rkt | just when you think it's safe to be male

i found this in my mailbox when i got to work this morning.

Baby makes just 2 in mouse experiment

By PAUL H.B. SHIN
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Here's a new scientific theory: men really are useless.
Women might not need a man - or even need their sperm - to have babies, a landmark experiment has shown.

Overturning the accepted wisdom that it's impossible for mammals to reproduce asexually, scientists have created a mouse entirely from an unfertilized egg - a feat that sheds new light on the mysteries of reproduction.

The genetically engineered female mouse, named Kaguya, grew into a healthy adult and then was able to mate and give birth to young normally, according to the experiment, described in today's edition of Nature.

Although some plants, insects and reptiles reproduce asexually, Kaguya is the first mammal created purely from female DNA alone - a process known as parthenogenesis.

A team led by Tomohiro Kono of Tokyo University pulled off the feat by disabling a key gene in eggs from two females, ultimately developing a viable embryo without sperm.

"After mating, she conceived and delivered normal pups," Kono wrote of the experiment, hailed by fellow scientists as a giant leap in understanding reproduction.

Unlikely cloning, which produces an identical twin of the adult, parthenogenesis produces a genetically distinct individual by reshuffling only female DNA.

Claude Desplan, a biologist at New York University, called the findings "very important."

Women interviewed yesterday were unanimously excited about possibly cutting out the middleman in having a child.

"If I wasn't with someone in my life, I'd do it without a man," said Dana Gildenhorn, 28, a museum worker visiting from Los Angeles.

"When you're presented with this option, maybe in time it would be more acceptable," she added.

Originally published on April 22, 2004

http://www.nydailynews.com/04-22-2004/news/story/186180p-161270c.html