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Scientists Create Healthy Mice With Same-Sex Parents (bbc.com)

Researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences were able to make baby mice with two moms and no dad. "The aim of the Chinese researchers was to work out which rules of reproduction they needed to break to make baby mice from same-sex parents," reports the BBC. "That in turn helps understand why the rules are so important." From the report: It was easier with double mums. The researchers took an egg from one mouse and a special type of cell -- a haploid embryonic stem cell -- from another. Both contained only half the required genetic instructions or DNA, but just bringing them together wasn't enough. The researchers had to use a technology called gene editing to delete three sets of genetic instructions to make them compatible (more on that later). The double-dad approach was slightly more complicated. It took a sperm, a male haploid embryonic stem cell, an egg that had all of its own genetic information removed and the deletion of seven genes to make it all work.

The reason we need to have sex is because our DNA -- our genetic code -- behaves differently depending on whether it comes from mum or dad, the study in Cell Stem Cell suggests. And without a female copy and a male copy our whole development gets thrown out of whack. It's called genomic imprinting with parts of the DNA in sperm and parts of the DNA in eggs getting different "stamps" that alter how they work. The bits of DNA carrying these stamps were the ones the researchers had to delete in order to make the baby mice viable.

18 of 183 comments (clear)

  1. Oh, boy by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 3, Funny

    Wait a second while I grab my popcorn.

    --
    #DeleteChrome
  2. Done Before? by mentil · · Score: 2

    Swear I read about something like this on Slashdot a year or two ago. Although I don't recall gene editing being involved.
    TFA says the mice created from the DNA of two females lived long enough to reproduce, but the ones created from two males died shortly after birth (presumably due to genomic imprinting errors). It's in doubt that even the ones with two mothers were fully healthy/normal.

    --
    Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
    1. Re:Done Before? by FalcDot · · Score: 3, Informative

      Almost right.

      Our chromosomes exist in pairs, and we have 23 pairs of them.

      On one particular pair, women have two X chromosomes and men have an XY combination. Thus, the most obvious genetic difference between our sexes exists only on one chromosome, which is why in common parliance we refer to "the X chromosome" or "the Y chromosome". But again, in both cases these are part of a pair.

      When reproducing, both parents give one (pretty much randomly selected) of each pair of their own chromosomes to the child.

      Meaning that women always give an X sex chromosome to their child, and men give 50% X and 50% Y.

      Thus, two women will indeed always give two X chromosomes, leading to a girl. Two men will have 25% female children, 50% male children and 25% children with YY chromosomes. A quick google shows that pretty much no-one knows what that would be like. It is not impossible that it would not be viable.

    2. Re:Done Before? by tlhIngan · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Thus, two women will indeed always give two X chromosomes, leading to a girl. Two men will have 25% female children, 50% male children and 25% children with YY chromosomes. A quick google shows that pretty much no-one knows what that would be like. It is not impossible that it would not be viable.

      It is widely believed that the Y chromosome, because of its size, is more of a "patch" chromosome. During conception, the X chromosome is "dominant" and the fetus will actually have ovaries and vagina and other female characteristics. However, a little while later, the Y chromosome disables several genes in the X chromosome, and several changes take place. The ovaries "drop" and turn into testicles. Likewise, the vaginal organs and such descend and modify themselves to become the scrotal sac and penis. The Y chromosome patches other genes inside the X chromosome to give other male characteristics.

      Thus, a YY pair will be non-viable as it will lack genes only in the X chromosome.

      And this would also explain things like transgenderism or gender fluidity - the patching process isn't perfect and during development errors can occur.

    3. Re:Done Before? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      It is not a "patch".

      Sexual reproduction exists because females have redundant chromosomes that prevent genetic mutations. Males have no such redundancy, and are subject to much higher rates of mutation. Evolution and adaption are driven by females selecting males with beneficial mutations and avoiding males with deleterious mutations.

