supposedly happened.
By the way, there was no virgin birth prophecy. The word 'almah' in the original hebrew that was translated into 'virgin' just means 'young woman'.
Technoli
Yep, if parthenogenisis did occur to cause the virgin birth of Jesus (a male), that would indeed be a miracle. Not so much because it wouldn't require a man for the pregnancy to occur, but that an X chromosome would have to change to a Y (quite an evolutionary change for a single chromosome transcription event) in such a way as to make a person who didn't look much different than other men.
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
Notify me when we reach the level of the big Cambrain die-offs. Until then man is just a pale imitator of nature.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
The supposed fulfillment of these prophecies was recorded so as to give the impression that Jesus was the Messiah. The writers didn't quite get there stories together, though, and mistakenly wrote about Jesus fulfilling prophecies that were never meant for him to fulfill, like the Virgin birth of Emmanuel.
'The Septuagint had retained the Ishtar-worshipping virgin-temple practices in part by insisting on the physical virgin-birth of Isaiah's prophetic Emmanuel in verses 7:14. The later writers of Matthew and Luke relied on the Septuagint for their references. After reading this passage in Isaiah, Matthew sought to find a way to fit Jesus into the virgin-birth role that Isaiah spoke of, thus achieving a prophecy in Jesus' own birth. The impetus for the idea and the motivation which would eventually permanently seal it into the canon, came from the huge numbers of pagan converts. These converts didn't want to leave behind Mithras and Perseus, who were both virgin-born, in exchange for a Jewish Messiah who was not.' (From infidels.org)
I agree with your point, though, about the abuse of the term 'miracle'.
I did not become a vegetarian for my health, I did it for the health of the chickens. --Isaac Bashevis Singer
Why should a wife of three years have automatic power of attorney of her husband, while a girlfriend of ten years does not have such power over her loving and loved boyfriend? In both cases the partner can explicitly assign such powers to each other...
So long as the increase of the population is considered desirable by Society -- yes, I think, that it is silly for the Society to encourage things, which usually lead to such increases (marriage), as opposite to the actual increases themselves.
But it is not only (nor so much) the quantity I'm aiming for, but the quality. If you read carefully, I'm proposing we equally reward people adopting children...
The quantity is not additionally encouraged either -- my plan in itself does not encourage multiple children at all. One is enough...
That's debatable. In 18th and most of the 19th centuries, US population was doubling every 20 years... I'm not pushing for that rate, but there is certainly plenty of unsettled land in US, even more in Canada, and the rest of the world.
I am aware of the view, that humans are the scourge of the Earth, but do not share it... May be, it is just because I am human and "root for my side" :-)
Don't post as AC if you wish to continue...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
More likely, Mary just got pregnant with some other guy and since having a bastard kid probably wasn't so great at that time, they made up a nice story where an "angel" told them it wasn't another guy, but in fact a god who impregnated her. Of course the prophecy that Joseph needed to be in Jesus' lineage is also smashed this way. Angels seemed to be quite commonplace apparently, since their presence or absense seems to be a minor detail during resurrection (see different stories at the tomb).
I plan to plan / Dutch course in The Hague