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UK Scientists to Create Embryo From Two Women
An anonymous reader wrote to mention a BBC story about a UK research group that has been given permission to create a human embryo with genetic material from two women. From the article: "The groundbreaking work aims to prevent mothers from passing certain genetic diseases on to their unborn babies. The researchers are focusing on a group of conditions called mitochondrial myopathy, which include types of muscular dystrophy. These cause muscle weakness and wasting, making it difficult to move normally - some may need to use a wheelchair. At present no treatment for these exists, although things can be done to help with the symptoms. "
I am looking forward to the video. I hope it will be better than cam!
Gradually, men begin to disappear as old ones die and no new ones are born to replace them, until finally Earth is entirely populated by women.
Then some major event happens (like a giant meteor strike) that knocks technology back into the stone age. Without men and without labs, no babies can be created. The race is dying out.
And then, deep in some hidden location, a small cache of men is found in a research facility that was trying to find a way to keep the male half of our species alive. They are the last men on earth, and a planet full of women wants their stud services!
Commando teams of women try to raid the facility so that the men can be captured, mechanically "milked" for their semen, and it can be distributed. But the facility was created with superior defenses. The men inside are safe. Gradually the women realize that the men are in charge of their own bodies.
Each day ovulating women line up outside the facility, naked save for a pair of high heels, and bearing gifts of food and assorted lagers. The men choose the ones they find most attractive, then those must face off in an exotic dancing competition to determine who may enter and be serviced.
I think I've just written the script to a late-night cable movie.
- Greg
Start a happiness pandemic
Having had my aunt die due to her muscle dystrophy (heart is also a muscle, remember?) I'm for one glad that research is done in the subject.
I wonder how long time it'll take until we can get rid of the genetic defects which we otherwise risk pass on.
If they are trying to prevent mitocondrial diseases from being passed on, I take it they are using the egg cell from one mother with the neclious removed, and implanting DNA from another in there? That way, they'll have the mitocondria from one, but the DNA from another. A man's DNA will need to be added to the egg in order to reproduce. So really it's Two woman and one man. Or are they actualy somehow doing meosis with two eggs?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Sign me up for one!
Table-ized A.I.
Years ago (1995), I gave a presentation as a graduate student about the increasing representation of men as sex objects much in the same way that women had long been characterized: anxious, vapid, to-be-looked-at as opposed to about-to-do-something, etc.
In the Q & A, someone asked about gender or some such other, and I remember responding that what I really found fascinating was that though much popular thinking surrounded the creation of artificial wombs, women would soon be able to reproduce without the aid of men. The response I received was tepid to say the least. People, especially straight women, don't want to hear about a society without men.
Of course, cloning was always a possibility but for complex mammals cloning has less that desirable results (for now). This development means that a woman-only state, municipality, sect, etc. is possible and could conceivably reproduce itself in perpetuity.
Just a few thoughts.
blog
This is basically a new surrogate mother approach. Nothing more. The article still mentions the need for sperm. "The result would be an embryo with pronuclei DNA from the parental egg and sperm but mitochondria - and mitochondrial DNA - from the donor egg."
Fear the turtle farming ninja!
New motto: "Slow News for Slow Nerds, Things That Used to Matter"
Table-ized A.I.
Wait...slashdot got 0wned?
Curiously, the DNA in the mitochondria use a slightly different genetic code than our nuclear DNA does; genes have moved from the mitochondria to the nucleus over time, but the process is not complete. It's believed that mitochondria come from an ancient endosymbiosis event.
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Up until a while ago people percieved this magic or spiritual connection between child and parents. Today it is all just genes. Manipulate then anyway you can and create custom children, with selected features.
Or three heads!
The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.
--Aristotle
This isn't about two women having a baby. It's about a male and female couple's embryo being altered with material from another woman. In other words, two women and a man = embryo.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Rite is like a Rite of passage.
Right is the same as correct.
"In a world without walls and fences, who needs Windows and Gates?"
they're not combining the DNA from 2 women to create 1 child. With a normal child, etc. all the mitochondria come from the mother. Father's sperm doesn't have any play in this. So its 100% inheritance from the mother.
this disease is passed on within the mitochondria. What they are trying todo, it seems, is replace the defective mitochondria of the mother with the mitochondria from a healthy donor. Thus preventing the transmission of this disease.
Yep, it's true.
A blog like any other.
I kid, I kid. I mean one of us must have gotten laid right?
