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Mice Produced Using Artificial Sperm
vasanth writes to tell us scientists have successfully grown mice from artificial sperm. The sperm was created from embryonic stem cells and implanted into female mice. There were a few problems, including that some of the mice showed abnormal patterns of growth and difficulty breathing. The hope here is to assist couples who are having difficulties with conception.
Not artificial sperm, but artificially grown sperm.
People took'sperm seeds' from stem cells and grew them into mature sperm outside the gonads.
Regardless, it looks like males have one less reason for existance.
It could be worse, it could be Monday.
It seems women are getting more and more fed up with us males that they're working diligantly on not needing us anymore. We can choose which sex, now we're working on assisting "couples" (of women) in having babies. Damn... At least I've procreated!
OK, artificial sperm. What's next? Artificial people?
I mean, why don't these "couples who are having difficulties with conception" just fucking adopt a child? It's cheaper and you don't go around playing god or whatever.
Aren't there already enough unwanted, unluved mice babies already?
Getting Sperm cells or reporductive gamets from fully formed true cells is not a minor thing. This is huge. Just saying, this is a huge step toward the first fully man made human. By creating the Gamets from stem cells eventually a person could be created like a dress from whole cloth... We are much closer to designing people. This is some seriously scary stuff. Blade Runner like stuff.
Thanks to eating disorders most chicks are reasonably good looking these days.
Given some time, eggs may also be made as well as sperm from stem cells, and homosexual male couples can also have biological children with the help of a woman to carry the fetus.
The world will not get better through technology. We must seek to be better people.
As well as the safety concerns, using stem cells to create sperm also raises ethical questions.
Has anybody thought of the mice? Aren't we playing GOD with them? Shouldn't they have a right to live and roam free and not be subject to those humans obsessed with fertilizing them? Disgusting and definitely unethical.
Just in case someone needs offspring that "show abnormal patterns of growth and difficulty breathing"??
How many other guys out there just got a cold shiver down the spine? Screw the headache excuse, now I'm not going to get any even when my wife does want another bambino. At least my birthday still comes once a year.
You know, with some of the recent medical advances I keep idly wondering how long it's going to be before the statement "same-sex couples can't have biological children" is no longer true. After all, there's no particular reason the stem cells used to create the artificial sperm in this procedure would have to come from a male, is there?
So we take embryos, use them to create stem cells, which we coax into sperm cells. Then we use those sperm cells to fertilize couples who can't conceive? Wouldn't it be easier to just take the embryos to begin with and just implant them in the wombs?
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
try adoption.
Really, isn't it just a bit morally repulsive that people spend so much money on reproduction, when there are so many children in need already.
Ummmm....
Ew.
Is the stuff running out or something? I might be able to lend a hand.
It would be interesting to hear about what specific abnormalities they suffered from - "abnormal patterns of growth" sounds a lot like what goes wrong with many clones. I wonder if the problems are caused by similar changes in gene expression.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
Um, has the church commented on this, by any chance? Can't see them taking the news too well.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Or, maybe if a couple wants to have kids who are actually biologically their own children, they should be allowed to, regardless of which of *your morals and beliefs* you'd like to try to impress upon them?
With this technology, two women could generate a baby that has 23 chromosomes from each of them. Men would no longer be necessary to create a new human being that is genetically half of two different individuals.
And since both "halves" would be providing an X chromosome and never a Y, the resulting baby would be female... every time.
If enough women in a society opt for this form of male-unnecessary reproduction, over a few generations there will be no more males in that society.
I can see Gloria Steinem and others of similar political persuasion creating a female-only society somewhere with this technology. An estrogen utopia.
I, for one, welcome our Lesbian overlords.
"I have as much authority as the pope, I just
don't have as many people who believe it" - George Carlin
"There were a few problems including some of the mice showed abnormal patterns of growth"
I for one would like to be the first to welcome our oversized rodent overlords.
So let me get this straight: you want to help a couple make a baby... by making a baby somewhere else, destroying it, harvesting its biological material, and using that material to make another baby, which you then give to the baby-challenged couple?
I guess the big advantages to working for the Department of Redundancy Department is, you get double funding for everything, and there's always someone else around to do your work for you. But it does seem kind of wasteful, sometimes.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
Would this allow two females to produce an offspring together? Because that would be a species changing event for humanity.
3....2.....1....
Why can't more rich, self-absorbed and childless yuppies want to go to Mars? Then maybe our space program would get that much needed shot in the arm...
Damn.
Umm, If you need an embryo in the first place, what's the point?
What of natural multiple-birth pregnancies? Does your god just hate those "lower mammals?" Please.
You and everyone else trying to enforce their own religious beliefs on the rest of the world are the ones who really don't need to be procreating. No public good has ever come out of religious debate, EVER, but funnily enough most of the world's problems have.
the fact that god has said NO to a couple should be taken as an extremely stong hint that it just shouldn't be done.
He didn't say "no", he said "try harder." You'd know God's "no" if you saw it, it doesn't look like what you're seeing. There's more flaming corpses.
welcome our new sperm overlords
Screw your god, I'll do what I want.
Regards,
Steve
they're working diligantly on not needing us anymore.
They don't need us and the human species will be better off without us. We (males) are just too aggressive and violent.
