Free Republic

The first-of-its-kind discovery, described as "a dream of many fiction writers," was a huge leap forward in understanding how specimens -- perhaps even humans -- can be preserved for generations. The bdelloid rotifer is awake – and we're going to need to buy some more birthday candles. For the past 24,000 years, the multicellular microorganism had been snoozing in Siberian permafrost, having become frozen in the Arctic ice right around the same time in history that humans first ventured into North America during the Upper Paleolithic era, otherwise known as the Late Stone Age. A bdelloid rotifer is a freshwater...

Charlie, a female Komodo dragon at the Chattanooga Zoo in Tennessee, has proved to be the ultimate independent lady after successfully giving birth to three hatchlings without a male partner.Charlie, a female Komodo dragon at the Chattanooga Zoo in Tennessee, has proved to be the ultimate independent lady after successfully giving birth to three hatchlings without a male partner. Even though Charlie and a potential mate named Kadal were placed together in hopes of breeding, the first-time mother produced the three brothers, named Onyx, Jasper, and Flint. She was able to do this on her own through a phenomenon called...

Baby mice have been made with two mums and no dad, say researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. It took a substantial feat of genetic engineering to break the rules of reproduction. The scientists said the "bimaternal" (two mammas) animals were healthy and went on to have pups of their own. But there was bad news on the all-male front. Mice with double-dads were attempted, but died within days of being born. Why even try?The researchers were trying to answer fundamental questions about why we have sex. Mammals, including us, can make babies only through sexual reproduction - aka...

A tiny creature that has not had sex for 100 million years has overturned the theory that animals need to mate to create variety. Analysis of the jaw shapes of bdelloid rotifers, combined with genetic data, revealed that the animals have diversified under pressure of natural selection. Researchers say that their study “refutes the idea that sex is necessary for diversification into evolutionary species”. The microscopic animals, less than four times the length of a human sperm, are all female, yet have evolved into different species that fill different ecological niches. Two sister species were found to be living...

‘Tis the season for twinkling lights, wrapping paper, and virgin birth. For billions of Christians around the world, the holidays are a time to celebrate Jesus’s birth to the Virgin Mary. But for many animals, virgin birth is far from a miraculous event. Researchers have discovered a growing number of species that reproduce without assistance from the opposite sex. Known formally as parthenogenesis, virgin birth occurs when an embryo develops from an unfertilized egg cell. The development of an embryo usually requires genetic material from sperm and egg, as well as a series of chemical changes sparked by fertilization. In...

Scientists: Hammerhead has 'virgin birth' in zoo's shark tank By David Fleshler South Florida Sun-Sentinel May 23, 2007 A hammerhead shark captured in Florida Bay gave birth without sex, according to scientists who said they used genetic analysis to account for the mysterious appearance of a pup in a tank of female sharks. The research was to be published today in the British journal Biology Letters. The phenomenon, known among biologists as a "virgin birth," had been observed before among some snakes, lizards and birds, but never a shark, the scientists say. The issue arose in late 2001 at a...

Imprisoned in a tank hundreds of miles from a mate, Ibolya the female shark resorted to desperate measures. To the astonishment of her keepers, she spontaneously produced a perfectly healthy pup. The virgin birth is making biologists think again about one of the oldest and - in evolutionary terms - most successful creatures. "When I saw the baby shark lying on the bottom of the tank I thought it was a joke," said Attilia Varga, the director of the Nyiregyahaza Centre in Hungary. "I was amazed when I realised it was a real shark." Ibolya, a white-tipped reef shark, has...

Last winter, two female Komodo dragons at separate zoos in England gave their keepers big surprises. With no contact from any male, each of the giant lizards laid a clutch of viable eggs, some of which hatched healthy young (SN: 12/23/06, p. 403). The events made the news because they were the first known examples of the species reproducing by the asexual process of parthenogenesis, or virgin birth. SELF-STARTER. A woman's eggs keep a spare set of chromosomes inside a small pouch called a polar body (arrow) until a sperm delivers the paternal set. Scientists can spur the egg to...

The world of stem cell research was set reeling two years ago when its most successful practitioner, the Korean scientist Hwang Woo Suk, was found to have fabricated much of his work. But according to a new post-mortem of his research, he did achieve a scientific first, though not the one he claimed. Dr. Hwang said he had derived embryonic stem cells from the adult cells of a patient, but the claim was discredited after parts of his research were found to have been faked. A team of Boston scientists has now re-examined stocks of Dr. Hwang’s purported embryonic stem...

Vol. 315. no. 5811, pp. 482 - 486 DOI: 10.1126/science.1133542 Genetically matched pluripotent embryonic stem (ES) cells generated via nuclear transfer or parthenogenesis (pES cells) are a potential source of histocompatible cells and tissues for transplantation. After parthenogenetic activation of murine oocytes and interruption of meiosis I or II, we isolated and genotyped pES cells and characterized those that carried the full complement of major histocompatibility complex (MHC) antigens of the oocyte donor. Differentiated tissues from these pES cells engrafted in immunocompetent MHC-matched mouse recipients, demonstrating that selected pES cells can serve as a source of histocompatible tissues for transplantation.

As Christmas approaches, a virgin mother is awaiting the arrival of her offspring. In an evolutionary twist, Flora, the Komodo dragon, has managed to become pregnant without any male help. It would seem the timing is auspicious: the seven baby Komodo dragons are due this festive season. "We were blown away when we realised what she'd done," said Kevin Buley, a reptile expert at Flora's home at the Chester Zoo in this town in northern England. "But we certainly won't be naming any of the hatchlings Jesus." Other reptile species reproduce asexually in a process known as parthenogenesis. But Flora's...

AP Science Writer A procedure that encourages an egg to begin embryo development without being fertilized could suggest a new way to produce stem cells, at least for certain patients. Researchers were able to get stem cells using unfertilized mouse eggs, they report in Thursday's online issue of the journal Science. They are now turning their attention to eggs from people, but several problems remain to be worked out. Stem cells can develop into many different types of tissue, making them basic building blocks of the developing body. Finding ways to produce them has become a major research focus, as...

All my life, I believed in Republican values -- individual responsibility and limited government. Then it happened; I found myself with a small child, unemployed and disabled. I turned to my church, and after years of regular tithes, suddenly I just wasn't their problem. My Republican friends? I was now a pariah to them. My only relief was to turn to government assistance for housing, food, and other needs and I was able to survive with dignity. So chalk me up as one who no longer drinks the GOP koolaid.

Human embryos created using a so-called "virgin conception" technique have been made in the UK for the first time. The Roslin Institute, which also cloned Dolly the sheep, reported the so-called parthenotes at a Dublin conference. They are made by stimulating a human egg to start dividing like an embryo without the addition of any genetic material from a male sperm cell. The Edinburgh team has so far created six parthenotes to the stage at which they would hope to mine stem cells. "At the moment we have not managed to get stem cells from these embryos but that...

By BBC News Online science editor Dr David Whitehouse In many ways the most interesting announcement from Advanced Cell Technology was not that its scientists had produced a human embryo clone - significant though this was (if confirmed) - but that the researchers had also got a human egg cell to start dividing on its own just like an embryo. It sounds something like the virgin birth. Technically, it is called parthenogenesis. The human egg cell develops into an embryo without the addition of any genetic material from a sperm cell. The embryo would be a clone of the mother....