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Galactic-Tiger

Same-sex mice have babies

same-sex mice have babies  

13 members have voted

  1. 1. What is your opinion on this type of research?

    • It should be condemned as ethically wrong
    • It should be praised as scientific progress


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Using gene editing and stem cells, researchers in China have helped mice of the same sex bear pups. Though mice pups born from two females appeared healthy and bore their own young, pups with two papas died soon after birth. Still, the new study, published in the journal Cell Stem Cell, is an encouraging step toward a better understanding of the barriers that prevent such genetic coupling between individuals of the same sex. The work also raises a slew of ethical questions among experts, with the health of future offspring being the primary concern.

“We're going to have to really think hard, as a society, about what our threshold should be for doing this kind of research,” says Sonia Suter, a law professor at George Washington University who specializes in bioethics and health policy.

The new study is one in a series of works attempting to get around an issue called imprinting. In humans, genes are packed into 23 pairs of chromosomes—you inherit one set from mom and another from dad. Imprinting happens during the sperm and egg development, when “tags” attach to your chromosomes, influencing the gene's function. For some reason, the set of tags is different in chromosomes from each parent. Some genes need to be active in DNA from mom, others need to be active in DNA from dad.

It's not entirely known why this process happens in placental mammals, says Surani, who discovered the curious phenomenon in 1984. One general thought is that these tags help balance embryo development. But he emphasizes that scientists have floated many explanations. The researchers then used the “molecular scissors” known as CRISPR-Cas9 to snip out segments known to prove troublesome for imprinting. For female mouse pairs, they had to delete three locations to get healthy young. For male mouse pairs, they had to snip seven regions.

Even though the pups from two moms grew normally for the most part and had their own young, they might still suffer undetected developmental issues and would benefit from a much more detailed health analysis, Surani says.

It's also still unknown why the pups from the males died so quickly. Overall, genes from the males required a large amount of manipulation to get the embryos to fully develop, Surani says. There may be lingering imprinted regions that prevented their survival.

“First and foremost to me, in all of these things, is a safety question,” Suter says. “And that's a big hurdle to overcome.”

 

source: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2018/10/news-gene-editing-crispr-mice-stem-cells/

 

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2 minutes ago, Simón. said:

Why do you think it’s ethically wrong?

No I worded myself wrong dead2 I meant that both options were quite arguable but the lesser being an old argument, hence why I said we're not in 1500. So we should move on from saying it's ethically wrong when it's actually a great progress in science! moo10 

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1 hour ago, Luca said:

No I worded myself wrong dead2 I meant that both options were quite arguable but the lesser being an old argument, hence why I said we're not in 1500. So we should move on from saying it's ethically wrong when it's actually a great progress in science! moo10 

what is exactly the progress made tho? In my humble opinion the only researches that can justify the cruel killing of innocent mice is a research aimed to cure some important diseases, like cancer for instance. In this case, however, what is the point to break the rules of reproduction? Let's face it, this kind of researches hope in the future to do the same with human beings. Personally I don't think it is a priority for the human kind to create babies in this way. There are plenty of kids in the orphanage who are looking for loving parents. What is the point of creating kids artificially in the labs, if not to satisfy the egoism of gay humans? Honestly, creating conscious baby mice just to see them die it is kinda ethically wrong. Scientific researcher should always have strong ethical basis, otherwise we are just making the same mistake of the atomic bomb over and over again  orangu1

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I mean, I think this is an awesome science thing! But we really don’t need this for humans if that’s what anyone’s thinking dead2 We have more than enough humans running around on this planet. 

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7 hours ago, The One Beyond All said:

what is exactly the progress made tho? In my humble opinion the only researches that can justify the cruel killing of innocent mice is a research aimed to cure some important diseases, like cancer for instance. In this case, however, what is the point to break the rules of reproduction? Let's face it, this kind of researches hope in the future to do the same with human beings. Personally I don't think it is a priority for the human kind to create babies in this way. There are plenty of kids in the orphanage who are looking for loving parents. What is the point of creating kids artificially in the labs, if not to satisfy the egoism of gay humans? Honestly, creating conscious baby mice just to see them die it is kinda ethically wrong. Scientific researcher should always have strong ethical basis, otherwise we are just making the same mistake of the atomic bomb over and over again  orangu1

Well, we kill "innocent animals" for many reasons and I'm not sure this is worse than the killing we do for meat consumption (given its much larger scale and routinary cruelty). I also think that even though the implications of these findings are obviously applicable to the LBGTI community, this "egoism" you talk about pertains to all human beings who have children. I do agree that there should be some ethical limits to science, but drawing the line is just ... very difficult.

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12 minutes ago, jacs vs looser said:

Well, we kill "innocent animals" for many reasons and I'm not sure this is worse than the killing we do for meat consumption (given its much larger scale and routinary cruelty). I also think that even though the implications of these findings are obviously applicable to the LBGTI community, this "egoism" you talk about pertains to all human beings who have children. I do agree that there should be some ethical limits to science, but drawing the line is just ... very difficult.

True, but this is way worse than meat consumption. Eating it is a primary need for humans, having a child it is not: you can live without a child, but you cannot live without food. Said that, the "egoism" I'm talking about applies only to those willing to kill mice for pursuing the desire of having a child even if that implies to break genetic and biologic rules.