Of course, the reason males are aggressive is the same as the reason that male peacocks have such enormous plumes. You don't think that male peacocks actually *want* to have those ridiculous tales do you? Oh no. The reason they have those tales is that female peacocks like it that way. The same sort of thing happens with humans. Men who are violent and aggressive are rewarded by being able to pass on their genes. The trait of aggression is selected for (by women) and so it becomes more common. The trait that is selected against becomes less common. If women didn't like males that way, they could breed it out of the gene pool in just one or two generations.
Then don't. Clothes turn people into lower mamals. Though we don't have the insight right now, I bet in 50 years, we'll figured out why God didn't want you to wear clothes. All life exists for us to look at, and in some species will havve fur, or occasionally produce a viable hairy offsprring. Given life's penchant for procreation, the fact that god has said NO to people wearing clothes should be taken as an extremely stong hint that it just shouldn't be done.
Become nudist. There are tons of guys waiting for women who actually want to show off their body.
Just because we can, doesn't mean its right. Or smart.
I'll probably be modded down for this...
How many couples really want to conceive a mouse, anyway?
I for once welcome our new artificial sperm produced mice overlords
Sorry, that wasn't very... I'm just sorry.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
If God didn't want you to have kids, this procedure wouldn't work. I always get a kick out of people who claim that God is all-powerful, and in the next breath claim that scientists are doing something that's against His will. They never seem to understand the inherent contradiction in those two statements...
Lost: Sig, white with black letters. No collar. Reward if found!
it will mean that if your father can't have children then neither can you :-)
An infertile couple having a biological child is like a bald man wearing a toupee. Not similar inasmuch as the result, but synonymic in intent.
They are using embryonic stem cells because of the benefits that embryonic stem cells offer over other stem cells when doing research. It is clear that once they can get the procedure working with embryonic stem cells in mice, the next step will be to get it working with non-embryonic stem cells.
Come on, what makes all of these people who can't conceive a child normally think that their genes are so worth preserving that they'll go to outrageous lengths to produce a child: from artificial insemination to donor eggs, to hired wombs and now artificial sperm.
As more of these non-breeders manage to breed, they pass on the genes that make it difficult to conceive, resulting in an escalating war against infertility that, while lucrative for the medical industry, is ultimately detrimental to our species as a whole.
Adopt a kid, for chrissakes. Your nuturing is far more valuable than your DNA.
Since congress has no balls, this research may just save us all...oh wait, its a kind of stem cell research? Never mind. We are doomed.
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
does it still taste salty?
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
What, like getting a vasectomy, changing your mind, and then finding out it's irreversible?
It seems more likely this is an attempt to render men unnecessary - like that's working out so well now.
Any idea on what is single most significant factor in determining the likelihood of a child ending up in prison?
That's right: whether or not the child had a father around.
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
This was the set-up for David Brin's novel Glory Season: The vast majority of the population of an isolated colony world were female, and most of those were clones of various ancestral mothers.
A few men were kept around to provide sperm for modification; there was also a small minority population of non-clone women produced the old fashioned way.
The protagonist was a young "mixed" woman trying to move up in the world.
The Super Bowl
Bowling Alleys
Fart Jokes
Fantasy Baseball
Not to mention the drastic reduction in demand for the four "P's":
Porn
Poker
Prostitution
Power Tools
Also, the third Sunday in June would henceforth become "My Other Mother's Day".
"I have as much authority as the pope, I just
don't have as many people who believe it" - George Carlin
Are all the computer companies having trouble keeping up with the demand for new mice? Seems like a damned inefficient way to manufacture 'em if you ask me.
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You have the right to be eaten, to taste good, and to be fried in a fine vinaigrette oil.
-PETA (People for the Eating of Tasty Animals.)
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
I'm not convinced that 'helping infertile couples have children' is the ultimate rationale - is everyone ENTITLED to have children?
I mean, is it so far fetched to believe that several million years of trial and error have produced a system of conception that is fairly fault-tolerant but will self-abort if a certain minimum level of viability is not achieved? And that short-circuiting this might not be in anyone's best interest - the parents', the child's, society's?
So then we come in with near-godlike medical technology, and FORCE certain sets of gametes together which would otherwise fail? Am I the only one that has a moral problem with that?
Personally, I'm a HUGE fan of the 'conventional' method of fertilization; if it works, great. If it doesn't, maybe there's a very good reason it doesn't.
-Styopa
God I need sleep..
pSc
Proud Rememberer of the BBS Days.
With a projected population of about 50 billion by 2100, better reproductive technologies to increase fertility rates is something humanity really, really needs.
If your body is so messed up you can't make an egg or sperm, maybe you aren't suppose to reproduce. Or are these targetted at homesexual couples?
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
"Do we really need more ways to "unnaturally" create them?" We sure do..... I wont be satisfied until the world is covered in a one huge ass city. Can you not just tase those wonderful solent green products ?
Am I the only one who read the subject as "Mice Produced Using Artificial Spam"?
I was a bit confused there for a second.
I accidentally got sperm on my mouse.
I don't agree with you, but I find it ridiculous that every unpopular opinion gets modded down by the Slashdot thought police.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Not so fast, it goes the other way too. Separate research is taking place in the meantime that involves turning donor cells into egg cells-- which would be the counterpart in fertility procedures to the artificial sperm procedure this article is about, and would also hypothetically make possible the conception of a baby with only males donating the biological material.
When a news article about such research cropped up last year, I saw people on the internet worrying about a science-fiction type scenario where the development could lead to a world devoid of women.
People get really paranoid about science...