      For every single metric we have regarding genetic variables, the bell curves between the sexes are the same. For females, they are tall with narrow tails. For males, they are short with wide tails.

      For humans, the primary sex selection criteria is intelligence. This is why women have a higher average intelligence, but males have a higher number of geniuses and retards.

      The is no gender fluidity, the errors you describe are fundamental to sexual reproduction and life as we know it for all complex organisms.

  3. Re:Females Only by bugs2squash · · Score: 2

    Don't men have an X and a Y ?

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    Nullius in verba
  4. Re:Females Only by vbdasc · · Score: 2

    Who needs a Y chromosome? It's dying anyway, on its own.

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-19/y-chromosome-disappearing-what-will-happen-to-men/9342994

  5. Re:I have no fear by PopeRatzo · · Score: 4, Funny

    I have no fear. My wife still needs me, if only to catch spiders and to splatter her back with sunscreen.

    Sunscreen? Is that what you tell her it is?

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  6. Re:Of Mice and Men by PopeRatzo · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You want to promote same sex marriages.
    You are free as in freedom.
    You want to prove that having same sex parents isn't any worse than having parents with different sex.
    You are free as in beer.

    If you even glance at the article or summary for a moment, even just the first sentence, you will learn that Chinese researchers in this experiment were trying to do neither of these things.

    Sometimes, a Slashdot article is like a Rorschach test. Peoples' reactions are much more informative (and sometimes unintentionally so) than anything in the article.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  7. Re:Speaking as a man... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Can you talk a little louder? I can't hear you over the noise from the pumps here at the sewage treatment plant...

    Why do you continue to wear those pumps if they make so much noise? And at a sewage treatment plant? Take off those pumps and wear something more practical, like some steel toe boots.

  8. Re:Of Mice and Men by nukenerd · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You want to promote same sex marriages.
    .......

    If you even glance at the article or summary for a moment ... you will learn that Chinese researchers in this experiment were trying to do neither of these things

    Whatever the Chinese researches intended, or did not intend, has nothing to do with it. Others will make of it and use it however they will. In any case I took the GP's "you" as a general one, not just to the researchers, as part of a question addressed to the world at large.

    Peoples' reactions are much more informative .... than anything in the article.

    That applies to your reaction too (and my reaction to your reaction, to save you saying it).

  9. Sally Miller Gearhart would be pleased by Kartu · · Score: 2, Informative

    When she suggested reducing population of men to 10%, she meant non-brutal methods.

    In her early career, Gearhart took part in a series of seminars at San Francisco State University, where feminist scholars were critically discussed issues of rape, slavery, and the possibility of nuclear annihilation. Gearhart outlines and justifies a three-step proposal for female-led social change:

    I) Every culture must begin to affirm a female future.
    II) Species responsibility must be returned to women in every culture.
    III) The proportion of men must be reduced to and maintained at approximately 10% of the human race.
    Gearhart does not base this radical proposal on the idea that men are innately violent or oppressive, but rather on the "real danger is in the phenomenon of male-bonding, that commitment of groups of men to each other whether in an army, a gang, a service club, a lodge, a monastic order, a corporation, or a competitive sport." Gearhart identifies the self-perpetuating, male-exclusive reinforcement of power within these groups as corrosive to female-led social change. Thus, if "men were reduced in number, the threat would not be so great and the placement of species responsibility with the female would be assured." Gearhart, a dedicated pacifist, recognized that this kind of change could not be achieved through mass violence. On the critical question of how women could achieve this, Gearhart argues that it is by women's own capacity for reproduction that the ratio of men to women can be changed though the technologies of cloning or ovular merging, both of which would only produce female births. She argues that as women take advantage of these reproductive technologies, the sex ratio would change over generations.[13]

    Sally Miller Gearhart, one of the founders of gender studies`

  10. Re:Speaking as a man... by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I have never come across anyone claiming the strength distribution curves don't have significant overlap. When people claim men are stronger than women, aren't they just referring to stats like mean, median, maximum, etc.?

