Well, this about does it- now there is NO need to have us males around anymore...

What a beautiful world it will be (sarcasm...)...
.................

http://www.theadvertiser.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,3102482%255E911,00.html

Men no longer the key to life
By BEEZY MARSH and BARRY HAILSTONE
23oct01
FERTILITY specialists have found a way for women to have babies without men.

It involves a cocktail of chemicals acting as an "artificial sperm" to trick a human egg into forming an embryo.
The find has alarmed medical ethics campaigners who say it is interfering with nature.

Researchers say the ground-breaking technology could be used to help women whose husbands are infertile but who do not want to use donor sperm.

Any babies born from the process would be female and genetically identical to their mother.

Professor Robert Norman, the head of Repromed, Adelaide University's department of reproductive medicine, said yesterday the experimental technique known as "parthenogenesis" was a form of cloning.

He said insects, mice and frogs had been developed in this way but no one had been able to develop primate embryos viable for any length of time.

Taken to its extreme, the breakthrough could lead to the science-fiction nightmare of a female-dominated society where men have little or no role.

The discovery was made by researchers at the Institute for Reproductive Medicine and Genetics in Los Angeles.

The researchers were investigating new ways of genetically modifying embryos to grow into brain nerve cells for transplanting to patients with Parkinson's disease.

In normal human reproduction, an egg carrying 23 chromosomes combines with the sperm, which also carries 23 chromosomes, to create an embryo with genes from both parents. But researchers Dr Jerry Hall and Dr Yan-Ling Feng managed to make eggs duplicate their own chromosomes to create the number needed to start cell division.


Although the process has yet to be tested on human eggs, studies have shown they behave in a similar way to those of mice.

The research findings are due to be unveiled at this week's annual meeting of the respected American Society of Reproductive Medicine in Florida.

They have been hailed as a new way of producing different kinds of cells for medical use.

"If this technique works with human eggs, there could be tremendous opportunities for clinical applications," Dr Michael Soules, president of the society, said. "I think everyone is going to find this work to be very exciting."

But Dr Jacqueline Laing, expert in medical ethics at London's Guild Hall University, described it as "alarming". "Just because scientists can do something, it does not mean that they should.

"This process does not respect human life, in seeking either to procreate without the male or to use human eggs to turn them into some other part of the body for transplants."

The director of the SA-based Southern Cross Bioethics Institute, Dr John Fleming, said irrespective of the rights of a human child to be born with a mother and father, safety was an issue of paramount concern.

Efforts to produce "Dolly" the cloned sheep resulted in one normal embryo being produced among 274 abnormal embryos.

"Taken to its extreme, the breakthrough could lead to the science-fiction nightmare of a female-dominated society where men have little or no role."

kinda reminds me of a really cool beer comercial, personaly.

I am sure the original manufacturer will have some surprises in store for those who would "modify" his design.

See below for a possible example

[IMG]http://www.ukobservers.net/cwm/contrib/icw/003.gif[/IMG]

No, no, no... This is good !

They will only have females and they will be identicle.
So, here is what you do. You marry some hot litle 18yr girl. Have her knocked up using this method.
Then when the girl turns 18 and your wife is 36, you get rid of the wife and marry her daughter.
You have the same woman and she will never be over 36.
It ain't incest, because it's not yours.

This is a gift from science.

As long as most women are afraid of guns and weapons, there will never be a female dominated society.  You can't take over the world with pepper spray, or it would be controlled by the feds. [:D]

God Bless Texas

Damn!  That's a GOOD ONE!

Nah, parthenogenesis isnt good for mass reproduction. A single virus could wipe out a population. Would be used only in special cases, that would make up only a very small percantage of children born.

Now if they figured out how to fertilize a egg with the genetic material from another egg- then men would be in trouble. Sexual reproduction is vital for the long term health of the species. Untill then, this is just a side show.  Its limited usefulness also makes most of the ethical questions moot.  If a few lesbians want to blow a half million to have a baby- more power to them.

We'll still have a place in society...they still need someone to open jars and cut the lawn.

And step on icky things, don't forget that boon service we do for the little ladies! [>]:)]

yeah- parallel parking... :^D

Old Joke: If they ever find vibrators that cut the grass, we're in trouble.