In Vitro Fertilization Works Better for Frozen Embryos
	Although surprising, the new discovery confirms once again that freezing the embryos after fertilization does not harm them in any way. During a study regarding children born both as a result of conventional In Vitro Fertilization and through IVF using frozen embryos, Anja Pinborg of the Copenhagen University Hospital showed that frozen embryos resulted in children of nearly normal weight, while conventional IVF techniques led to the birth ... [read more >>]
	08 July 2008, 05:50GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

'Perfectly' Designed Children with Three Parents Could Be Born within Three Years
	Sexual reproduction may be a lot of fun, but it’s far from being perfect when it comes to combining the genetic material of the parents, sometimes leading to incurable genetic diseases. However, genetically engineered children could literally be born perfect in a couple of years in the UK, by replacing defective DNA strands of the embryo with that from another woman, for example, generating children with three parents, two mothers and a fa ... [read more >>]
	05 June 2008, 06:35GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Gender of a Child Determined at 6 Weeks of Pregnancy
	Are you eager to know the sex of your unborn child? Normally, you have to wait 4-5 months until ultrasound scanning can tell you that but, now, it is possible that you wait a shorter period of time. Many women are not even aware they’re pregnant at the date when this new method can already tell them if it’s a he or she they’re expecting. Lorgen GP (a spin-off of the University of Granada) and Fetal Medicine Unit of the Materni ... [read more >>]
	14 May 2008, 10:52GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

This is How the Placenta Developed
	A new organism develops inside the woman's womb due to the placenta, a special organ for delivering food and oxygen from the mother to the fetus. A new research made at the Stanford University School of Medicine and published in the journal Genome Research has revealed the first genetic clues about the ancient origins of the placenta. The study shows that the placenta of all mammals (humans included) evolved from a much simpler tis ... [read more >>]
	16 April 2008, 04:00GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

This Is the Time to Become a Male: 8-14 Weeks of Pregnancy
	We all start as egg cells. And after being fertilized, based on the information of the sex chromosomes, the new developing organism must turn into a male or a female. A new research published in "Journal of Clinical Investigation" shows that testosterone, the male hormone, is responsible for turning an embryo into a male during a window of time before male genitalia begin to develop, and that impeding its action in that time peri ... [read more >>]
	18 March 2008, 14:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Why Nipples Grow at the Front?
	During the womb development, nipple will grow on front and the spine in the back. A team at the University of Auckland has also found why, in a research published in Nature Cell Biology. The gene Runx2 was already known to control bone development, but the researchers led by Dr Maria Flores, senior research fellow of the university's school of medical sciences, have discovered it is the regulator dictating the developmen ... [read more >>]
	29 February 2008, 07:18GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Children With Three Biological Parents?
	Common knowledge says that a child has two parents. But what about three biological parents? A team at the Newcastle University has created human embryos containing DNA from two women and a man, a technology that one day could be a therapy for couples, for getting kids free of genetic diseases. Still, these embryos are primarily produced by one man and one woman. "We are not trying to alter genes, we're just trying t ... [read more >>]
	06 February 2008, 02:47GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Male Only Reproduction: Eggs Achieved from Man's Skin
	Everybody is now focusing on the British research forecasting male-free reproduction. The team at the University of Newcastle has achieved proto-sperms from human female bone marrow cells. Many already think of lesbian couples conceiving their own children, possessing DNA 100% coming from both women, not 50% from one of them and 50% coming from one male sperm donor. Sperm cells would be created from one partner and they would fer ... [read more >>]
	05 February 2008, 14:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Hungry Mothers Have Children Prone to Drug Addiction
	Having an addiction problem? Well, this may mean that your mother did not eat well after conceiving you. A new research published in the journal "Addiction" shows that children whose mothers passed through a period of famine are prone to addictions later in life. The team from the Dutch mental health care organization, Bouman GGZ, and from the Erasmus University Rotterdam made its study on persons born in Rotterdam ... [read more >>]
	28 January 2008, 02:43GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

A Clime Battle of the Sexes
	You already know this: the sex chromosome from your father dictated your sex: boy for Y, girl for X. It's the same case with all the mammals. The mother will always come with an X chromosome. But in reptiles, there are neither sex chromosomes, nor sex portions on the chromosomes. All the eggs have the potential to develop into males or females, and this is determined by the incubation temperature of the eggs. A new research ma ... [read more >>]
	24 January 2008, 05:43GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