Bush is threatening to use his first-ever veto over his Republican Congress to keep public funding from increasing embryonic stemcell research the way it subsidizes all the rest of American medical R&D.
--
make install -not war
Humans have free will, or else we would just be puppets.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
And I'm sure there's lots of money coming from these couples to fund this research, because that's the ultimate goal of this research, to help these couples. I think we can all rest comfortably assuming that nobody is exploring the possiblity of growing human beings from genetically engineered gametes. That would be silly, just silly.
just thought i would chime in that just because an all powerfull being doesn't want something to happen doesn't nessasarily mean that it won't happen.
What i am trying to say is that an all powerfull being could choose to allow something to happen that he would not like to happen.
Think about it. It is certainly in your power to never eat spinach (if you dont like it) but if someone served you spinach in their house, you might choose to eat it anyway -- even though you don't lik it.
Free will is central to many religions and is in no way at odds with omnipotence. (perhaps with omnicience, but that is another story)
That, and they kept devising crazy schemes to take over the world...
We freely chose to sex, and God (we're taking for granted) thwarted the baby-making there. Do God's baby-prevention force fields only work within the confines of a uterus? Are the Lord's powers limited to just the vagina?
There will always be that wonderful breed of woman that will like it when a man gives it to her raw... I have no worries. ;)
omnipotence implies omniscience. For if he was truly omnipotent, he could give himselves the ability to be omniscient.
"I have as much authority as the pope, I just
don't have as many people who believe it" - George Carlin
Yes, today's solution is tomorrow's problem. This is technology's yolk.
But would you want to turn back the clock and live in a world with out the internet since it can cause identity theft? Live without calculus because it can lead to missles? Live without pennecilin because it can lead to resistant bacteria?
Sure this technology will be abused like all others, but hopefully the ammoral yuppies that rely on it will also be bankrolling research that has benefits that far outweigh the problems and moral dilemmas it creates.
Wonderful, so now lesbian couples can have male-free baby...mice.
1 7203910160.htm
So the race is on, will women replaced men with test-tubes, or will men replace women with robots?
http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/200605/kt20060504
After two divorces from two unfaithful wives, and 20 years of raising two children who might or might not be my genetic progeny, I say - lets just clone ourselves and convert to Stepford wives.
"Sic Semper Path of Least Resistance"
If god doesn't like it, but allows it to happen because of free will, then how do we know that god doesn't like it?
If your answer is "he told me so", then you probably need psychiatric help, as this condition is called "delusional".
If they are gaurantee'd to have a female baby. I like my chances now! Female Population will grow faster than Male... Sounds good for us!
omnipotence implies omniscience. For if he was truly omnipotent, he could give himselves the ability to be omniscient.
...and if he didn't like spinach, it wouldn't exist.
Could, but doesn't have to.
Unless He liked the idea of a world where spinach was allowed to exist more than He disliked the spinach itself.
Careful not to confuse 'allowed' with 'entitled'. Of course they should be allowed...
I'm not suggesting we stop any of this type of research or the current practices, because people should be free to do as they wish, but I think the best thing we can do for people who feel they *must* have a biological offspring dispite some physical inablity is to get them some counciling. We, and they would be better off dealing with their selfish fixation than helping them procreate and pass their unhealthy attitude on to a future generation.
I cannot think of a more selfish act than to spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to overcome your infertility, especially considering the number of newborn children availiable for adoption, and the thousands of better uses that same money could be put to. Clearly, the people willing to do that are more interested in having a child for their own benefit than for the child's benefit. I question whether people that selfish are capable of providing the correct type of love for their child and as such their ability to be a good parent.
Stating that God is all-powerful isn't stating that God would use is power to force the right choices. There wouldn't be sin to begin with, if this was the case. This being said, scientists CAN do something against His will.
Of course, the problem is in setting a universal definition of "His will."
Incidentally, please don't condsider my response as an endorsement of the root post in this thread in any way. That guy is a crackpot and a troll.
I know a few people that have produced offspring through this method. Cheap in the early stages, but with all the legal issues etc that come with it, the longterm outcome can be rather costly.
Evolution has left us all with a strong desire to propagate our DNA. Our own DNA.
This drive is instinctual. Saying someone is selfish for wanting to overcome their infertility is saying they are selfish for being human.
Actually, selfishness... specifically, self-preservation and self-reproduction, are natural human (actually, mammal) tendencies. They are the two most basic instincts we have.
1. Protect my ass
2. Pass on my genetic code
(It's really the only "afterlife" we have)
We're programmed that way. Adoption is STILL, when you get down to it, raising someone else's kid. They might be legally yours, but at the most basic, you are protecting someone else's progeny. On the subconscious level, you still KNOW that your gene-line ends with you. And that's hard to accept, even if you can't articulate why. Millions of years of evolution have built the desire to propagate your DNA into you - you can't get rid of that "fixation" with therapy....you can only suppress it.
"I have as much authority as the pope, I just
don't have as many people who believe it" - George Carlin
Well, there are quite a few people who are incapably or semi-incapable for medical rather than genetic reasons. They're born and develop perfectly able to reproduce, but do to accident. For example: getting hit in the nads too hard, or getting an inter-uterine infection, my mother was rendered incapable due to complications of a car accident (obviously after I was born).
It's also a survival method. What if some new nasty disease or bacteria, etc, rendered a large portion of the human race largely incapable of reproducing naturally. It's always a good idea to have a backup plan... it's just a matter of not abusing the ability.
