February 03, 2008
Scientists create three-parent embryos
LONDON (Reuters) - Scientists have created human embryos with three parents in a development they hope could lead to effective treatments for a range of serious hereditary diseases within five years.
Researchers from Newcastle University presented their findings at a medical conference at the weekend, a university spokeswoman said on Tuesday.
The IVF, or test-tube, embryos were created using DNA from one man and two women.
The idea is to prevent women with faults in their mitochondrial DNA passing diseases on to their children. Around one in 5,000 children suffer from mitochondrial diseases, which can include fatal liver, heart and brain disorders, deafness, muscular problems and forms of epilepsy.
If all goes well, researchers believe they may be able to start offering the technique as a treatment in three to five years.
Mitochondria are tiny power packs inside cells that provide their energy. Faulty genetics can mean mitochondria do not completely burn food and oxygen, leading to the build-up of poisons responsible for more than 40 different diseases.
The Newcastle team believe these diseases could be avoided if embryos at risk were given an effective mitochondrial transplant. The process involves in vitro fertilisation (IVF) and the subsequent removal of the egg's nucleus. The nucleus is then placed into a donor egg whose DNA has been removed.
The resulting foetus inherits nuclear DNA, or genes, from both parents but mitochondrial DNA from a third party.
"The idea is simply to swap the bad diseased mitochondria -- give a transplant, if you like -- for good healthy ones from a donor," Patrick Chinnery, a member of the Newcastle team, said in a telephone interview.
"We're trying to prevent kids being born with fatal diseases." Mitochondrial DNA is passed down only through the female line.
The technique has so far been tried only in the laboratory, using abnormal embryos left over from IVF therapy, and the handful of three-parent embryos created were destroyed after six days.
Stiff opposition to the technique is likely from critics of embryo research who fear the creation of designer babies.
The research was presented to the Medical Research Council Centre for Neuromuscular Diseases conference in London on February 1-2.
Posted by ronnie at 03:04 PM | Comments (0)
January 15, 2007
South Korea wants baby surge
SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea is empowering couples to have more children by giving them discounts on electricity bills.Next week, the government will cut rates for families that have three or more children, the energy ministry said.
"People worry about paying higher electricity bills as their family gets bigger. So, to free them of those worries and have more babies, we are giving discounts," Jang Seok-gu, an energy ministry official, said.
A typical family of five would see their monthly electricity bill fall by about 40,000 won (22 pounds), according to an elaborate formula worked out by the ministry.
South Korea has the lowest birth rate in the developed world, with an average of 1.08 children per woman. Its population will peak in 2018 at 49.3 million and then begin to fall, putting a strain on social welfare systems as the country ages, according to government data.
Many South Koreans cite the high costs of education, often running to thousands of dollars a year, as a key reason for keeping their families small.
Hell, just get my wife to agree, they would'nt have to give me any reasons..:)
Posted by ronnie at 10:13 PM | Comments (0)
October 29, 2006
The new mating call...
TOKYO (Reuters) - Is it a phone call, a text message or simply time to make love?
A new mobile phone available through Japan's NTT DoCoMo can ring to let would-be mothers know when they reach the most fertile part of their monthly reproductive cycles.
By tapping in data on menstruation dates, the user can program the phone to alert her three days before ovulation and again on the day. The company warns that the calculations are based on average cycles.
The new phone comes after Japan's fertility rate -- the average number of children a woman bears in her lifetime -- fell to an all-time low of 1.25 in 2005, sparking worries about a shrinking population.
The phone was the idea of female designer Momoko Ikuta, who also provided its pastel paisley look.
The handset provides several other functions designed to appeal to women, such as a recipe database and a button on the side that sets off a "camouflage melody," allowing the user to avoid unwanted attention by pretending to receive a call.
Posted by ronnie at 08:02 AM | Comments (0)
October 12, 2006
Death-row prisoner gets pregnant in solitary
HANOI (Reuters) - A death-row inmate held in solitary confinement in Vietnam for almost a year is pregnant and is seeking a pardon to give birth, a newspaper reported on Thursday.The Lao Dong (Labour) newspaper quoted a police doctor as saying tests in September confirmed that convicted heroin trafficker Nguyen Thi Oanh, 39, was then 11 weeks pregnant.
The report said it was the first time that a death-row prisoner had become pregnant in Vietnam and that police were investigating how it had happened.
Oanh's husband was serving a jail sentence at another prison in another province, the newspaper said.
Oanh was due to face a firing squad this year after losing her appeal against the death sentence she received last year for possession of a billion dong ($63,000) worth of heroin.
Trafficking more than 600 grams of heroin in Vietnam is punishable by death or life imprisonment.
Don't think it would take a rocket scientist to figure out how she got pregnant.
Posted by ronnie at 07:08 AM | Comments (0)
October 01, 2006
Oh baby: early wedding present for British bride
LONDON (AFP) - A British bride went ahead with her frills-and-all church wedding despite giving birth hours earlier to a three-month premature baby boy.
Nicky Heys, 35 and her fiance had gone for a restaurant meal in the western city of Bristol when she started having stomach pains, but she thought they were just wedding-eve jitters, the Western Daily Press said.
However, she told the newspaper that the pain got so bad in the middle of the night that she ended up in a Bristol hospital last Friday where she delivered Harry, who weighed just one pound 12 ounces (0.8 kilograms).
"A few hours after the birth, the doctor asked if we had anything to do today. I said 'I've got a wedding to go to. It's mine'," according to the former Heys, who now carries the last name of her husband Neal Agar, 33.
"Neal was worried about going ahead but I felt great. It was such a quick birth and the doctors assured us Harry was fine," she told the newspaper.
Hours later the couple were married in a white wedding at St Luke's Church in Brislington, Bristol where the congregation applauded on hearing of their son's birth, according to Britain's domestic Press Association.
Nicky, who is a secretary and Neil, who is a flight-deck technician at Stansted Airport, even managed to make it through their reception before going back to the hospital, with the bride still in her wedding dress.
"The wedding was just so special," she told the newspaper.
The couple have cancelled their two-week honeymoon in the Maldives to spend time with their new-born son.
Posted by ronnie at 07:29 AM | Comments (0)
September 25, 2006
Tall Women More Likely to Have Twins
A researcher who specializes in multiple-birth pregnancies has confirmed that taller women are more likely to have twins.
Taller women have more of an insulin-like growth factor that has been linked to height and to the rate of twins in previous work. Dr. Gary Steinman, an obstetrician at Long Island Jewish Medical Center, compared heights of 125 women who had twins and 24 who had triplets to the average height of U.S. women.
Those who birthed two or more children were on average more than an inch taller.
The study was published in the September issue of the Journal of Reproductive Medicine.
Insulin-like growth factor (IGF) is a protein released by the liver in response to growth hormones. It increases the sensitivity of the ovaries to follicle stimulating hormone, thereby increasing ovulation.
"Any circumstance that affects the amount of available insulin-like growth factor so as to modify the sensitivity of the ovary to follicle-stimulating hormone appears to govern the rate of spontaneous twinning," said Dr. Steinman.
IGF also stimulates cells in the shaft of long bones to grow. Previous studies have found shorter people have lower levels of IGF. Other studies suggest IGF might help embryos survive in the early stages of development.
Countries with taller women have higher rates of twinning, according to a statement released by Steinman.
In a previous study, Steinman found that women who consume animal products, specifically dairy, are five times more likely to have twins. Cows, like humans, produce IGF in response to growth hormone and release it into the blood, and the IGF makes its way into their milk.
Posted by ronnie at 09:54 AM | Comments (0)