First Human Embryo Clones Ever!
	A cloned Scarlet Johanson may be the dream of any man and a Californian company has just made the first step toward this purpose: for the first time, scientists have achieved cloned human embryos using DNA extracted from adult skin cells, as reported in the Stem Cells journal. "That's an important first step toward generating embryonic stem (ES) cell lines from such embryos, which can be used to study and treat diseases such ... [read more >>]
	18 January 2008, 04:14GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Scientists Achieve Embryonic Stem Cells from the Skin!
	In the end, there may be no need to kill human embryos for getting stem cells, as two teams have achieved embryonic stem cells from human skin cells. The newly induced pluripotent cells could turn into various cell types of the human organism. "The advantage of using [such] reprogrammed skin cells is that any cells developed for therapeutic purposes can be customized to the patient. They are probably more clinically relevant than ... [read more >>]
	21 November 2007, 02:48GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

First Cloned Monkeys! Humans...When?
	The 2004 South Korean claim regarding human cloning proved false. Meanwhile, a team at the Oregon National Primate Research Center in Portland could have achieved the cloning of monkey embryos and the extraction of stem cells from them, a huge step towards human cloning. The research could be published soon in the scientific journal Nature and could give much hope for patients waiting for a transplant tissue. Stem cells achie ... [read more >>]
	14 November 2007, 05:00GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

How to Grow an Extra Eye
	They may not produce eyes that have the color you prefer, but researchers have found a method of generating eyes starting with stem cells. At least eye tissues (like retina) could replace damaged parts in cataract, glaucoma, macular degeneration and other ocular conditions that impair vision, leading even to blindness. The research team at the University of Warwick has found a genetic key for making tadpoles grow three eyes. ... [read more >>]
	25 October 2007, 05:13GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

"Surrogate Sex": One Species Breeds Another Species
	We do not know when women will start to bear chimp offspring to save their species, but a Japanese team has already obtained trout from salmon parents. This could be crucial for saving many endangered species of fish. The team inserted germ cells (precursors to sperm and egg cells) from male trout (sperm precursor cells are called spermatogonia) into sterile salmon embryos. The embryos grew into adult fish of both sexes, some fertile an ... [read more >>]
	14 September 2007, 05:37GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Could Two Women Produce Their Own Baby?
	Women already say that man is an appendix of the penis. As sex toys already replace the penis, only the sexual function remains. And when this will be gone, too, what will be men’s fate? If amongst vertebrates, only sharks and some lizards have been known to reproduce without requiring sperm for fertilization, a phenomenon called parthenogenesis ("virgin birth"), no mammal (thus species with a body structure like ours) is kno ... [read more >>]
	21 August 2007, 14:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

IVF Presents Increased Risk of Delivering Twins
	Couples undergoing IVF are struggling for years to have a baby and when this happens, it comes in a number bigger than 1, in at least 40 % of the cases. In fact, the latest cases of sextuplets are the result of IVF treatments. But the issue is that multiple pregnancies have worse outcomes and in many cases these babies are born prematurely and over 100 of them die annually only in UK, not mentioning the fact that the mother& ... [read more >>]
	05 July 2007, 06:34GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

"Test-Tube Children" Are Taller and Healthier!
	What seemed to be a great problem could turn into a boon: couple that have children through in vitro fertilization (IVF) apparently have them ...bigger and healthier! Previously, it was known only that these children have a low risk of developing congenital abnormalities. In the first long-term research monitoring the evolution of IVF children, researchers discovered that they may grow taller and present a healthier metabolis ... [read more >>]
	04 July 2007, 10:00GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Living without Oxygen for Over 60 Days!
	There are organisms on Earth that can live without oxygen. Such is the case of archebacteria, that live in extreme environments that lack oxygen, like geysers, black smokers, oil wells, bottom of the lakes or oceans. They represent a basic stage, when the Earth lacked oxygen. Other organisms can live in anoxic environments (that lack oxygen), like gut parasites, but they come from ancestors that breathed oxygen. Still, all vertebrates ... [read more >>]
	27 June 2007, 07:10GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Soon, Human-Animal Hybrids
	The day when we will see the man-animal mutants from the Ninja Turtles on the streets is approaching. British ministers have allowed the creation of human-animal hybrid embryos for scientific purposes. Last year, a ban proposal made researchers fear that medical breakthroughs will be stopped. The research involving hybrid embryos will be permitted only for serious diseases and will necessitate a license. Opponents of this techn ... [read more >>]
	17 May 2007, 10:14GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

How Is Life Put On?
	They say a mother is more than a father. That is true, as a mother invests more of its biology in the offspring anyway. During egg development (oogenesis), the mother deposits in it large amounts of messenger RNAs (mRNAs) and proteins. These mRNAs take over after the sperm did its job to orchestrate the emergence of a new life in the earliest stages of embryogenesis. After that phase, the embryo turns on its own genome, with both mother� ... [read more >>]
	28 April 2007, 08:46GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia