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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
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?
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