
Scientists claim to have created human sperm in laboratory - nreece
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8138963.stm
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dantheman
That is truly amazing, it's great that almost weekly I see something created
that seemed like it might be decades away.

There are a lot of political/legal consequences of research like this,
paternity tests can be used to rob unwitting men if someone decides to create
a child without their knowledge. Also, this may eventually change the burden
of proof in various forms of assault as the presence of sperm doesn't actually
indicate that the individual involved was there.

On the flip side the upside is amazing, allowing sterile fathers to have
children. And of course the technology is involved is amazing.

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klipt
It might also allow lesbian couples to conceive using only their own DNA, if
this technology isn't limited to male genes.

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lucumo
You'd still need the Y-chromosome. While not as big as the others, it does
contain some genetic material.

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gojomo
Not if they want a daughter.

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NickM
So if lesbians could reproduce...and they could only have daughters...and _if_
it turns out there's a genetic predisposition towards lesbianism...

This is probably a completely ridiculous idea, but I wonder if men might
someday be weeded out by "natural" selection.

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eru
Why? Male couples should be able to reproduce in the same way --- given enough
money to rent out a womb (or the technology to create one). As an added bonus
they can also create females.

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bd
Are adult stem cells equivalent to embryonal ones?

From how I understood it, they just separated germline cells from very early
embryos and let them develop into sperm in an incubator (that is, these
germline stem cells would anyway develop into sperm, if left in the embryo).

While this is certainly interesting, for "curing" infertility, wouldn't you
still need to find a way how to turn adult stem cells into germline stem
cells?

This seems like equivalent problem to "growing hearts in a vat".

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klipt
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_pluripotent_stem_cell>

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bd
Amazing. This is actually much more interesting than the original post.

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tricky
Wow... Biology: the ultimate hack... Anyone think that the singularity will be
more about biology than computers?

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fburnaby
Biology was the _first_ singularity. Something sophisticated enough to
reproduce itself, and then improve itself.

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onreact-com
So now we can make humans in factories like in Matrix?

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ars
You'd still need a uterus.

Plus they didn't do that in the Matrix (as far I can remember from the show it
was regular births).

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ErrantX
In the film it specifically says "grown" and mentions fields.