The hope here is to assist couples who are having difficulties with conception.
Unless you're planning to raise a bunch of asthmatic mice instead of regular human kids, you're still of some use.
I came, I saw, I left. It looked better in the brochure.
I agree that modding down unpopular opinions is a nasty problem here, but come on. Coming to /. and posting that "X scientific process should not be pursued b/c it is a blasphemy against God" is pretty much THE definition of trolling. One of the main purposes of this site is for science enthusiasts to discuss cool new science. People that want to discuss the religious aspects of science should go somewhere else. They often don't, but I think that in this case, the mod system is doing exactly what it should. Speaking of should, this thread should be modded "Off-topic".
...sometimes, in order to hurt someone very badly, you have to tell that person terrible lies. - PA
Don't waste your $ on this procedure. I alone have millions of sperm to spare (at least). I'd say my services are much more economical.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Jeremy Logan's Website.
By that same philosophy, if you get cancer, you shouldn't seek treatment because, apparantly, God wants you to die or you wouldn't have gotten cancer (or some other life-threatening disease) in the first place. After all, the world is already overpopulated, so instead of spending thousands of dollars researching and treating diseases, we should just allow the sick to die, as God intended.
Considering the other garbage people spend money on, I disagree. Given the choice between having my own (genetically speaking) children and adopting someone else's (genetically speaking), I would prefer the former. If I were to be somehow rendered infertile, and I could still arrange to have my genes passed on to my children, I would probably try to do it. Not, of course, if it were as risky as it seems to be in TFA. The only anecdotal evidence I have of the same feeling in other poeple is Lance Armstrong's autobiography, he donated sperm before chemotherapy so he could later use them for artificial insemination. Maybe my desire to see my genes passed on is selfish and proud, but it may also be backed by hundreds of millions of years of evolution in advanced organisms, but either way, I think it's a bit rash to say that this opinion 'is selfish', 'needs counseling', and will result in my not being a 'good parent'. Or perhaps I'll feel differently in a few years and the point will be moot.
As can be seen by several post here this is sad news, it is degrading to males.
It is also degrading to babies.
Such technology is degrading to human beings.
It treats procreation as being nothing more then a biological process.
It makes something that should be held as a honor and a privilege ( being a parent )
into a commodity bought and sold in the laboratory.
When you reduce procreation to a commodity you reduce people to being a commodity.
Honestly this kind of technology is evil for the same reason slavery is evil.
people are not a commodity.
âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
"With his one ball, and my lazy ovary...it's like the Special Olympics of Procreation."
---Miranda Hobbes, Season 4 of Sex and the City.
The role of the writer is not to say what we can all say, but what we are unable to say. -Anais Nin
Most scientist are used to not having sex anyways...
A goal is a dream with a deadline
....or not.
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Opinions on such matters are notably variable, and one is pretty much as good as another...
You don't agree? Well, that is your undisputed right! 'cause the above is just My opinion!
For another opinion try:
http://www.prometheus-music.com/eli/filk/brotherc
and for an opinion that is probably NOT offensive to the majority of Geeks -even some of the staunch Christian Geeks try http://www.prometheus-music.com/audio/wordgod.mp3
You got your X's and Y's reversed. X is female, Y is male.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Does anyone not realize that this could lead to the creation of YY kids? What the hell would happen then?
My bet: a man's man to rule all men. Basically: natural steroids, lookout baseball, you can't stop this one, it's genetic.
1) Your faulty DNA, if you are infertile for genetic reasons. Evolution wants to weed you out. Deal with it.
2) Humans are not monogamous. I don't have my finger on any studies right now, but I get the feeling that more fathers end up raising kids that aren't really thiers than you might be willing to conceed.
=Smidge=
It would be a shame to let this comment die on the end of a deep thread. Mutations can help - I personally would like the one with the extra set of teeth coming in at age 40-42 as it would save me quite a bit in upcoming dental work. Nonetheless, the inability for humans to effectively cull the negative mutations is a huge burden for genetic optimization. Most mutations have a negative effect on a well-adapted organizm, and only a small fraction are positive. In our society, the model is breaking down, with the "successful" humans generally producing fewer offspring than the "unsuccessful" (in a genetic sense, not necesarily the financial one).
We have more to lose from mutation than we have to gain.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
mice will take over the world, and will torture us to no end. There is no form of torment we have not yet trued out on the little suckers, and they must have gotten pissed by now.
I have to wonder why you think you can out-logic a belief. All your post can do is get you karma points on the scoreboard only you can see.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
...don't throw out your robe and wizard hat just yet.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Are couples who can't conceive mice really that large of a market?
Touting MyEclipse AJAX Tools
now if only they could produce keyboards, then I wouldn't have to make excuses as to why they're sticky.
There were a few problems including some of the mice showed abnormal patterns of growth and difficulty breathing. The hope here is to assist couples who are having difficulties with conception.
What kind of desperate couples want children with abnormal patterns of growth and difficulty breathing?
Help a man when he is in trouble and he will remember you when he is in trouble again.
I read that as "Mice Produced Using Artificial SPAM". I need sleep.
-= This is a self-referential sig =-
not that I side with the god people, but the issue is not the contradiction between god's power and our doing something against his will. God gave us free will do do what we like even if he is against it. On the other hand, the fact that we have such ability suggests that it was in his plan all along, who are we to interpret his will anyway?