    What do you call significant overlap?

    I'd be very surprised if you took a group of same-age individuals- say one hundred 25yo men and 100 25yo women- if more than 10 women were stronger than the weakest 10 men- if we're looking at pure strength. If we're looking at stamina based "strength" challenges that number would probably be higher. There are some things, like ultra-long distance running, where women would actually do better than men... ... but if we're looking at who can lift the most, or who can push harder with their legs... the overlap is surely lower than 10%. I'd be open minded to be convinced otherwise if anyone has any knowledge of studies saying to the contrary.

    --
    "That's the way to do it" - Punch
  11. Re: 19 year old radical feminist in 1950 might lik by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2, Informative

    Of course that would have been around 1950, some 70 years ago. Reading her later writing and how she describes her early ideas, I have a feeling she probably wouldn't be all that pleased.

    It seems like you must be aware of this because you linked to her Wikipedia page that explains it. So I'm wondering what the purpose of presenting this information in such a misleading way is.

    It's been modded as "informative" which suggests that at least some people accepted it without checking. That's a great demonstration of how links are used to add credibility to a post, even though the link largely contradicts it. The existence of the link makes people think that the claim is properly sourced, so they don't bother to check.

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  12. Political implications by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 2, Insightful

    When the Democrats keep inventing new genders, it will now be possible to test them on mice first.

  13. Re:Females Only by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 2

    Obviously you don't know much about women.

    Any man who claims he does is mistaken.

    --
    "That's the way to do it" - Punch
  14. Speaking as a coach by sjbe · · Score: 2

    What do you call significant overlap?

    There is data and research on this but it's complicated and depends on the population you are talking about.

    I'd be very surprised if you took a group of same-age individuals- say one hundred 25yo men and 100 25yo women- if more than 10 women were stronger than the weakest 10 men- if we're looking at pure strength.

    You would be surprised then. It's more complicated than your intuition is telling you though I understand why you would think that. It depends on exactly what you are measuring and which population. There are important differences between realized population strength versus realized genetic potential strength. It also depends on whether the men and women have been physically training. Men are on average considerably stronger in the upper body but the difference are notably smaller in the lower body. There are some women that are stronger than most men at any given activity. There are no women that are stronger than all men obviously but the overlap is sometimes surprising. For example there are women who can squat over 200kg which I assure you is FAR more than most men of any size can do. The point is that women in general can reach peak strength that is closer to men than many realize.

    I coach wrestling and have for over three decades and I coach both men and women. Wrestling obviously has a big strength component to it. Women definitely have a strength disadvantage but it's a smaller gap than most people imagine it to be for equivalent amounts of training. A typical untrained man will often have a bigger advantage over an untrained woman than a trained man will have over a trained woman. This of course varies by size and obviously men on average are larger. But women of similar size can often compete successfully. I've coached high school girls who were good enough to qualify for the state tournament competing against boys in wrestling which puts them in the top 10% and if they were really as weak as you imagine them to be they couldn't possible compete to that high a level. The best Olympic level women's wrestlers can't compete with the guys but they can beat a shocking percentage of the general population of equivalent age men - probably more than 50% in my direct experience. The gap between men's and women's world records in most sports has been shrinking steadily for decades. While nobody should expect women to overtake men, the peak performance potential seems to be not a vast chasm provided equivalent training. I think a lot of the perception of differences comes from the fact that women for a variety of reasons tend to participate less in sports and strength based activities so fewer of them realize their potential.

  15. Re:Speaking as a man... by Darinbob · · Score: 2

    But that's the end slope of the bell curve where the athletes are, the slope that you and I are not on. I am not comparing myself to Usain Bolt or Florence Griffith-Joyner. There is also so much deviation that's it's pointless to look at the minor diffference in the "average". I would bet that the vast majority of women in the US armed forces are stronger than you.