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Japanese scientists create mice with two fathers

55 Comments
By Daniel Lawler

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...So are you thinking of using this procedure to increase the Japanese population?

-3 ( +10 / -13 )

What could possibly go wrong......

4 ( +17 / -13 )

including that gay male couples -- or even a single man -- could have a biological child without needing a female egg.

But you still need the female to carry the egg, so what's the point?

Why not focusing on curing existing diseases and tackling climate change instead of playing Dr Jekyll?

8 ( +18 / -10 )

We are living in creepy times.

10 ( +24 / -14 )

The cells were then used to create eggs, which were fertilized with the sperm of a different male mouse and implanted into the uteruses of surrogate female mice.

But they still need the female!

8 ( +15 / -7 )

Just what we need, more mice.

14 ( +18 / -4 )

"There is a big difference between a mouse and a human," he told the summit.

brilliant!

7 ( +14 / -7 )

Damn, who gets custody of the kids?

8 ( +14 / -6 )

This is truly sickening. How did it get through any kind of ethics screening?

1 ( +14 / -13 )

Why not focusing on curing existing diseases and tackling climate change instead of playing Dr Jekyll?

If you read about the story of scientic discoveries you would easily see how many life saving developments have come from advancement that appear completely useless and unrelated. For example there is nothing that would make impossible to use the techniques described to eliminate the presence of a defective chromosome in the cells and help couples with genetic problems have healthy children, or even produce healthy tissue or even organs for the donor of the original cells to cure lethal diseases.

One thing is to lack the imagination to see how something could be used for the benefit of patients, another completely different is to assume scientist have the same limitations.

0 ( +13 / -13 )

But you still need the female to carry the egg, so what's the point?

The point is the partners would both be the biological parents rather than just one of them.

Since Japan doesn't allow gay marriages both parents would be allowed in the hospital as family if something happened and the parents had already broken up.

-2 ( +5 / -7 )

We are living in creepy times

God created Mickey and Minnie, not Mickey and Mike..

-4 ( +10 / -14 )

Are the mice partners?

0 ( +5 / -5 )

Schroedingers’ cat processing is the missing link then. With using it, you don’t need the external female for carrying, as the fertile and potential carrier is already produced out of the X0 cases too.

-7 ( +0 / -7 )

Do people in Japanese Society have any say as to the ethics of supporting such experiments . . . ?

0 ( +8 / -8 )

Algernon LaCroixToday 08:11 am JST

This is truly sickening. How did it get through any kind of ethics screening?

.

Most likely because they were not working on human cells.

Experimenting on on human cells would involve thinking about the ethics involved.

But on animal cells, ethics are ignored as they are only using animal NOT human cells

.

dagonToday 08:52 am JST

We are living in creepy times

God created Mickey and Minnie, not Mickey and Mike..

.

WRONG

.

Mickey and Minnie mouse form one of the most iconic cartoon couples in the world. Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks came up with the characters in 1928

from https://thenetline.com/mickey-and-minnie-mouse-relationship/

.

Could a simular process be used on a female ?

2 ( +9 / -7 )

Why aren't they called mothers then?

"Birthing people" lol!

-3 ( +5 / -8 )

But on animal cells, ethics are ignored as they are only using animal NOT human cells

.This is not an experiment done only on animal cells, but on living animals, still both are subjected to ethical considerations. A researcher can't just do an experiment that produces excessive suffering for the experimental subjects (even if mice) just to confirm something already known, nor can people do "dual use" research (for example to develop a more powerful neurotoxin) without having it first ethically considered, even if only on cells.

Research on animals have lower hurdles to be approved ethically than in humans, but that is completely different from saying there is no ethical considerations to be done.

3 ( +10 / -7 )

Dystopia

-3 ( +7 / -10 )

Was it a boy or a girl or several of both?

2 ( +5 / -3 )

See? This is so "natural" that scientists had "to CREATE" it in a lab!

Smh.

-4 ( +2 / -6 )

No female? All I remember from biology is that the professor said females are, evolutionarily speaking, more advanced than males because their reproductive organs are all internal. The science is interesting and I could care less about ethics regarding mice, as I’m pretty sure that a mouse caught part way in a mousetrap suffers a lot more before it dies. Viable for humans? Probably only when the rest of the world records record low birth rates like Japan, Korea and Italy.

5 ( +5 / -0 )

Research on animals have lower hurdles to be approved ethically than in humans, but that is completely different from saying there is no ethical considerations to be done.

That is not the issue.

The question was whether ethics were being ignored.

Big difference.

-8 ( +2 / -10 )

Diabolical.

-4 ( +6 / -10 )

Fascinating.

1 ( +7 / -6 )

Does that mean we humans will soon be able to create a baby or babies with two fathers ? And will the baby and babies thus created have the looks and characteristics of the two fathers? And legally, the two fathers can claim possession of the baby or babies? And where does that leave the mother? And where will so many unanswered questions leave the three parents of the baby and babies thus created?

2 ( +4 / -2 )

What if during the process of making this, instead of getting male XY or female XX chromosomes, they end up with YY. What would that become?

5 ( +5 / -0 )

That is not the issue.

The question was whether ethics were being ignored.

You are only writing the reason this was actually the issue. The original comment made the claim this research could ignore ethics because it is animal experimentation, but this is not the case. Experimentation on animals can only be conducted after approval by an ethical committee, and there is nothing indicating this is different for this research. No specially difficult ethical issue is present.

Does that mean we humans will soon be able to create a baby or babies with two fathers ? 

As the article ends up explaining technically it would be possible soon (if 15 years is soon), but practical and ethical problems would still take a long time to be solved.

0 ( +5 / -5 )

I hope this research doesn’t take all the fun out for making a baby with female. I am usually against prohibiting things, but this would be an exception.

