The future is getting closer all the time.
Artificial sperm have been used to create living animals for the first time, in an experiment that promises to pave the way for a new era of fertility treatment.
Seven mouse pups, six of which survived to adulthood, were born in a laboratory in Germany after scientists fertilised eggs with sperm that had been grown from embryonic stem (ES) cells.
The births provide the strongest evidence yet that it will eventually be possible to use ES cells to treat infertile men who make no sperm of their own.
[…] Other experiments have suggested that artificial eggs can be made in the same way, though no offspring have yet been born.
In the longer term, it may even prove possible to produce sperm from female stem cells, and eggs from male ones, allowing homosexual couples to have children that bear the genes of both parents.
This would also enable a single man or woman to provide both the sperm and eggs needed to create an embryo, so that a person could essentially mate with himself or herself.
We have seen the future, and we are all—unnecessary.
The creation of “male eggs†and “female spermâ€, however, still faces difficult technical barriers, as embryos need genetic material from both a mother and a father to develop normally.
Phew. Maybe not quite yet.
Two images immediately come to mind – Arnold Schwartzenegger pregnant with a baby and Gene Wilder from Young Frankenstein. However, this is the Brave New World, and I think that our grandchildren will rue the day when artificial eggs, sperm and wombs were invented and combined. Technology is amoral, and most of mankind today appears to have no conception of morality.
chsw
O brave new world, that has such people in’t indeed.
This would also enable a single man or woman to provide both the sperm and eggs needed to create an embryo, so that a person could essentially mate with himself or herself.
Adding new practicality to the age old suggestion to “Go mate with yourself” (or words to that effect).
Science show us what we can do, not what we ought to do. Drawing a line between the two requires a communal maturity and wisdom that we pretty clearly don’t have. I suppose that’s why we always seem to be living in interesting times.
“… embryos need genetic material from both a mother and a father to develop normally.”
Er, ah, not necessarily. Back when I was in school, circa 1960, a species of insects with no males was known. And about a year ago, a second such was found. Scary for we poor males…
(*Scary for we poor males… *)
I’d like to think that we’d be missed by a certain percentage of the female population: at least for our entertainment value.