I don't know about you, but the last thing my Winblows machine needs is another flakey peripheral -- especially one that shows "abnormal patterns of growth". However, this does answer the question of why my mouse is always so sticky! Vin Kensington Marketing Dept.
Developments such as these will allow lesbian couples to give birth to children that are the genetic descendents of both parents. Two eggs can be combined to give rise to a female child. This will probably happen within 20 years. Lesbian conception will really throw a wrench into arguments that gay couples can not marry due to their inability to have children.
"Asleep at the switch? I wasn't asleep, I was drunk!" -- Homer
The one little mod point awarded to this post brings a secular tear to my eye. *sniff*
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
I was adopted myself, and while I of course only have my own experience, I didn't require a therapist nor did my parents.
I'm not saying it's perfect, but... meh, as has been said, we have a population problem and unwanted kids as it is... should take advantage of it.
Screw your god, I'll do what I want.
Regards,
Steve
Tried time and time again every day.
So tell me, why don't you have everything you want in life already right now? Is everybody and everything still in your way?
I have to wonder why you think you can out-logic a belief.
You'll probably never logic away a belief in God, if that's what you think I'm trying to do, and I wouldn't want to, but someone believing that free will prevents God from doing something outside the womb that he clearly has no problem doing inside is a bit hard for me to fathom, and I don't think I'm alone in that, even among Christians.
Even if the confrontational nature of Slashdot prevents that guy from changing his mind, there are others that might agree with him that aren't personally invested in it that might change their minds. It's how mine got changed, so I know it works in at least rare cases.
That, and I didn't have anything else to be doing right then.
All your post can do is get you karma points on the scoreboard only you can see.
I wish. I'm not smart enough to figure out how to see points. I can only get a description of my scoreboard. It's just not the same.
Or will it even be possible for Heather to have One Parent. Think about it, why couldn't they take stem cells from a female, and then turn those right around and fertilize that same females eggs with them?
I suppose the real question would then be this: Since both Gametes are of the same genetic origin, would it then be a clone? If it was a clone, did we just solve all the aging problems previously associated with cloning.
If any of the above is true, then we just gained the ability to reproduce A-sexually. Frightening.
Go ahead and call me unreliable; reliable is just a synonym for predictable.
You'd know God's "no" if you saw it, it doesn't look like what you're seeing. There's more flaming corpses.
I agree, that's what I'd expect too, but most religions' scriptures I've read seem to disagree. For an omnipotent creator of all physical law, God's "smite button" seems to be on the fritz an awful lot. Fortunately for Him, there always happens to be a nearby army with charismatic prophets and sharp weapons, eager to pick up the slack so God can do His killing by proxy. His latest volunteers have even started using jet planes and explosives for the "flaming corpses" touch. With that kind of efficiency, they hardly need God on their side at all!
CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH
...
INSTRUCTION ON RESPECT FOR HUMAN LIFE IN ITS ORIGIN
AND ON THE DIGNITY OF PROCREATION
REPLIES TO CERTAIN QUESTIONS OF THE DAY
INTRODUCTION
1. BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH AND THE TEACHING OF THE CHURCH
The gift of life which God the Creator and Father has entrusted to man calls him to appreciate the inestimable value of what he has been given and to take responsibility for it: this fundamental principle must be placed at the centre of one's reflection in order to clarify and solve the moral problems raised by artificial interventions on life as it originates and on the processes of procreation. Thanks to the progress of the biological and medical sciences, man has at his disposal ever more effective therapeutic resources; but he can also acquire new powers, with unforeseeable consequences, over human life at its very beginning and in its first stages. Various procedures now make it possible to intervene not only in order to assist but also to dominate the processes of procreation. These techniques can enable man to "take in hand his own destiny", but they also expose him "to the temptation to go beyond the limits of a reasonable dominion over nature".(1) They might constitute progress in the service of man, but they also involve serious risks. Many people are therefore expressing an urgent appeal that in interventions on procreation the values and rights of the human person be safeguarded. Requests for clarification and guidance are coming not only from the faithful but also from those who recognize the Church as "an expert in humanity " (2) with a mission to serve the "civilization of love" (3) and of life.
The Church's Magisterium does not intervene on the basis of a particular competence in the area of the experimental sciences; but having taken account of the data of research and technology, it intends to put forward, by virtue of its evangelical mission and apostolic duty, the moral teaching corresponding to the dignity of the person and to his or her integral vocation. It intends to do so by expounding the criteria of moral judgment as regards the applications of scientific research and technology, especially in relation to human life and its beginnings. These criteria are the respect, defence and promotion of man, his "primary and fundamental right" to life,(4) his dignity as a person who is endowed with a spiritual soul and with moral responsibility (5) and who is called to beatific communion with God. The Church's intervention in this field is inspired also by the Love which she owes to man, helping him to recognize and respect his rights and duties. This love draws from the fount of Christ's love: as she contemplates the mystery of the Incarnate Word, the Church also comes to understand the "mystery of man"; (6) by proclaiming the Gospel of salvation, she reveals to man his dignity and invites him to discover fully the truth of his own being. Thus the Church once more puts forward the divine law in order to accomplish the work of truth and liberation. For it is out of goodness - in order to indicate the path of life - that God gives human beings his commandments and the grace to observe them: and it is likewise out of goodness - in order to help them persevere along the same path - that God always offers to everyone his forgiveness. Christ has compassion on our weaknesses: he is our Creator and Redeemer. May his spirit open men's hearts to the gift of God's peace and to an understanding of his precepts
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Seriously, with the numbers of orphans that need homes I'm surprised assisted reproduction hasn't been outlawed.
