Who Needs Men Anyway?

[jeannie]

Mice Created With 2 Genetic Moms, No Dad

By MALCOLM RITTER
AP Science Writer

Just ahead of Mother's Day, scientists have found a way to cut dads out of the picture, at least among rodents: They have produced mice with two genetic moms - and no father. It is the first time the feat has been accomplished in mammals.

Scientists said the technique cannot be used on people, for reasons both technical and ethical. In fact, one of the mouse mothers was a mutant newborn, whose DNA had been altered to make it act like a male's contribution to an embryo.

But the new work sheds light on why people, mice and other mammals normally need a male's DNA for reproduction, and some experts say it also has implications for the idea of using stem cells to treat disease.

The feat is reported in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature by Tomohiro Kono of the Tokyo University of Agriculture in Japan, with colleagues there and in Korea.

They say they produced two mice, one of which grew to maturity and gave birth. Kono said this mouse, named Kaguya after a Japanese fairy tale character, appears healthy.

[Die Fledermaus]

I figured you'd beat me to posting this one!

Kaguya has had babies the normal way - maybe she enjoyed it more, the conception part.

Of note is that now it is theoretically possible that Anne Heche and Ellen Degeneris can have babies. No wait! Heche is Straight, again. The lesbian angle was just mentioned on ABC News, which I happened to be watching as "The Simpsons" was over and Jennings ( ) was not on today.

Also of note is that this new method can - for obvious reasons - only produce more females. So you can have a world of Amazons, although since Xena was beheaded and cremated in her last episode she is out as Queen. ;D

[Die Fledermaus]

Oh yea, here is the real deal on the fairytale Kaguya. . .

>> Since the 10th century, a romantic legend provides an explanation of Fuji San's wraths: the legend of Kaguya princess.

One day, an old bamboos cutter discovered a small girl of an infinite beauty in a bamboos forest on the Fuji mount's foot. He introduced her to his wife who adopted her immediatly and named her Nayotake no Kaguya Hime: "Radiant Princess of the Slender Bamboos".
The girl, cherished by her adoptive parents, grew rapidly and became the most beautiful woman of the region. Soon many suitors came to ask for her hand.
Finally, she accepted a powerful local lord as her husband. Together they enjoyed several years of happiness...
But one year, The Kaguya princess became morose. And, the eighth month of the lunar calendar she disclosed her true nature to her husband.
She revealed to him that she was not human and that she belonged to the people of the moon. She moreover announced to him that on the 15th of the month, a full moon's day, her parents will come to look for her.
And, indeed, the 15th day of the lunar calendar's eighth month, the king of the moon, escorted by some knights of his court, came to pick up his daughter.
The bamboos cutter's supplications were useless and all the soldiers mobilized by the local lord remained helpless, subjugated by the sparkle of the beings come down from the moon.
Before leaving, the Kaguya princess gave her husband a magic mirror in which she will appear each time he will look in it.
Crazed with grief, the lord pursued his beloved to the top of the Fuji mount. There, clasping the magic mirror to his heart, he threw himself in the Fuji mount's crater. Just a moment later a violent volcanic eruption occured.

Since, it is said that the Fuji San's eruptions express the deep disappointment in love of the former lord of the Fuji mount's area.

It is also said that, from time to time, the Kaguya princess appears above the Fuji mount which she illuminates with her sparkling beauty...

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I don't know if Disney will be animating this too soon, unless they change the ending. . . but who knows. . .