It used to be that reproduction was a seemingly straightforward thing: A man’s sperm met and clung to a woman’s egg. If the the stars aligned and the sperm successfully fertilized the egg, nine (and some change) months of waiting would result in a baby.
Scientists are trying to manufacture eggs and sperm in the laboratory. Will it end reproduction as we know it?
Van Gogh’s Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers
After seven years of development, Fujifilm’s “Reliefography” 3D scanning and printing technique is ready to create near-flawless replicas of great works of art. The replicas will be available to the public for tens of thousands instead of tens of millions.
Sperm grown in test tube is an important step toward curing male infertility.
Sperm has been grown in a test tube for the first time in a “small but important step” towards curing male infertility, a study claims. Researchers removed stem cells and cultured sperm in the laboratory in a breakthrough that could lead to new treatments and drugs for men currently unable to have children.
Sexual reproduction is likely to be impossible in space due to cosmic radiation bombarding the human body.
Researchers at the agency’s Ames Research Centre in California found that without effective shielding on spacecraft, powerful proton particles would probably sterilize any female embryo conceived in deep space.