Mouse Sperm Cells Grown In Vitro

smitty777 writes "In what is being hailed as a breakthrough in male infertility, researchers from Muenster and Ben Gurion Universities were able to actually grow mouse sperm cells in a petri dish. Researchers feel this is just a short step away from human in vitro sperm cell production. The details of how this will be accomplished are still being worked out. FTA: '[According to Professor Richard Sharpe], "What this research shows is that it will be possible to make human sperm outside the body. The germ cells just need the right environment. That's the tricky part getting them to think they are in the testes." Professor Sharpe believes that one novel way may make.it possible. He proposes using a live mouse as a "host" to make human sperm. He said: "What you would do is take some human testicular tissue with germ cells and place that under the skin of the mouse and use it to incubate the cells. You could then extract any sperm and use it in fertility treatment. But we would have to demonstrate that there were no mouse cells present in the extracted sperm if we were to use this technique and I believe that's possible."'"

Comments

This will finally make men obsolete.

[Anonymous Coward]

All men will become obsolete, and militant feminists will rule the world!

Re:This will finally make men obsolete.

[Anonymous Coward]

and militant feminists will rule the world!

At that point I request death by Snu Snu.

Re:This will finally make men obsolete.

[Rhacman]

And when artifical wombs are developed we won't need women either. Since humanity is composed of men and women (or some superposition of the two states) humanity itself will become obsolete and we wont need humans any more! How's that for eliminating extraneous terms!

Re:This will finally make men obsolete.

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought men were kept around to kill spiders.

Re:This will finally make men obsolete.

[wiedzmin]

If all your woman wants from you is your sperm, you're doing it wrong.

Re:This will finally make men obsolete.

[Penguinisto]

Oh, bullshit. The shoe shortage alone would cause wars that would make WWII look like a minor spat, and Mom-JeansGate would make Nixon look like a saint.

On a more serious note, the only way such a society could survive for long would be as long as civilization held up. As history shows, that's not always a given.

Re:This will finally make men obsolete.

[Master Moose]

Except when it comes time to open jars.

Re:This will finally make men obsolete.

[Anonymous Coward]

If all your woman wants from you is your sperm, you're doing it right.

- fixed that for you

Re:This will finally make men obsolete.

[epyT-R]

yeah except when it's time to do the dirty work/heavy lifting.. then it's ''omg I need a man'. of course, when it's NOT time to do the dirty work, we're all 'equals'.

Re:This will finally make men obsolete.

[epyT-R]

that's because women don't instinctively realize just how harsh life can be.

Re:This will finally make men obsolete.

[Moryath]

You won't get it. Unless you somehow live in the Men's Concentration Camps until the time of the great battery famine.

Re:This will finally make men obsolete.

[Macgrrl]

I'm pretty sure most women (when taken over the entire period of history) have been well arware of how harsh life could be, you know being sold as chattels to older men, dying in childbirth, carrying water from wells, watching their children die from disease, infection or starvation, washing clothes with rocks in stream, milling wheat to flour by hand from grain, etc...

Women may not have been sent out to fight in wars as a general rule, but for those living in warzones thay experienced it every bit as much as men did.

Things got cushy for women in the first world about the same time they got cushy for men.

Re:This will finally make men obsolete.

[epyT-R]

I'm the idiot when you are the one responding with ad hominem?

Re:This will finally make men obsolete.

[epyT-R]

I didn't mean to imply life was a wonderful paradise for them or that they didn't sacrifice, just that men have done a large part of the interface work with reality required to maintain a civilization...most of (but not all) the big picture stuff. yes women bore and raised the offspring (which is critical obviously), prepared food, and handled part of the home maintenance, but right along side that were the men defending their existence, building the homes, hunting/working for the food that was prepared, solving life's bigger calamities when they occurred, advancing the quality of life with creative invention/science, and were the first ones to sacrifice their lives for their families. This, to a lesser degree, is still true today, except that men are no longer respected for it, and while feminine attributes/role takeovers are celebrated to the point of absurdity, masculine ones are increasingly censured, often starting in kindergarten.

Through my life, in situations where I hear women talking, especially when they don't realize I'm listening, their use of the language makes their self centered attitudes towards men come out loud and clear. the things they say make me conclude that they're just unaware of the work that goes into maintaining a society such as ours. they seem to think nothing else is relevant to this goal other than their own (usually immediate) needs and that men who aren't feminist doormats obstruct their satiation and advancement. I would expect this from people who've grown used to a chattel role or have just experienced no other, which is why I thought it might be due to natural instinct run rampant by modern feminism. women just aren't taught to respect the value men bring to the table anymore. men of course are being taught to be the aforementioned doormats.

In terms of this topic, I think artificial sperm culturing would give this already overdominant anti-male trend even more steam. Women have been taught to think they could be 100% self reliant if only men would 'let them'. From what I've seen, it's a lot more complicated than that, but, men, instinctively being the providers, gave them the next best thing: a doublethink fantasy.

Re:This will finally make men obsolete.

[Anonymous Coward]

Pot, meet kettle.

It's sad to see us men having been brainwashed into taking it as a given that men would be "inferior",
EXACTLY the same way women were made to think that before.