EvilCON - Made Famous by
No, he's Patented.
"In a world without walls and fences, who needs Windows and Gates?"
Whatever it is, we want pictures.
If he's on slashdot, he's probably the last of his line anyways, we just need to get more people reading the site.
"In a world without walls and fences, who needs Windows and Gates?"
is that a pre-recorded message of what the resulting child would be like???
"In a world without walls and fences, who needs Windows and Gates?"
Parasite eve back in action.
Oh come on. Have a sense of humor.
I also welcome our proof-reading overlords that correct are/our.
Voldemort own's ./?
If you have genetic defects that will be passed on to your offspring, wouldn't it be a lot cheaper and less risky to just adopt, rather than trying to repair the damage? This also sounds like it's coming quite close to human cloning, an issue for which society hasn't yet adequately prepared itself, IMO.
"UK Scientists to Create Embryo From Two Women"
There's no way they can fit two women into the tiny package of an embryo - where does the excess material go?
Joking aside...
1. They're not making an embryo - they're making a zygote. Which, with any luck, turns into an embryo, foetus, baby, person.
2. This still involves a man. They're taking one bit of genetic information from one woman - skipping the section where genes are considered out of whack. Then they take -that- section from another woman - where they're considered to be in order. Then they splice those two together and re-insert it into the egg cell. Next up, they get funky with the guy's sperm and do a regular ol' petri-dish fertilization.
Now people don't have to be squeamish and use euphemisms for mom's lesbian lover. You can come right out and introduce people to your two mothers!
Advice for my fellow geeks: before seeking out that threesome you dream of, you might see what a TWOsome is like first.
...but this was almost exactly the plotline of an episode of Sliders...I kid you not!
sig:- (wit >= sarcasm)
...even God's DRM is hackable.
And they didn't even need DVD Jon's help!
What hope do Apple/Microsoft/etc have?
It's still pretty uncertain he was actually voted in by a majority. 1) the election system needs to be improved to match today's technology since the current system was create in order to compensate for relatively weak communications of the day. 2) there's way too much indication that the last election wasn't fairly won.
Until we see an election that isn't quite so strange as the last two, I doubt we'll get what we voted for.
Would it not be simpler for those with genetic disorders to not have childern?
Phillip
Virgin birth, no miracle required.
Can't imagine anybody getting upset over that...
Cress, cress, lovely lovely cress
Well guess men better be on best behavior or the women folk will decide they can get rid of us.
Stanislaw Lem predicted this in his short story "Professor A. Donda" (the first real information scientist).
RMN
~~~
currently possible, for an egg to be fertilized, only using genetic material from women?
------ Work is so much easier when you don't
Oh yes, but where will it stop? What are the etical boundaries in the next 20 years?
This technology -=might=- harm the human race indeed. I'm not kidding! Now they are eliminating genetic diseases, next they are propagating "good" genes (like brain-development and "kindness"), next they are building the supreme human, and before we know it, by forgetting all about the fact that the human genome is far more complex then any human could begin to understand, we have created a new race of homo sapiens that is showing us we did something terribly and irreversably wrong (no, I'm not talking about them taking over the world... watch a sci-fi for that one...).
Why is it that all the great scientist in the most advanced technological fields (nuclear fusion, AI, biotechnology) are warning from time to time for disastrous side effects while the popular scientist and the politics are propagating the opposite? Will we until our end try to "advance" against the tides?
Free beer is never free as in speech. Free speech is always free as in beer.
Please, scientists, develop a way for this to happen without the test tube.
Sure we can have 2F + 1M sex now, but I think this will make it easier to justify to the wife.
Careful research by men suggests that the total lack of a brain would occur only if both the women were blondes. In other cases, the mental processes of the fully grown subject would be extremely myserious but nontheless contain elements of apparent intelligence. The ability of the subject to remember random events from long in the past would be particularly evident.
Isn't it simpler to tell these people carrying fatal genetic flaws to not have biological children? Rather than figure out how to pass on defective genes and have a kid living a screwed up life, go adopt a healthy child!
It's ludicrous that couples frequently put their desire to have a child ahead of common sense when their child stands a significant chance of being abnormal or handicapped. I've heard of people who keep trying to have kids, knowing that there is a %50 chance of passing on serious genetic defect. Also related are Downs kids. It's proven that males siring kids very late in life dramatically increases the chance of Downs to as high as 1-in-20. Don't be selfish about wanting kids when the odds are so high!
