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."

Comments

Good News, Really

[mfh]

All jokes aside (as I am sure many "two daddy trailerpark" jokes are immanent) but this is indeed quite an advancement in biotech, because we may see future developments arrive in the development of cloning endangered species back from the brink of extinction; now species threatened from a lack of suitable mates, could be quite possibly saved, with the proper funding. The hard part would be digging deeper gene pools, enabling a true future for endangered species (although, I guess that's next week on /., right CmdrTaco?). Also, I wonder if it's possible to grow offspring with only two male subjects.

Parthenogenesis

[aacool]

This terms comes from the Greek for virgin birth (;))Natural parthenogenesis has been observed in many lower animals (it is characteristic of the rotifers), especially insects, e.g., the aphid

The phenomenon of parthenogenesis was discovered in the 18th cent. by Charles Bonnet. In 1900, Jacques Loeb accomplished the first clear case of artificial parthenogenesis when he pricked unfertilized frog eggs with a needle and found that in some cases normal embryonic development ensued

Artificial parthenogenesis has since been achieved in almost all major groups of animals, although it usually results in incomplete and abnormal development

The phenomenon is rarer among plants (where it is called parthenocarpy) than among animals

Re:Baby Jesus

[Hektor_Troy]

Well, if you believe that baby Jesus was born of a virgin, then you quite likely also believe that he is/was the son of God - divine intervention.

Divine intervention is not natural.

Hence baby Jesus is not proof that it does occur naturally.

If it did occur naturally, baby Jesus' birth would not be a miracle, which would tend to discredit the claim he is the son of God.

Not only does this help remove the need for men...

[jamieswith]

But I would have thought that it also removed the possibility of men being produced by this method... I'm not a biology nerd, so I might be completely wrong, but I just can't see where the 'Y' chromasome would come from in order to be able to make a boy!

Re:Baby Jesus

[Perdition]

Some called Tony Hawk doing the 900 a miracle.

But then again, Tony's 900, as spectacular as it was, didn't fit over 100 pieces of specific predictive prophecy from several hundreds of years of writing, most several hundreds of years prior to the event. And, Tony's 900 didn't quite heal hundreds or feed thousands and deliver moral teachings or resurrect after a decent Roman crucifixion.
But then again, there are those who think that the sun rising every morning is the result of an image broadcast into their brain by evil goverrnment agents while their bodies are actually asleep on the slab in the lab. They'll say that Tony's 900 will have sufficient artificial prophecy written about it in the near future to make it seem as if it was a predicted event, and they'll say that's it's just a matter of time before there's a Church of the Tony Hawk 900.
You know, some people believe some whacky things.