....without getting my hand sticky?
Eww!
Reading the article, they produced a male embryo to get the stem cells to produce the sperm. While the article doesn't use the phrase "male embryo," it does say they used spermatogonial stem cells. That would require the genetic equivalent of a male (as a female would be developing stem cells that would later become her eggs). The point of the research isn't embryonic stem cells. Again, the researcher states the intention is to harvest the stem cells from the adult males by using a testicular biopsy.
So until women start having testes, it's going to be hard to do that biopsy. Since women can't produce the sperm stem cells and men don't have eggs, it's seems pretty unlikely that there will be same-sex couple having biological children.
I have found there are just two ways to go.
It all comes down to livin' fast or dyin' slow. -REK, Jr.
But why would couples who are having difficulties with conception want mice, particularly deformed and sickly ones?
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
But still the result remains the same, kids of widows did best. So go kill yourselve for the sake of your kids. You know it makes sense.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
The bigger problem is not having an X chromosome since many genes found on the X chromosome are found nowhere else. See the Wikipedia article for a list of genetic disorders associated with the X chromosome. (So if you have no X chromosome, you're missing a copy of the genes whose broken copies cause these diseases.)
Upon a quick search, I couldn't find evidence people born with no X chromosomes, and since the other disorders (including people with a single X chromosome--Turner syndrome) are all well-represented in the medical literature, it's a safe bet to assume that lacking an X chromosome is a condition incompatible with human life.
The unlimited power of science has finally broken the mouse-sperm monopoly that big mouse-sperm has lorded over the common man for years.
Thank you science.
You're the greatest.
This technology, along with sperm banks and all of the other crazy fertility treatments only further to make men obsolete and redundant. That's where this is really heading. And unbelievably, it's male scientists like Professor Karim Nayernia (mentioned in the article) who are bringing this about. You'd have a lot of trouble finding female scientists willing to work on artificial wombs. Thay'd say it's "unnecessary" or "inhuman" and would oppose it at every turn. Women are smart enough to realize how much social and legal power gestation gives them and they wouldn't do anything to marginalize that. Yet here we have male scientists trying to find as many ways as possible for women to get pregnant without men.
Shouldn't these male scientists be trying to make women obsolete instead? Where are the artificial wombs and fembots? No, better that lesbians be able to produce more lesbians without help from a pesky, inferior male.
1) Your faulty DNA, if you are infertile for genetic reasons. Evolution wants to weed you out. Deal with it.
I can't fly either, but I don't plan on letting evolution stopping me from getting on an airplane, kid.
Should I ever need such a technology, I'll pony up the bucks to get it done while laughing at the Luddites all the way. Deal with it.
now get back to your cage, there are bananas waiting for you
You know, I've been arguing with people that there's no such thing as free will for quite some time, so I just had to join in on this discussion. I do in fact believe that all our actions are due to biological and environmental stimuli and that choices are an illusion.
I don't know that it's "cruel", but the rest of it is right. We sort of define as a society the concepts of injustice, unfairness and abuse, but there's no inherent "right" and "wrong". Look at what different cultures consider "right" and "wrong". What makes you think that your culture is the one that values the "correct" things? Heck, what we think is right and wrong changed over time. And even now, within the same culture, we don't agree. I'm sure plenty of your own neighbors would think there's nothing wrong with the technology you're complaining about. Why is it that their inner concept of right and wrong isn't telling them that it's "bad"? Why isn't mine?
For the same reason any other animal tries to avoid pain and increase pleasure. You are wired to really dislike feeling pain, and really like feeling pleasure. Unless you're a masochist. Then you're wired a different way from the rest of us, and you're going to seek pain. See, the things that cause pain will usually be bad for the survival of your species, so natural selection would cause those that extremely disliked the nerve impulses associated with things like burning or cutting of your flesh to have an advantage over those that don't mind being burned and maimed. Humans are way more complex and we get to analyze our environment. Since we're capable of these complex analysis, we get to have more complex goals.
Not irrational, no. Being concerned about what happens to us is what got us naturally selected. If you're not, you'll die off. There are plenty of advantages to being social creatures. A single human is not particularly strong, but together we rule the world and are on top of the food chain. There are other pack animals. My dog "cares" about me. He'll attack someone if he believes they're a threat to him, even if they're not threatening him directly. Bees will protect their queen. The queen is essential for their survival, so it benefits them.
I think your flaw is the "if I'm not really making choices, why should I care about anything at all?" Well, who cares why you are wired to like pleasure, or how it works? You enjoy it, whatever that means, so enjoy it. Who cares if you're really making choices? The illusion is there, and if you can't tell that it's illusion, why does it matter?
Now, I know you disagree with me on everything I said so far, and that's fine. I have nothing against religion, and if your beliefs help with your life, that's great. I don't mean that condescendingly, I accept the probability that you're right and I'm wrong, and there's a God, and we have free will. The thing about religion being unfalsifiable is that...well, it's unfalsifiable. It could very well be right.
However, even if you are right, I don't see why that matters with the subject at hand, and I need to ask you this: is the life of an unwanted abandoned baby, created in an act of passion between parents who weren't thinking about the consequences of their actions, given more or less value than a baby created in the lab by scientists paid for by parents who want to build a family and will truly love the resulting child? Is the method of conception really that important?
