For 50 women there will be 1 man

14Apr07

Narrated Anas:

I will narrate to you a narration which nobody will narrate to you
after me. I heard that from the Prophet. I heard the Prophet saying,
“The Hour will not be established” or said: “From among the portents
of the Hour is that the religious knowledge will be taken away (by the
death of religious Scholars) and general ignorance (of religion) will
appear; and the drinking of alcoholic drinks will be very common, and
(open) illegal sexual intercourse will prevail, and men will decrease
in number while women will increase so much so that, for fifty women
there will only be one man to look after them.”

source:

Punishment of Disbelievers at War with Allah and His Apostle
Translation of Sahih Bukhari, Book 82:
Sahih Bukhari, Volume 8, Book 82, Number 800i:
—————————————————————————————————————-

The prospect of all-female conception
By Steve Connor, Science Editor
Independent (UK)
13 April 2007
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/article2444462.ece

Women might soon be able to produce sperm in a development that could
allow lesbian couples to have their own biological daughters,
according to a pioneering study published today.

Scientists are seeking ethical permission to produce synthetic sperm
cells from a woman’s bone marrow tissue after showing that it possible
to produce rudimentary sperm cells from male bone-marrow tissue.

The researchers said they had already produced early sperm cells from
bone-marrow tissue taken from men. They believe the findings show that
it may be possible to restore fertility to men who cannot naturally
produce their own sperm.

But the results also raise the prospect of being able to take
bone-marrow tissue from women and coaxing the stem cells within the
female tissue to develop into sperm cells, said Professor Karim
Nayernia of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne.

Creating sperm from women would mean they would only be able to
produce daughters because the Y chromosome of male sperm would still
be needed to produce sons. The latest research brings the prospect of
female-only conception a step closer.

“Theoretically is it possible,” Professor Nayernia said. “The problem
is whether the sperm cells are functional or not. I don’t think there
is an ethical barrier, so long as it’s safe. We are in the process of
applying for ethical approval. We are preparing now to apply to use
the existing bone marrow stem cell bank here in Newcastle. We need
permission from the patient who supplied the bone marrow, the ethics
committee and the hospital itself.”

If sperm cells can be developed from female bone-marrow tissue they
will be matured in the laboratory and tested for their ability to
penetrate the outer “shell” of a hamster’s egg – a standard fertility
test for sperm.

“We want to test the functionality of any male and female sperm that
is made by this way,” Professor Nayernia said. But he said there was
no intention at this stage to produce female sperm that would be used
to fertilise a human egg, a move that would require the approval of
the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority.

The immediate aim is to see if female bone marrow can be lured into
developing into the stem cells that can make sperm cells. The ultimate
aim is to discover if these secondary stem cells can then be made into
other useful tissues of the body, he said.

The latest findings, published in the journal Reproduction: Gamete
Biology, show that male bone marrow can be used to make the early
“spermatagonial” stem cells that normally mature into fully developed
sperm cells.

“Our next goal is to see if we can get the spermatagonial stem cells
to progress to mature sperm in the laboratory and this should take
around three to five years of experiments,” Professor Nayernia said.

Last year, Professor Nayernia led scientists at the University of
Gottingen in Germany who became the first to produce viable artificial
sperm from mouse embryonic stem cells, which were used to produce
seven live offspring.

His latest work on stem cells derived from human bone marrow suggests
that it could be possible to develop the techniques to help men who
cannot produce their own sperm naturally.

“We’re very excited about this discovery, particularly as our earlier
work in mice suggests that we could develop this work even further,”
Professor Nayernia said.

Whether the scientists will ever be able to develop the techniques to
help real patients – male or female – will depend on future
legislation that the Government is preparing as a replacement to the
existing Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act.

A White Paper on genetics suggested that artificial gametes produced
from the ordinary “somatic” tissue of the body may be banned from
being used to fertilise human eggs by in vitro fertilisation.

Making babies without men – a literary view

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