Fogbow

pipistrelle wrote: ↑Sat May 14, 2022 7:42 pm
I remember this story. Everyone should read it.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/arch ... sm/410515/

Lani wrote: ↑Sat May 14, 2022 9:15 pm

pipistrelle wrote: ↑Sat May 14, 2022 7:42 pm
I remember this story. Everyone should read it.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/arch ... sm/410515/

Excellent article, even though it triggered me.

Scientists create mice with two fathers after making eggs from male cells
Creation of mammal with two biological fathers could pave way for new fertility treatments in humans

Hannah Devlin Science correspondent
@hannahde
Wed 8 Mar 2023 16.45 GMT

Scientists have created mice with two biological fathers by generating eggs from male cells, a development that opens up radical new possibilities for reproduction.

The advance could ultimately pave the way for treatments for severe forms of infertility, as well as raising the tantalising prospect of same-sex couples being able to have a biological child together in the future.

“This is the first case of making robust mammal oocytes from male cells,” said Katsuhiko Hayashi, who led the work at Kyushu University in Japan and is internationally renowned as a pioneer in the field of lab-grown eggs and sperm.

Hayashi, who presented the development at the Third International Summit on Human Genome Editing at the Francis Crick Institute in London on Wednesday, predicts that it will be technically possible to create a viable human egg from a male skin cell within a decade. Others suggested this timeline was optimistic given that scientists are yet to create viable lab-grown human eggs from female cells.

Previously scientists have created mice that technically had two biological fathers through a chain of elaborate steps, including genetic engineering. However, this is the first time viable eggs have been cultivated from male cells and marks a significant advance. Hayashi’s team is now attempting to replicate this achievement with human cells, although there would be significant hurdles for the use of lab-grown eggs for clinical purposes, including establishing their safety.

“Purely in terms of technology, it will be possible [in humans] even in 10 years,” he said, adding that he personally would be in favour of the technology being used clinically to allow two men to have a baby if it were shown to be safe.




https://www.theguardian.com/science/202 ... male-cells

humblescribe wrote: ↑Thu Mar 09, 2023 3:05 pm I think DeSantis would want to create a love child with himself and another good ole boy Republican using this new-fangled technology. Maybe several.

Snow fly in US and Canada can detach its legs to survive, research shows
Flies chilled to sub-zero temperatures amputate one or more of their six limbs to protect their internal organs

Chris Baraniuk
Fri 2 Jun 2023 18.41 BST

Flightless snow flies in the US and Canada can amputate their legs to survive as they begin to freeze, researchers have discovered.

Lab experiments in which the flies were chilled gradually to sub-zero temperatures revealed they can detach one or more of their six legs, an apparent “last-ditch tactic” to protect their internal organs from the advancing cold.

“It is gruesome,” said John Tuthill at the University of Washington. “This wave of ice is going to crash into their bodies and kill them so they’re doing this amputation to prevent that happening.”

About 20% of snow flies collected in the wild by the researchers were already missing legs, he added.

Snow flies, being crane flies, are from the same family as daddy long legs. Unlike the well known British insect, North American snow flies habitually walk across snow and ice in the wild and have been observed doing so at temperatures as low as -10C.

The researchers used dozens of snow flies from four different but closely related species collected from icy, mountainous habitats in Washington state, Colorado and Vermont in the US, and British Columbia and Yukon in Canada.

In their experiments, the team placed individual flies on laboratory cold plates and observed their behaviour with a thermal imaging camera as the temperature slowly dropped.

The flies could still walk even when their bodies reached -7C, and the thermal imaging camera was able to capture the precise moment at which the flies’ legs began to freeze, prompting the amputation response. This happened in 31% of cases where freezing began in a leg. Some flies removed as many as five legs before succumbing to the cold.

The team has published a paper online detailing their findings, though it is yet to be peer-reviewed.

Other crane flies are known to self-amputate their legs – but for different reasons. They tend to do it when a predator grabs on to one of their limbs. According to Tuthill, there are muscles inside the flies’ legs that seemingly allow them to pinch off or detach a limb at will.

Certain geckos, crayfish and squid can also self-amputate their limbs or tails to escape predators. The African spiny mouse can even shed huge quantities of its own skin in a tight spot.




https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... arch-shows

Synthetic human embryos created in groundbreaking advance
Exclusive: Breakthrough could aid research into genetic disorders but raises serious ethical and legal issues

Hannah Devlin Science correspondent
Wed 14 Jun 2023 19.31 BST

Scientists have created synthetic human embryos using stem cells, in a groundbreaking advance that sidesteps the need for eggs or sperm.

Scientists say these model embryos, which resemble those in the earliest stages of human development, could provide a crucial window on the impact of genetic disorders and the biological causes of recurrent miscarriage.

However, the work also raises serious ethical and legal issues as the lab-grown entities fall outside current legislation in the UK and most other countries.

The structures do not have a beating heart or the beginnings of a brain, but include cells that would typically go on to form the placenta, yolk sac and the embryo itself.

Prof Magdalena Żernicka-Goetz, of the University of Cambridge and the California Institute of Technology, described the work in a plenary address on Wednesday at the International Society for Stem Cell Research’s annual meeting in Boston.

“We can create human embryo-like models by the reprogramming of [embryonic stem] cells,” she told the meeting.




https://www.theguardian.com/science/202 ... ng-advance