On top of the problems mentioned above, Britain continues to be plagued by leftist panic-mongers who dump truckloads of artificial fear and guilt on anyone or anything that looks too much like it might result in some progress!
But I guess you knew that.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
No, I live here, but spent between 1991 and 2000 in the USA. British by birth, but shocked at changes since returning here in 2000. Ones perspective is different when spending time away. If you are caught up in any gradual changes they are harder to notice.
O'WONDERWe're working on it.
My aunt has a type of muscular dystrophy. It's really horrible to watch as her strength slowly fades. She'll have to be in a wheelchair soon. Fortunately, the particular type that she has skips every generation, so her children are free from this horrible condition. Hopefully a cure can be found before they have children of their own.
Who's dumber? A stupid blonde chick great at reproduction, or a smart ass virgin scientist that finds a way to make men obsolete?
eTrade SUCKS
*fap* *fap* *fap* *fap*
Uhm, how do artificial wombs give women any better chance at reproducing without men. I would think artificial wombs would permit men to reproduce without women, allowing us men to break free of the tyranny of matriarchial oppression
Lois McMaster Bujold wrote a book about a planet with no women, called "Ethan of Athos". The protagonist is sent on a mission to procure more ovaries for the breeding labs where the old ovarian cultures are showing their age. You might find the descriptions of their culture curious, if you are not as opposed to homosexuality as I am.
An anonymous reader wrote to mention a BBC story about a UK research group that has been given permission to create a human embryo with genetic material from two women..."The groundbreaking work aims to prevent mothers from passing certain genetic diseases on to their unborn babies."
Then some "genius" will say let's mix the sperm of two men so that they can, "prevent fathers from passing certain genetic diseases on to their unborn babies." Whether this works or not, the conclusion will be 4 people to raise one kid, or at least cause the bith?! I don't know about you but that sounds kind sick to me. Fact is, women aren't the only ones that pass on such diseases so that alone would only solve half the equation -- if any.
I can imagine the UK group telling an inquiring reporter, "Shh, this Human Patch technology is not a hack. Think of this achievement as a much-needed Service Pack®."
That said, it sounds like a good way to head MD off early.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
Hm. Apparently I can't spell in Polish (sex is seks in Polish, not sex), so I inadvertently seem to have posted redundantly.
Gradually, men begin to disappear as old ones die and no new ones are born to replace them, until finally Earth is entirely populated by women.
Actually this could help save humans because as it is now the humans male is headed for extinction anyway... Generally what makes a human a male is the X chromosome. Most, not all (more explained later), humans have two sex chromosomes, either an X and a Y chromosome or two X chromosomes with females having two Xs. The SRY gene on the Y chromosome acts like a switch that controls male sexual differentiation. However the gene is decaying and will disappear.
The exceptions mentioned above are intersexuals commonly called Hermaphrodites. There are different types of intersexuals with different karyotypes. Some have the "normal" XX or XY but other may have XXY, XXXY, or XXXXY. Most intersexuals born with ambiguous genitalia go through Genital Plastic Surgery. However, no matter how they're medically treated and reared as children many don't fit into "normal" society and some may be considered "homosexual", gay or lesbian because they had their gender surgically altered, said ambiguous genitalia may include a larger than average clitoris or a smaller than average penis.
FalconShould there be a Law?
So, the slippery slope is a fallacy? Well let's see what the a NAZI propagandist had to say:
Nazi Herman Goering on Military Recruting
"Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don't want war neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."
It worked for the NAZIs and seems to of had worked for Bush after 911. Now, dispite there being a constitutional ban on imprisoning someone indefinately without being charged, a federal appeals court has ruled that the government holding Padilla is legal.
FalconShould there be a Law?
-1 for not RTFA... This still requires a *fertilized* egg. They aren't talking about fertilizing an egg with genetic material taken from another egg (though that was what I first thought on reading the headline), they're talking about making a clone of an already-fertilized egg, using only the DNA (but leaving behind RNA and Mitochondrial DNA, which presumably cause the diseases they're talking about).
:) Of course, given Bush's stance on NAFTA, there's no reason to assume that he's planning on honouring that treaty, but still....
So yeah, the religious right are gonna love it. Witness the post just above yours where some guy has gone off on a rant about how it's wrong to commit evil even if good comes from it. But they aren't gonna love it because it can allow gays/lesbians to procreate (they *can* procreate, just not with their own sex)... they're gonna love it because it's basically a human clone.