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.
Well, women have similar stem cells, so it's no problem.
Also, two men could have their gametes mixed to make a girl... I mean, men have one X chromosome. They'd just each be donating an X...and obviously for making a male child, only one male's Y chromosome would get used. Two females could only make another female, of course.
For more on this topic, try Consider Her Ways by John Wyndham. Men have been wiped out by a gender-specific plague, but an all-female caste society lives on, and considers itself a utopia.
It's a longish short story, and available online for free over here. (Legitimately, no less.)
Great news for all you slash faggots! Now you can have fake spooge replicated all over your ugly mugs...
Where is the moderation for +1, Female.... or should that be -1. Hmm... I'm so confused.
So let me get this straight: you want to help a couple make a baby... by making a baby somewhere else, destroying it, harvesting its biological material, and using that material to make another baby, which you then give to the baby-challenged couple?
Of course! It's an very old story:
Let's say you need a home. What do you do?
1) Buy a piece of land.
2) Flatten/level the ground.
3) Clear/burn/remove any plantlife, animals (Grass, Trees, plants, mice, termites, gophers, etc)
4) Clear/burn/remove any existing buildings,
5) Build a house (using WOODen structure and paper [drywall] walls)
6) Plant tress, bushes, grass, vines, etc. Hope they grow...
7) Get a cat/dog/fish.
8) Dig a huge hole for a pool/spa/etc.
I'm not a tree-hugger, so I find this somewhat amusing.
"The hope here is to assist couples who are having difficulties with conception."
Please. A bottle of wine, 2 joints and a video will get you much further than mouse dna.
"The hope here is to assist couples who are having difficulties with conception."
Yes. Because even though something is wrong with your reproductive system it is vital that your DNA carry on in a child. Sure the child may have lifelong health problems, big deal. It will be _yours_ and that is what is important.
People make me ill.
Further research has show that providing the mice with booze resulted in an even greater number of offspring. Especially among the less attractive mice.
Users... the only thing keeping 1st level support from being the bottom feeders.
You do realise, do you not, that if a man were to spend the whole of his life from the moment his first pubic hair sprouted, just jacking off, pausing to recharge and then jacking off again, continuously until the day he died, he would still have had orders of magnitude fewer wanks in total than the number of sperm released in a single ejaculation? And that even when sexual intercourse results in conception, all but one {maybe two if mixed-sex twins} of the hundreds of millions of sperm in that ejaculation are wasted?
Humans have free will, or else we would just be puppets.
- and god wouldn't get to punish anybody.
Imagine how boring that would be. Why else would you go to all the trouble of creating a sentient species, if not for the joy of sentencing the suckers to eternal torture if they should happen to actualy believe any of the logical conclusions of all those "tests of faith" that you sprinkled so liberally around, nay literally built their planet and universe from?
Who wouldn't?
sudo ergo sum
...there already a method to help couples who can't have kids? Oh yes, here it is.
I guess that's not good enough, and we need some scientifically-created gimp kids running around (more so than there already are).
wouldn't this wind up producing a number of feti/embryos/children who were prison-bound, thuggish double Y chromosome men? And/or, where on earth would they even get the X chromosome from? And what about the mitochondrial DNA?
I think your analogy strains to the breaking point fairly early on.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
The supposed reason for this research was to eventually help couple that have problems conceiving a child, have children. I may be totally clueless here but, maybe if you are having troubles conceiving you shouldn't be having children. This may seem rather harsh but I would hazard to guess that a lot of the reason that people can't have children is due to incompatible genes (either one of the parents or the combination of the two at conception). If we are going to embrace evolution and the "survival of the fittest" strategy than we have to accept that maybe some people won't be able to have children. It would be great to be able to jump ahead a few centuries and see what the result of all our current "baby medicine" will result in.
Didn't we already have enough mice?
Serving your airship needs since 1995.
I cannot think of a more selfish act than to spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to overcome your infertility
I can think of plenty acts far more selfish, but really, it comes down to this: it's MY money. It isn't YOUR money. It isn't up to you how I spend my money. Whether it's on a $50,000 procedure to procreate my genes or the $50,000 price tag of an SUV, the only person who has any business providing any input on what I do with MY money is ME.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
Oh, wait, we've had those for years. Never mind.
my answer is "i don't know what he likes." I dont presume to know either way -- at least based on his supposed actions.
Just because a person does something does not mean that it is his first choice.
It seems rediculous to try to tie up a god-type-thing by saying that he will only do what he likes. Isn't it possible that he would choose to let things exist that he doesn't like?
Don't you agree?
While it is true that males have an X and two Xs can be used to me used to a female, the article isn't talking about cloning a human being, but using a stem cell to produce a sperm. Now, if men have stem cells capable of producing the egg that is a totally different story.
It seems rediculous to try to tie up a god-type-thing by saying that he will only do what he likes. Isn't it possible that he would choose to let things exist that he doesn't like?
Don't you agree?
Well, of course I agree to that. But what I'm asking is how anyone can claim to know what god likes and doesn't like. It's not like he actually communicates with us regularly, telling us, "ok humans, these new genetic modification experiments you're doing are bad. Stop it." But then we have people here telling us things aren't moral because they're against god's will. Huh? How do these people know this? Is god telling them something that he isn't telling the rest of us?
