Genetic Manipulation

Scientists in China have previously successfully manufactured mice with two mothers and no father. Now, they have genetically manipulated sperm from two male mice to allow both to father pups. From the New Scientist story: For the first time, mice with two fathers have gone on to have offspring of their own — marking a significant step towards enabling two men to have children to whom they are both genetically related. However, there is still a long way to go before this could be attempted in people. Yanchang Wei at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China achieved the feat by putting two sperm cells together in an egg whose nucleus had been removed. The team then used a method called Read More ›

The media are such suckers for hyperbolic biotech stories. Colossal Laboratories and Bioscience made headlines for supposedly having genetically engineered a return of dire wolves that disappeared about 12,500 or so years ago, which many stories claimed to now be “de-extinct” after three gene-edited pups were born. Uh, no. The company actually engineered gray wolves to have white fur and (if it works) a larger stature. But despite a similar appearance, gray wolves are not actually close relatives of the extinct species. From the New Scientist story: Grey wolves and dire wolves were thought to be very closely related based on their physical similarities but a 2021 study of ancient DNA revealed that they last shared a common ancestor around Read More ›