1 ( +4 / -3 )

Oh boy.....

0 ( +2 / -2 )

Soon? Very soon human babies will be able to have the blood and flesh of two fathers ? Will our laws have to change to allow women to marry two husbands? And, what happens when the woman wishes to divorce one of her husbands? And if successful the divorced husband wants to have the baby? Oh dear, so many unanswered questions? But shall we try it out?

Yes? No? Perhaps?

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

Will our laws have to change to allow women to marry two husbands? And, what happens when the woman wishes to divorce one of her husbands? And if successful the divorced husband wants to have the baby? Oh dear, so many unanswered questions? But shall we try it out?

Lol what?

2 ( +2 / -0 )

The religious right in America is going to freak right the hell out over this one. My god, it must be their armageddon.

-1 ( +6 / -7 )

Two fathers! How queer, what’s that all about then?

-6 ( +3 / -9 )

Iam momentarily stunned and perplexed if this is a good thing or not.

It's a good thing, it means the religious right eventually won't have to get their undergarments in a knot about same-sex marriage not being able to add children to the human race.

-3 ( +3 / -6 )

Apparently a loophole around the ethics issues of human fetus conception and growth is because the fertilization and growth doesn't happen inside a human and the DNA has been modified

There is no loophole, there is no human fetus involved in this research in the first place so there is no ethical problem being ignored because if it.

-3 ( +2 / -5 )

there is no ethical problem being ignored 

Depends on your point of view, I suppose. I see a definite ethical problem in messing around with animal lives like this.

*Out of 630 attempts, seven pups were born, representing a *success rate of just over one percent.

The pups do not show any sign of abnormalities

So a little under 99% dead/deformed baby mice. Just to see if it can be done.

And to what purpose?

There are already way too many humans for the planet to support, the world population continues to rise, according to UNICEF some 153 million orphans worldwide are in need of a family - and scientists are spending time and resources slicing up mice in an effort to enable two men to make a baby? Why not adopt?

I'd say the same to a male/female couple; if you can't make your own, don't buy, adopt.

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

Depends on your point of view, I suppose. I see a definite ethical problem in messing around with animal lives like this.

In comparison with what? agriculture comes with many orders of magnitude more mice deaths where nobody is there to make sure there is no unnecessary suffering or deaths could be reduced, replaced or refined. There is no ethical committees supervising how many mice are killed (nor how humanely) for every ton of grain being produced, and that is without counting the mice that die because the resources that they would need to survive are being used by humans.

So a little under 99% dead/deformed baby mice. Just to see if it can be done.

And to what purpose?

Still a very tiny portion of the animals used in research, which are a tiny microscopic part of the animals sacrificed for human benefit for all other activities.

The purpose is the advancement of knowledge that can be primarily used for reproductive purposes (if the problems are solved) and eventually for any other kind of objectives where the generation of stem cells is still the part that doesn't allow for therapeutic interventions to be successful, from regeneration of function of organs to even production of whole organs for auto transplants.

There are already way too many humans for the planet to support

Not really, the planet could support much more people without ecological problems if the best available technology could be accessible to everybody equally, if we had the technnology of the middle ages we would already be needing several planets to support even the actual population, but thanks to the advancement of science the ecologic costs of each human live can be reduced and there is nothing to say this has a limit soon to be reached.

Not to mention that one of the things that more reliably helps reducing the population is the advancements in reproductive health and the surivival of the children that are born. Families can have the "luxury" or raising only one or two children when they know they can safely raise them to adulthood. This way children in need of adoption are reduced and the benefit from the many other applications of the technology are still present.

-3 ( +3 / -6 )

Not really, the planet could support much more people without ecological problems if the best available technology could be accessible to everybody equally, if we had the technnology of the middle ages we would already be needing several planets to support even the actual population, but thanks to the advancement of science the ecologic costs of each human live can be reduced and there is nothing to say this has a limit soon to be reached.

We have technology of the Middle Ages.

The windmill for example.

And we are still on one planet.

-4 ( +1 / -5 )

We have technology of the Middle Ages.

The windmill for example.

And we are still on one planet

Unless your point is that we still depend on that level of technology (which is obviously false) then you have no argument, our current level of technology, that supports the world population is much more efficient than what was available in the middle ages.

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

I can't see any real purpose from this

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

Not really, the planet could support much more people without ecological problems if the best available technology could be accessible to everybody equally, if we had the technnology of the middle ages we would already be needing several planets to support even the actual population, but thanks to the advancement of science the ecologic costs of each human live can be reduced and there is nothing to say this has a limit soon to be reached.

Which defunct sci-fi magazine did this whimsy come from?

But serious question--actually a few--- (1) if we only had the technology of the Middle Ages, how would we get to those several planets to support even the actual population?

It would be a difficult journey, wouldn't it, with only technology of the Middle Ages?

At the same time, (2) if the actual population were already here, then why the need to get them to those other planets??? Tricky, huh?

And the ultimate question--(3) where are those "several planets" that could support "even the actual population"?

You know something the scientists don't know?

-3 ( +0 / -3 )

Which defunct sci-fi magazine did this whimsy come from?

So you think that the current efficiency being much higher than the middle ages is science fiction? how about making an actual argument about this not being true, some evidence?

But serious question--actually a few--- (1) if we only had the technology of the Middle Ages, how would we get to those several planets to support even the actual population?

That is the argument, that since we already have the population that would be impossible to maintain with the technology of the middle ages it is easy to prove that the efficiency improving is what allows for even more people to be sustained. It should not be that hard to understand, for either of the accounts.

You know something the scientists don't know?

What part of the actual argument (and not your obviously flawed misrepresentation) do you think is contrary to what the scientists say? making a baseless appeal to authority is not an argument.

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

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