That is NOT a moral judgement, it's common sense (or if you'd prefer - impersonally technical). No conception -> something's biologically wrong, possibly something with body plan/genetics -> even if conception is forced, there's a nonignorable chance that the children will have the same problem.
There are a great many reasons why a couple may not be able to conceive, and I would go so far as to guess that the majority of them are NOT directly genetic. Otherwise harmless infections of various kinds, some forms of benign cancer, scar tissue from some past injury, etc.
That IS eugenics. However, instead of "improving the species" based on intelligence, height, race, whatever, you are proposing we "improve the species" based on functioning reproductive anatomy. That makes even LESS sense than older forms of eugenics, which was already one of the stupidest and most hurtful ideas to come along in a long time.
It's not strictly related to TFA, but these days, it's hard to tell if corrective medicine is actually helping "us" in the long term. In ages past, children who were not tough enough would simply die and, while grieving, nobody thought it "wrong". Now, such technically less viable children can be saved, but for who's good? Its or its parents? It sounds eugenical, but it's true that it makes the rich/medically advanced societies less resistant in the long term.
I read a book called "Blade Runner" once, (No, not the movie based on a book of a different name)... The premise behind the book was that due to increasing healthcare costs, the government deemed that to receive any health care at all past the age of X (I don't remember the exact number), a citizen must be sterilized. The fictional study that kicked off that movement was something showing how Juvenille (sp?) Diabetes increased over time, and how costly that was. On the surface, it was "common sense". Without Insulin, a Type I Diabetic WILL die. Natrually, as they are saved, there will be more of them, at least more of them with a genetic predisposition towards it. IIRC, the crisis in the book was an easily-treatable pneumonia epidemic that threatened to decimate the population. (FYI, the title came from black-market medical-supply smugglers, aptly called "Blade Runners") It certainly seemed like a plausible scenario...
If you decide that those that require corrective medical care are less "tough", and think this should be woven into policy, where do you draw the line? How do you decide if some injury or disease has a geneteic compoent or not? Did somebody suffer an infected compound fracture of the leg because of a random accident, or genetic bone weakness, genetic clumsiness, and genetic susceptiblity to infection?
I am quite frankly astounded at your idea that grieving parents of old were sad, but didn't society think it was "wrong". Where does THAT come from? I am pretty sure that those parents and their societies would have paid quite a high price to prevent those deaths, if it were possible.
Even more shocking is your idea that preventing infant mortality is for the good of the parents (by implication a selfish, irrational motive) instead of the child. Have you no compassion whatsoever? Do you think it would be a good idea to again unleash Polio across the world? Whooping Cough, Mumps, etc.? You know, all those deadly childhood diseases that only exist today in Western society as words on a vaccination record?
Even if we confine the topic to "corrective" medicine (I'm not sure exactly why you even made the distinction), it ignores the fact that disease exists in all organisms. Basically, we all die of something, sometime. Where would you propose we draw the line in order to increase "toughness"? Do you propose we simply let nature take it's course? While we are at it, lets get rid of some of those other things that increase wussiness, like all technology. Do you think the hypothermia correction benefits of fire make us wimps?
Perhaps you can be an example t
it's MY money. It isn't YOUR money. It isn't up to you how I spend my money
I believe I said that in my comment. I have full respect for your freedoms.
the only person who has any business providing any input on what I do with MY money is ME.
That's total bullshit. Along with your fredom to do as you wish with your money is my freedom to express my thoughts on the matter. You're free to ignore me, but I'll provide whatever input I want on the off chance it actually changes somebody's mind into thinking the way I think.
Given the choice between having my own (genetically speaking) children and adopting someone else's (genetically speaking), I would prefer the former.
I can't think of anything to say to that, but "Duh". I'm talking about people who, not only weren't given that choice, but decide that nothing in life is more important than having their own children. It's not selfish to want children, or even to want your own children more than somebody else's children. There is a line that gets crossed when you decide that nothing in your life could possibly be more important than having your own children. It takes a special kind of obscession with your own desires to be so unable to come to terms with your inability to procreate that you are willing to risk your financial wellbeing, your relationship with your loved ones, and the health of your potential offspring to get yourself a genetic decendent.
Saying someone is selfish for wanting to overcome their infertility is saying they are selfish for being human.
Good thing I didn't say that then, huh? It would have been pretty stupid.
There is a big difference between wanting to overcome your infertility, and betting the farm on a slim chance of overcoming your infertility. You have two points listed there. At some point you have to cope with the disappointment on not achieving #2 in order to satisfy #1. It is an ability that most humans have also have from years of evolution.
you can't get rid of that "fixation" with therapy....you can only suppress it
The existance of peaceful human civilization is based on our ability to suppress instinctive tendancies that have negative consequences.
I can't believe the GNAA trolls haven't jumped on this one yet. Erm, that didn't come out right...
I'm not supporting the trolls or what they do, but "Gayniggers from Outer Space" is a rather amusing short movie... once. After that, it's only good for making friends sit through, while promising them it gets better. Sort of like "Zardoz", only not so long.
I once tried to get favorable attention from a geeky gal by introducing her to "Gayniggers", as I have long known her to be a bad film aficionado. Unfortunately it didn't work, she just ended up retaliating by making me sit through "Dracula 3000". I thought it might actually have worked -- she's the only person *I* know who has ever worn a "Kuato Lives" T-shirt in public.
Mal-2
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.