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2 people of the same sex cannot have biological children together without extreme medical intervention and Frankenstein-esque science experiments, which to me, should be seen as desperate and degrading. Adoption, in vitro fertilization, surrogate pregnancies etc. are all sufficient in helping same-sex couples have a healthy family. This is just...unethical. The fact that most of the mice in these experiments end up dying shortly after should tell us that it's not compatible. 

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11 minutes ago, The One Beyond All said:

True, but this is way worse than meat consumption. Eating it is a primary need for humans, having a child it is not: you can live without a child, but you cannot live without food. Said that, the "egoism" I'm talking about applies only to those willing to kill mice for pursuing the desire of having a child even if that implies to break genetic and biologic rules. 

You can also live without eating meat: not only will your health (likely) improve, you'll help drastically reduce Co2 emitions (Meat production is the no1 responsable for them). Regarding genetic and biologic rules, let's not forget biology isn't perfect or else there wouldn't be congenital diseases. I do personally feel sorry about the mice, though, but we do kill LOTS of them for all kinds of scientifical research, even those with a lot less immediate human aplications.

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30 minutes ago, jacs vs looser said:

You can also live without eating meat: not only will your health (likely) improve, you'll help drastically reduce Co2 emitions (Meat production is the no1 responsable for them). Regarding genetic and biologic rules, let's not forget biology isn't perfect or else there wouldn't be congenital diseases. I do personally feel sorry about the mice, though, but we do kill LOTS of them for all kinds of scientifical research, even those with a lot less immediate human aplications.

Not every human being can survive without meat tho. Indeed, there are some specific proteins that can be found only in meat and without those some humans would not be healthy at all. For some people meat it is a primary need. Moreover, eating meat is part of the food culture of some societies. Said that, humans are not the only species that kills animals for food. All carnivorous animals do it.  In this sense eating animals it is ethically acceptable , while killing them in Frankenstein-esque science experiments it is just wrong. um2

 

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18 minutes ago, jacs vs looser said:

You can also live without eating meat: not only will your health (likely) improve, you'll help drastically reduce Co2 emitions (Meat production is the no1 responsable for them). Regarding genetic and biologic rules, let's not forget biology isn't perfect or else there wouldn't be congenital diseases. I do personally feel sorry about the mice, though, but we do kill LOTS of them for all kinds of scientifical research, even those with a lot less immediate human aplications.

First of all, you're off topic. Secondly, you're wrong. Agriculture only accounts for 9% of co2 emmissions according to the EPA: 

https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions

 

Back OT: They're mice. Their lives are far less valuable than humans, and it's not like they're an endangered species by any means. Testing on mice is an ages old practice that's very helpful to humanity 

https://www.livescience.com/32860-why-do-medical-researchers-use-mice.html

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5 minutes ago, Miss Show Business said:

First of all, you're off topic. Secondly, you're wrong. Agriculture only accounts for 9% of co2 emmissions according to the EPA: 

https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions

 

Back OT: They're mice. Their lives are far less valuable than humans, and it's not like they're an endangered species by any means. Testing on mice is an ages old practice that's very helpful to humanity 

https://www.livescience.com/32860-why-do-medical-researchers-use-mice.html

First of all, you are wrong: meat consumption is one of the biggest causes of Earth destruction.. From Wikipedia:

Quote

The 2006 report Livestock's Long Shadow, released by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, states that "the livestock sector is a major stressor on many ecosystems and on the planet as a whole. Globally it is one of the largest sources of greenhouse gases (GHG) and one of the leading causal factors in the loss of biodiversity, while in developed and emerging countries it is perhaps the leading source of water pollution."[1] Removing all US agricultural animals would reduce US greenhouse gas emissionsby 2.6%.[2] (In this and much other FAO usage, but not always elsewhere, poultry are included as "livestock".)

Meat is also considered one of the prime factors contributing to the current sixth mass extinction.[6][7][8][9] A July 2018 study in Science asserts that meat consumption will increase as the result of human population growth and rising individual incomes, which will increase carbon emissions and further reduce biodiversity.[10]

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_meat_production

Second of all, testing on mice it is a primitive and cruel technique that althou it may be very useful in some kind of researches it should be performed only for extremely important situations like, again, finding a cure for cancer. I honestly don't think that finding a cure for cancer and letting gay people to have children have the same priorities. Even if it is worthless to you, the life of mice should be respected cuz they have the same right as humans to live on Earth. 

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22 minutes ago, The One Beyond All said:

First of all, you are wrong: meat consumption is one of the biggest causes of Earth destruction.. From Wikipedia:

Second of all, testing on mice it is a primitive and cruel technique that althou it may be very useful in some kind of researches it should be performed only for extremely important situations like, again, finding a cure for cancer. I honestly don't think that finding a cure for cancer and letting gay people to have children have the same priorities. Even if it is worthless to you, the life of mice should be respected cuz they have the same right as humans to live on Earth. 

Mice have no rights. They're vermin. Stop being retarded. Also, everyone would prefer to be a biological parent rather than adopting. You're a hypocritical homophobe.

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