Oh, and gays/lesbians can already get married in Canada, and there's a US-Canada treaty to recognize marriages performed on either side of the border.
If you believe everything you read, you'd better not read. - Japanese proverb
If we were able to wipe out genetic 'defects' we would also reduce the diversity of the evolutionary search space thereby reducing the possible ways that future generations might be able to respond to a changing universe.
That's a concern I have with eugenics (other than what the NAZIs tried), genetically engineering humans, that genetic tampering will reduce diversity. Though many don't realize it a genetic disadvantage in some circumstances can be an advantage in others. Such an example is sickle cell anemia, though someone with sickle cell anemia has problems they also have an advantage over others when it comes to malaria. The shape of blood cells in sickle cell anemia reduces the likelihood of and protects from contracting malaria.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Sure we can have 2F + 1M sex now, but I think this will make it easier to justify to the wife.
Why just 2F and 1 M? Why not 1+F and 1+M? Not all at the same tmye mind you but I believe along with many others that it's possible to love more than one at a tyme, that believe in Polyamory.
FalconShould there be a Law?
sickle cell anemia, great example!
;survivalist' in me find s this terrifying; future generations may be beset with even worse health than we have today and be totally dependent on tech to stay alive.
The thing is that its a terrible hubris for the current generation to assume that it knows what will be a selection pressure on future generations.
The amazing thing that the human race is achieving is being able to keep people alive and reproductive whose genes would mean certain death.
Now, on the one hand, the
On the other hand, the evolutionist in me finds this fantastic for the reasons outlined previously; expanding search space.
There was an episode of 'Andromeda' where they meet the genetic reincarnation of a character from the distant past. He was a Nietzchian, a race of genetic uber-men. No genetic flaws in the race. Which meant that the chances of genetic reincarnations occuring was enormously higher than in the normal human population.
Interesting line of thought if you follow that along a little way.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
Once the gays and lesbians can procreate, they'll surely want to get married ?!?! With Bush in office, looks like all science funding will be eliminated in the not so distant future,...
Unfortunaely that's probably how some on the Religious Right will see it, adding fuel to the flames Bush uses against science.
Ooh, and I keep asking what harm allowing homosexuals to marry thier partner will cause and I've yet to receive an answer. Live and let live!!!
FalconShould there be a Law?
Yeah, because scientists have done a great job with ethics in the past...Manhattan Project, Tuskegee Syphillis, African vaccine research...
That was the first thing that came to my mind.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Please mod the above post as +1 insightful.
Seriously who can say it is flamebait? I mean, thats ridiculous! He is serious on the issue.
I forgot to be anonymous.
Sterilization is so inefficient. We should kill them all! We will all become super-beings!
Sealed your own death warrant, kid. Slashdot is a meeting place for genetic undesirables. Notice all those "never get laid" comments? We all lost out in the genetic lottery. We're smart, but that's about it.
When they came for the slashdotters, I said nothing.
amazingly its now -1 troll!
I really should have put the old "yeah, yeah troll, flamebait *whatever*" onto it then it'd have gotten +5 funny or something...
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
Shit I had lot of mod points but i changed my loing some days ago :(
Anyway, hail Slashdot!! :/
I forgot to be anonymous.
Well, if they're high in kindness they'll at least die out soon...
I18N == Intergalacticization
I googled for "slippery slope fallacy". The first link brough four examples: :-)
"We have to stop the tuition increase! The next thing you know, they'll be charging $40,000 a semester!"
"The US shouldn't get involved militarily in other countries. Once the government sends in a few troops, it will then send in thousands to die."
"You can never give anyone a break. If you do, they'll walk all over you."
"We've got to stop them from banning pornography. Once they start banning one form of literature, they will never stop. Next thing you know, they will be burning all the books!"
All four examples are real examples of this fallacy. All four examples are logically incorrect. All four examples lead to a correct conclusion, for the incorrect reasoning
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
My guess is that the headline (which is in the mass media too, not just Slashdot) came from some conservative types who hope to foster enough outrage to get this practice banned before people become informed about it.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
WFT?
The absolute crap that some people spout is beyond belief and in no way should be modded as insightful.
If you knew anything at all about the panic mongers who dump truckloads of artificial fear and guilt you would know that the chief perpertrators are the Daily Mail and the Daily Express. If you suggested to either the staff of readers of these papers that they were leftist they would take a shotgun to you before setting the hounds on you.