Also, true feminists hate nothing more than female ideals.
They want to suppress every girl that likes to play with puppets, and force every woman into a job she doesn't like, just to prove the point that we wouldn't need men. Regardless of everyone suffering from it.
That's a bad stated of deep mental illness.
I can understand their view, as those feminazis were themselves victims of men.
But of course it's bad for everyone, including themselves. And it's entirely delusional anyway, same as those 50s-style sexists.

Real women love men, real men love women, and real humans aren't such dicks anyway.
Nobody want to wipe out men. Or would you have any interest in wiping out women, if you would get robotic sex slaves to bang all day?
NO, of course not. A robot can't give you love. A in-vitro sperm cell can't give you love. And for nearly all women, another woman also can't give them love.

Man, all you idiots should get out into the real world more often!

P.S.: Even lesbians can't stand feminazis, just as we today can't stand the sexists from the 50s. Mainly because they make the entire gender / group look bad.

Re:This will finally make men obsolete.

[epyT-R]

the statement is based on behavioral trends. when the going gets tough, most women will defer to, instinctively, and/or manipulate an available man into doing the task. viewing examples of this ubiquity is easy. if you want the cultural reflection of current norms and trends, turn on the tv, and if you want realtime sampling, go to a public place where people interact and pay attention. there is a nasty double standard brewing in the culture that is detrimental to men and boys and it is quite obvious, even in irrelevancies like television commercials. it is a biological fact that women are not as strong as men physically, while mentally, the genders differ in temperament and focus. men tend to be world focused, while women tend to be people focused. these are biases, not absolutes, but they should be encouraged, not censured for the sake of some politically charged ideology.

anyway, based on what I've seen and read, women have shown better small motor dexterity than most men, though there are exceptions. in terms of overall capabilities, the male performance curve slopes much more than the female.. ie the majority of geniuses are men as are the majority of retarded people. fewer women suffer neurological and physical disability than men. it looks like men are nature's 'gamble.' they serve the species by being the differentiators who advertise latent talent, while the women choose which qualities they like when they make their sexual selections. except in the most cerebral of people, most of this is done nonverbally and subconciously by both genders regardless of what political think-tank 'theories' state.

also my comment didn't just imply physical labor.. by 'dirty work' I meant any time a serious effort was needed that does not (usually) get the spotlight when it comes time for the reward.

Cue jockeying for sports animal in...

[Oxford_Comma_Lover]

I can see them charging more based on what animal is used. "What? They're growing sperm in mice? We will grow your sperm in Lion testicles for the low price of $50,000."

Do not want

[Anonymous Coward]

Overpopulation is currently a bigger concern.

The last thing we need is more fertile males running around.

Give us abundant cheap energy and food replication!

Oh, and practical interstellar travel.

Re:Do not want

[ShavedOrangutan]

The last thing we need is more fertile males running around.

The kind of people who would be able to afford this type of treatment (or any fertility treatment) tend to not have very many children anyways.

Re:Do not want

[Penguinisto]

Oh, and practical interstellar travel.

Get that last part down, and you solve all the rest as listed, because you'll have more living space and potential resources than you'll know what to do with.

Are you..

[Master Moose]

A man or a mouse?

Re:Are you..

[HiggsBison]

Stuart Little?

There are enough people.

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

More research into expanding the food supply might be a better use of resources. Realistically doesn't this just make it more likely for people with defective genes to reproduce?

Re:There are enough people.

[similar_name]

Realistically doesn't this just make it more likely for people with defective genes to reproduce?

Doesn't most medical and technological advancement?

Re:There are enough people.

[ragefan]

We produce plenty of food globally. The problem is distribution.

Stuart Little

[BarryHaworth]

Now we know where Stuart Little came from.

Or perhaps why Mrs Little was so keen to adopt him.

Dominant Females

[Master Moose]

So now they propose using mice as some sort of external testicles. (furry flesh bags used for containing and growing sperm). Small and portable enough to carry in a pocket, purse or such?

People used to tell me that my wife carried my balls in her handbag - this brings it closer to relaity.

Re:Dominant Females

[PPH]

Either way, she screams and jumps up on a chair when she sees them.

Why bother?

[Hoi Polloi]

I'm pretty sure you can get plenty of sperm for free from millions of sources. Many of them will pay you to take it.

Well damn

[geekoid]

women don't have to put up with us anymore.

Re:Well damn

[epyT-R]

get some self respect.. you've got a serious case of stockholm syndrome.

Murine viruses

[cpricejones]

I think one worry from this type of technique would be the inclusion of murine virion DNA. For example, the likely source of XMRV was due to infection of human cells passaged through mice (that's my understanding of the cause). No one wants to accidentally create a new retrovirus ...

morgauxo

[morgauxo]

So then there will be no selection pressure for fertility anymore.... The author says male infertility is on the rise now, just wait until this has been a common practice for about 10 generations or so. I think modern medicine is great and wouldn't trade it for the world but it's going to really trash our evolution. If this trend continues genetically engineered humans aren't going to be a controversial choice they are going to be a necessity. We will need to fix all the bad genes that are no longer selected against.