Topic: Making Men obsolete

[Nemesis]

Link to full article

British scientists are ready to turn female bone marrow into sperm, cutting men out of the process of creating life.

The breakthrough paves the way for lesbian couples to have children that are biologically their own.

Gay men could follow suit by using the technique to make eggs from male bone marrow.

Researchers at Newcastle upon Tyne University say their technique will help lead to new treatments for infertility.

[Lepton]

Well, that would be very odd as females in such a situation could only have female children as they have no copy of Y chromosome, whereas men could have both.  Either way, it's purposeless technological insanity.  The world's got enough people.  We don't need more pointless reproduction just to satisfy people's emotional needs.  If homosexual couples want children, let them adopt any of the millions of children around the world that live in abject poverty.

[Sirgod]

Well, that would be very odd as females in such a situation could only have female children as they have no copy of Y chromosome, whereas men could have both.  Either way, it's purposeless technological insanity.  The world's got enough people.  We don't need more pointless reproduction just to satisfy people's emotional needs.  If homosexual couples want children, let them adopt any of the millions of children around the world that live in abject poverty.

OMG. I agree with Lepton here. Man The world must be coming to an end.

Lepton Please call me a Right Wing Bastard, I'm not ready to die just yet.

Stephen

[Dash Jones]

Does that mean I could technically get my own child with my bone marrow and then the normal genetic material sources?

[Nemesis]

You would need a host mother.  Since both the egg and the sperm would have half of your own genes if you have any negative recessive genes the chance of reinforcement would be heightened substantially.

There is another option though.  Previously to get an exact clone you needed to clone a female as the mitochondria and other materials that come from the egg alone not from the nuclear material supplied from an "adult" cell.  That meant that male "clones" were not exact.  Now a male can provide the egg as well as the nuclear material and the clone can be more exact.

What I view as most important is that more ways have been found to make cells perform as other cell types.    If this continues a time may well come where organs may be grown outside the body for transplant purposes using the patients own cells as the source.  Continue further and perhaps grow new organs or even limbs in place. 

Taken a little further then perhaps grow custom new organs or limbs for special purposes or modify existing ones.  A mini booster heart for example in the lower torso to reduce the load on the natural heart for example.  Other enhancements for athletes or military personel perhaps. 

Or course such things will cause ethical questions that will need to be answered.

If homosexual couples want children, let them adopt any of the millions of children around the world that live in abject poverty.

Nice in theory but gays run into two issues.  One is of course outright banning of gays adopting the other is indirect by blocking unmarried couples and individuals from adopting and by not allowing gays to marry that option is blocked to them. 

Currently this type of "creating" a child is not illegal and bypasses those two blocks on having children.  I'm sure that for some gays the parenting instinct is strong and the desire to have children might cause some to use this method until it is legally blocked.

The ethics of course are more appropriately discucssed in Hot and Spicy so lets keep this as much on the side of science as possible or make a parrallel posting to Hot and Spicy for the stronger issues.  Right guys?

[Lepton]

Hmm, I think the social commentary was injected from the outset as you opened the door by commenting or repeating that the implication that homosexual couples might produce their own biological offspring.  It's a fertility technology amongst other aberrant fertility technologies.  Yes, let's pay 10,000 dollars per pop for an in vitro fertilization and implantation because I just need a baby.  It's insane and classist.  All technologies and their uses have moral and social implications.  If the discussion can't be extended into those regions, don't preface the discussion with a social benefit to a minority group.

Sexual reproduction evolved some 3 billion years ago.  I don't see the benefit of screwing with something that nature has refined for billions of years.  If one can't reproduce for some reason, perhaps there's a reason for that, be it social or physiological.

[Nemesis]

That was a quote of the beginning of the article and helps to show what the technology could make possible.  If you wish to focus on that aspect alone rather than on the technology itself then it is inappropriate to Engineering and should be taken to Hot and Spicy.   Focusing on the techology and its potential for offshoots does fit here rather than there.  This is one of those few topics which can be discussed either way and which it is reasonable to post in duplicate.  Feel free to copy it to Hot and Spicy if you wish to discuss the issues that are inappropriate to this forum.

[Panzergranate]

So they would bread a race of bone headed females who wouldn't need to be blonde.

The thing is Lesbianism isn't genetic, so without men, there would be a world full of sex starved hetrosexual women, not that it would be much of a world, as without men to invent and fix everything, all the machinery of civilisation would colapse.... and the women wouldn't have men to blame everything on as usual.